The Dark Emu Story: the legacy – and controversy – of Bruce Pascoe’s groundbreaking book
In the decade since Bruce Pascoe’s book Dark Emu was published, it has become a bestseller, a seminal historical text and a launchpad for controversy. The book reframed the colonial lens through which Australia understood its Indigenous history, which had reduced Aboriginal people to simple hunter-gatherers prior to European settlement.
In Dark Emu, Pascoe set out to prove ancient Aboriginal practices of agriculture and construction, which showed a sophisticated use of land that had predated colonisers.
Dark Emu has sold more than 360,000 copies – making it one of the highest-selling books of its: a challenge to Pascoe’s Aboriginality, and another to the validity of his research.
