Truth-Telling: History, sovereignty and the Uluru Statement

If we are to take seriously the need for telling the truth about our history, we must start at first principles. 

• Winner, Educational Publishing Australia Awards 2021, Non-Fiction Book of the Year
• Winner, Tasmanian Literary Awards 2022, Premier’s Prize for Non-fiction at the People's Choice Award
• Shortlisted, Queensland Literary Awards 2021 , Non-Fiction Book Award
• Longlisted, Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History 2022
• Shortlisted, Ernest Scott Prize 2022
• Longlisted, Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award 2022

What if the sovereignty of the First Nations was recognised by European international law in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? What if the audacious British annexation of a whole continent was not seen as acceptable at the time and the colonial office in Britain understood that 'peaceful settlement' was a fiction? If the 1901 parliament did not have control of the whole continent, particularly the North, by what right could the new nation claim it?

The historical record shows that the argument of the Uluru Statement from the Heart is stronger than many people imagine and the centuries-long legal position about British claims to the land far less imposing than it appears.

In Truth-Telling, influential historian Henry Reynolds pulls the rug from legal and historical assumptions, with his usual sharp eye and rigour, in a book that's about the present as much as the past. His work shows exactly why our national war memorial must acknowledge the frontier wars, why we must change the date of our national day, and why treaties are important. Most of all, it makes urgently clear that the Uluru Statement is no rhetorical flourish but carries the weight of history and law and gives us a map for the future.

‘Our goal of an honourable place in the nation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people owes much to Henry Reynolds.’ — Marcia Langton

‘This book will allow Australians to build a better, more truthful, Australia.’ — Mick Dodson

About the author

Henry Reynolds’ trailblazing work has changed the way we see the intertwining of black and white history in Australia. His books include The Other Side of the Frontier (reissue); What’s Wrong with Anzac? (as co-author); Forgotten War, which won the Victorian Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction; Unnecessary Wars; This Whispering in Our Hearts Revisited; Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement; and Tongerlongeter: First Nations Leader and Tasmanian War Hero (as co-author).

Henry Reynolds
Published February 2021
Paperback
288 pages
210mm x 135mm
ISBN 9781742236940