Dancing with Strangers

By Inga Clendinnen,

Book cover of Dancing with Strangers: Europeans and Australians at First Contact

Book description

In January 1788 the First Fleet arrived in New South Wales and a thousand British men and women encountered the people who would be their new neighbors. Dancing with Strangers tells the story of what happened between the first British settlers of Australia and the people they found living there.…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Dancing with Strangers as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Clendinnen’s book is a pleasure to read because it personalizes the first encounter between explorers and indigenous peoples, causing me to care about the two parties and sympathize with the challenges they faced.

Clendinnen tells the story of the first British fleet to arrive in New South Wales, Australia, and the subsequent efforts by Britons and Aborigines to comprehend one another and find grounds of mutual interest. Perhaps her greatest achievement is to provide real insight into the views and aims of the Aborigines, even though they, unlike the British, left no first-hand record of this seminal event. 

By humanizing…

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