Dancing with Strangers: Europeans and Australians at First Contact by Inga Clendinnen (PDF)

Description

In January 1788, the First Fleet arrived in New South Wales, Australia and a thousand British men and women encountered the people who would be their new neighbors. Dancing with Strangers tells the story of what happened between the first British settlers of Australia and these Aborigines. Inga Clendinnen interprets the earliest written sources, and the reports, letters and journals of the first British settlers in Australia. She reconstructs the difficult path to friendship and conciliation pursued by Arthur Phillip and the local leader ‘Bennelong’ (Baneelon) that was ultimately destroyed by the assertion of profound cultural differences. A Prize-winning archaeologist, anthropologist and historian of ancient Mexican cultures, Inga Clendinnen has spent most of her teaching career at La Trobe University in Bundoora, Australia. Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan (Cambridge, 1989) and Aztecs: An Interpretation (Cambridge, 1995) are two of her best-known scholarly works; Tiger’s Eye: A Memoir, (Scribner, 2001) describes her battle against liver cancer. Reading the Holocaust (Cambridge, 2002) explores World War II genocide from various perspectives.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Clendinnen wrtes so well, with an eye for detail and character that maker her a pleasure to read.” The New York Times Book Review“It is not often that a nonspecialist writing outside her usual area of study does as well as Clendinnen does here. Clendinnen writes understandably for anyone interested in early Australian history. ” Choice”In this book Inga Clendinnen breathes new life into early contact between indigenous and incoming peoples in Sydney, Australia, during the late eighteenth century…This book is a wonderful rollercoaster ride through the highs and lows of cross-cultural contact, and is highly recommended.” – American Historical Review, Fiona Paisley, Griffith University”Clendinnen writes in such an engaging, lively, and moving way and with real anthropological insight that the general reader interested in the human condition and relations between races will find her book a stimulating read.” – Stefan Petrow, University of Tasmania”A beautifully written account of cross-cultural relations…a valuable contribution both to ways of understanding colonial pasts and ongoing efforts to pursue reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples today” Anne Keary, Canadian Journal of History Book Description This 2005 book tells the story of the first British settlers of Australia and the people they found living there. About the Author Inga Clendinnen is Emeritus Scholar in History at La Trobe University. She is also the author of Aztecs (Cambridge, 1991), Reading the Holocaust (Cambridge, 1999), and Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in the Yucatan, 1517-1570 (2nd edition 2003, Cambridge). Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Inga Clendinnen, one of Australia’s most influential historians has written a gripping account of the relationship between the members of the First Fleet and the local “Australians” (as Clendinnen calls the aborigines). She uses the old reports and journals of the crew as source material. The result is a surprising peek at what really went on in those first 5 years, how Governor Arthur Phillip worked to establish friendly contacts, the clash of cultures so different from each other, and what happened to his efforts. Clendinnon is not as academic as she has been with prior works, but neither is this a beach read. It’s a serious history book of real merit which also happens to be very well written.

⭐One of the best books I have read in the past year. I wish we had something like this for first contact between Native Americans and the early colonists. Clendinnen is a master stylist and historian.

⭐Extraordinary analysis of what Europeans thought and what Australians thought on first contact. A really excellent book.

⭐The book arrived much more quickly than I had anticipated and is in excellent condition. Many thanks.

⭐Australians would be best-placed to understand the interface between the initial white settlers and the Aboriginal peoples. An American like me sees it as a variation on a theme of various Europeans interacting with native populations in places as far apart as the Hudson valley, New Mexico pueblos, Aleuts confronting Cossacks and so on. Clendinnen is a fine writer and anything she writes is worth a look.I found this book to be a bit slow, and there is a lot of author intrusion into the text. In a way this book is her account of how she herself arrived at an understanding of this contact. She concludes by writing that at some point there was mutual respect, not simply a sweeping away of natives. She concludes that Aboriginals and white Australians resemble each other more than they do any other people, which to me sounds a little like geographical determinism, but I suspect she means that in psychic terms. Reading was something of a chore, partly due to her academic approach, but ultimately this book is provocative.

⭐This is a thoughtful, insightful look at the initial contacts between Australia’s indigenous people and members of the First Fleet in 1788. There is an intense curiosity, both within this book and in the snippets of evidence from the primary documents Ms Clendinnen refers to, about the meanings of the human interactions observed. Reading through the snippets from Watkin Tench, David Collins, William Bradley and others offers insights into the impacts of foreign cultures on each other.`Our first shared Australian story is a tragedy of animated imagination, determined friendship and painfully dying hopes.’One of the tragedies is in the way we view history. Written records, with their framework of events and theories of causation speak for themselves in ways that oral traditions, especially by those dispossessed, often cannot.At the end of her book, Ms Clendinnen writes: `Here in this place, I think, we are all Australians now.’ I am not sure that we are there yet, but there is renewed hope that we can be.This book is well worth reading for its insights into those initial contacts.Jennifer Cameron-Smith

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