This is an outstanding documented history of the tragedy of genetic European invaders' treatment of a proud and dignified race. It is not a history of genocide, becaouse pride and dignity outmatches constructions of 'racial purity'. It its in fact the history of the triumph of an oppressed culture over a dominant and invasive culture. So in the end it is not a tragedy at all, but a story of triumph - a story that trumps the views of those who saw Tasmanian Aboriginal people as a degenerate, unsophisticated, backward race, doomed to extinction in the great upheavals of Social Darwinianism. It is a story that tells of the birth of hope out of the brutal extermination of innumerable Tasmanian - or Trouwunnan - natives. It is a story not of the conquest of Aboriginal people by Europeans, but of oppression by determination. It hurts to read it, but that is no excuse to ignore it. ( )