This book exposes a long and powerful influence on Australian society, economy, culture and history has been the doomed-race protective myth.

Grant Rodwell is a Senior Lecturer (Adjunct) at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He has published seven books with Routledge.

Introduction 1 The "doomed race": history and the vagaries of the complex relationship between nostalgia and critique, the vagaries, and the politics of the memory factor in history 2 Protective myths at play, the Stolen Generations, and silencing the past 3 Terra Nullius,massacres,First Nations societies, andsettler nationalism's hegemony and political might 4 Assimilation and the politics of protective myths 5 School education, protective myths and a "science" for the subjugating, segregation and later assimilating First Nations societies 6 General conclusions. Bibliography: works consulted