Beyond the generalisations of national and colonial history, what can we
know about how Aboriginal nations interacted with the British settlers
who invaded their country, the men appointed by the imperial and
colonial governments to protect them, and each other? In The Good
Country Bain Attwood makes a major contribution to our knowledge of this
period by providing a superbly researched, finely grained local history
of the Djadja Wurrung people of Central Victoria. The story is a
shocking one, of destruction, decimation and dispossession, but, equally
powerfully, it is not one of unceasing conflict. With reference to an
unusually rich historical record, concepts such as the frontier and
resistance emerge as inadequate in this context. Attwood recovers a good
deal of the modus vivendi that the Djadja Wurrung reached with
sympathetic protectors, pastoralists and gold diggers, showing how they
both adopted and adapted to these intruders to remain in their own
country, at least for a time. Finally, drawing past and present
together, Attwood relates the remarkable story of the revival of the
Djadja Wurrung in recent times as they have sought to become their own
historians.