Empire of Political Thought

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. Introduction; Chapter 1 Savagery, Civilization and Political Thought; Chapter 2 ‘Trafficking’ for Empire: Commerce, Consent and Colonization; Chapter 3 Difficult Subjects; Chapter 4 The Subject of War; Chapter 5 Fit for Society; Chapter 6 Liberalism, Self-Government and the Ethnography of ‘Primitive Society’; Chapter 7 Conclusion: After the Tide of History, Reconciliation?;