AustLit

'“Language is important,” Sarah Maddison tells us at the start of The Colonial Fantasy, a necessary and purposefully confronting book. She sets out the vocabulary on which she believes any discussion of black–white relations in this country must be based if we are to find a way forward. First and foremost: Australia is a “settler state” created by “settler colonialism”. We are deluded by the “colonial fantasy” that once we eliminate the differences between us in an act of “colonial completion”, First Nations people and settlers can enjoy life as equals within a shared polity.'  (Introduction)