Sex and Savagery in the Good Colony

Sex and Savagery in the Good Colony: South Australia 1836-1901 is a wide-ranging look at the realities of British colonisation. It explores how violence undermined the best of colonial intentions and how, for those who suffered, the final indignity was having their experiences glossed over.

In this book, award-winning writer and anthropologist Julie Marcus explains how and why this happened, and why violence cast such long shadows over the lives of both victims and perpetrators. She uncovers the hidden injuries of sexual violence to show how it was used by colonists as a weapon of war.

Both experienced and new readers will benefit from this accessible yet essential historical account of our colonial past. Sex and Savagery in the Good Colony reveals that, in South Australia and the Northern Territory, the real heroes of the war were the women of the First Nations of Australia - and it is time they are honoured.