Have Australian Aboriginal communities become places of increased suffering because of the progressive policies of the 1970s-2000s? In this provocative book, Australia's leading anthropologist, Peter Sutton, looks at these decades of optimism and grief and argues that there has not been a better quality of life for Indigenous Australians. For a significant number, the last 30 years has been a period of decline in safety, in health, in literacy and numeracy, in employment, and in hope. How can this be so? Sutton points to the failures of the past and looks forward to the hopeful rise of a new era.