The Empire of Political Thought: Indigenous Australians and the Language of Colonial Government (Empires in Perspective)

"Empire of Political Thought investigates how European colonists in Australia represented the indigenous peoples they found there, and how they governed them using Western political thought. Buchan argues that an ideological framework drawn from Western traditions rendered indigenous peoples familiar to Europeans. Rather than effacing indigenous difference, colonists employed a conceptual language that recognised those differences but assimilated them and rendered them as deficiencies." "This is the first study to link the imperial government in Australia with comparative colonial contexts in North America and Canada. The contemporary relevance of this book is underscored by the continuing efforts of Indigenous peoples in Australia and elsewhere to articulate their visions of political and cultural self-government and self-determination."--BOOK JACKET Acknowledgements......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 10 Introduction......Page 12 1. Savagery, Civilization and Political Thought......Page 28 2. 'Trafficking' for Empire......Page 44 3. Difficult Subjects......Page 64 4. The Subject of War......Page 86 5. Fit for Society......Page 110 6. Liberalism, Self-government and the Ethnography of 'Primitive Society'......Page 130 Conclusion......Page 152 Notes......Page 162 Works Cited......Page 234 Index......Page 272 A book about how European colonists in Australia represented the Indigenous peoples they found there, and the tasks of governing them within the terms of Western political thought. It emphasises how the framework of ideas drawn from the traditions of Western political thought was employed in the imperial government of Indigenous peoples.