Book & DVD

Reviews of Cleared Out:

First contact in the Western Desert Nicolas Rothwell, The Weekend Australian, November 2005

Hence, for the authors of Cleared Out, the need for an ‘honourable dialogue’ in which the dominant society discards its sense of social and cultural sovereignty. Their meticulously compiled and presented book is as much policy analysis as desert adventure tale; it builds to this urgent closing note, much like the rising façade of a cathedral.

Andrew Stevenson, News Review, Sydney Morning Herald, November 2005

Try to image, for a minute, the scene. You’re 17 and the 20th century has just come rolling into your world, the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. Metal does not exist; your tools are made of wood or stone. You have never eaten wheat flour, drunk tea or tasted sugar. You have never seen a white person. Everything is about to change…For decades Yuwali did not return to the Percival Lakes. When she did, in 1999, she found her grinding stone, just where she left it.

Louis Nowra, Review of the Week, Sydney Morning Herald, January 2006

This book has many things going for it - the superb maps and pictures, the clarity of narrative and the admirable restraint in apportioning blame or making moral judgements. If anyone wants to know about how misunderstandings arose from the first moments of contact between white Australians and Aborigines throughout our shared history, then begin with this wonderful book.

Sarah Holcombe, The Australian Journal of Political Science, November 2007

This is an immensely powerful text in its message of the ‘endless re-enactment’ of Yuwali’s story, as policy makers continue to ‘chase about, seeking to improve Martu lives, driven by a mix of politics, guilt, good intentions and concern about public perceptions, without fully recognizing the need for policy and actions’ that resonate with Martu reality