Surveying the Wild Abyss : Unravelling Settler Memory

In this groundbreaking philosophical and literary exploration of the Hawkesbury Frontier Wars, First Nations historian Barry Corr reinvents the way Australian history is written.

Surveying the Wild Abyss is a unique record of the Hawkesbury’s Frontier War and a contemplation on memory and atonement.

In this groundbreaking history of colonisation and frontier conflict in the Hawkesbury region, First Nations historian Barry Corr navigates the gaps and silences in the primary records to reveal settler amnesia, the cataclysmic nature of colonisation, and the way history is remembered, or not remembered. Driven by primary source analysis of colonial records, the book is deeply informed by Corr’s perspectives and community connections as an Aboriginal person who has lived most of his life in the Western Sydney Aboriginal community. Surveying the Wild Abyss reinvents the way Australian history is written and asks non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians to reflect on their history and consider what the future might look like.