David Martin

How, not being an anthropologist, do you set about reviewing tales and fragments of experience from Aboriginals of the Kimberleys? You might begin by stating your difficulties. People like me can usually establish some kind of empathetic link with the arts and traditions of many cultures. If we cannot feel our way into them, at least we can derive intellectual pleasure from contemplating them: as ... (read more)

On page eleven of this book, Australians are called an engagingly innocent people ‘splendidly unthinking of anything but the simplicities of affluent living.’ On page twelve, they are called ‘lazy and uncreative’. On page 311, the author writes: ‘Yet in spite of a widespread belief (mainly self-generated) that we are a nation of yahoos, we have as much capacity for some unique kind of gr ... (read more)