Burnum Burnum: A warrior for peace

Arguably Australia's most flamboyant Aboriginal character, and certainly the most widely known internationally, Burnum Burnum's story is that of a personal quest full of contradiction. Middle-class success sits alongside political activism; naivity beside great foresight; the bid for peace and reconciliation beside bitter rivalries and court action; media triumphs beside ridicule; powerful spirituality beside personal frailty.

This book takes us on wild rides around the Australian bush in a beat-up Kombi, Mozart blaring from the tape deck; stamping across the political stage as an Independent, a Liberal candidate, a Democrat; finding affinity with the hippy culture; grappling with the power struggles of the Aboriginal establishment. His story takes us to the depths of the gambler's despair and the heights of international acclaim, planting the Aboriginal flag beneath the white cliffs of Dover, his great cosmic joke for Australia's Bicentenary in 1988.

But above all this book reveals Barnum Barnum's lifelong heroic struggle to achieve his central ideal--an Australia 'beyond black and white'.