AustLit

'This article opens a biographical window onto Australian colonial history and, in particular, the coming together of the British and Chinese Empires in colonial Victoria. It takes as its focus the personal history of Fook Shing, a prominent Chinese leader and ‘headman’ at Bendigo during the 1850s, who went on to become colonial Victoria’s longest serving Chinese detective.'  (Publication abstract)

'C.E.W. (Charles) Bean embarked from Melbourne in 1914, accompanying the first convoy of Australian troops to Egypt. He witnessed the Australian Imperial Force landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, and was the only war correspondent to remain at Gallipoli for the duration of the campaign. In 1916, he followed the troops to France, where he remained until the war concluded in 1918. Throughout the war, and upon his return to Australia, Bean dedicated himself to ensuring that the memory of the deeds undertaken by the Australian soldiers of the First World War would not be forgotten.' (Introduction)

'Over the past decade there has been a burgeoning interest in compiling material that looks back at early settler-colonial interactions with Indigenous peoples. There has also been an increased interest in historically examining the protest movements that defined Indigenous politics from the 1960s onwards. In visual and performing arts, in novels and poems, in documentary and feature films and in public and academic history, investigations have focused, with more critical lenses, on the localised specificities and cultural legacies of Indigenous experiences. In Living with Locals: Early Europeans’ Experience of Indigenous Life by John Maynard and Victoria Haskins, and A Handful of Sand: The Gurindji Struggle, After the Walk-Off by Charlie Ward, two very different explorations of Indigenous history are presented. One centres on localised examples of early European settlers who lived with Indigenous peoples. The other focuses on the cultural legacy left behind by the Gurindji people’s struggle for economic, political and cultural self-determination. Each, in its own distinct way, is a welcome and refreshing addition to Indigenous historical inquiry. They are both balanced, intriguing and sophisticated, and there is little doubt that they are important contributions to a historical field that is comfortably expanding.' (Introduction)