The story contained in this volume began when a young researcher accidentally came upon restricted files in an archive collection. What he read overturned all his assumptions about an important part of Aboriginal experience and Australia's past. The book ends in the present, 20 years later, in the aftermath of the Royal Commission on the Stolen Generation. Along the way, Peter Read investigates how good intentions masked policies with inhuman results. He tells the stories of many individuals, some of whom were forever broken and some of whom went on to achieve great things. The book explores the sorrow and occasional madness, the actions of a government which pretended things didn't happen and the opportunities offered to right a great wrong.
Author Biography
Peter Read coined the phrase 'the stolen generation', first used by him as a title for a magazine article. In 1981 Peter Read helped create Link-up, an organisation to bring Aborigines who had been abducted back to their parents. It went on to become a major force leading to the Stolen Generation enquiry. On the way Peter wrote many influential publications, including The Lost Children (1988), Charles Perkins: A Biography and Lost Places (1997).
