It is a common perception that the influence of the Aborigines on British settlement in Australia was minimal. The economic significance of Aboriginal culture for the colonisers is rarely addressed and until now, has not been closely studied by an economic historian. This imaginative book presents a concept of a pre-European Aboriginal economy. It shows how an Aboriginal presence over millennia shaped the local environment and responded to it, so that the Aboriginal economy developed into an ordered system of decision-making able to satisfy the wants of the people. The book closely analyses the processes which allowed economic control of a country to pass from Aboriginal to European hands within 60 years of settlement. Professor Butlin's presentation of the contrast between one of the world's most ancient economies and one of its youngest is both illuminating and exciting.

"As a major contribution to world systems theory, this study should be held by every anthropological and economic research library." Choice