Convincing Ground is a wide ranging, personal and powerful work which resonates with historical and contemporary Australian debates about identity, dispossession, memory and community. For Pascoe, the Australian character was not forged at Gallipoli, Eureka and the back of Bourke, but in the more satanic furnace of Murdering Flat, Convincing Ground and Werribee. He knows we can't reverse the past, but we can bring our soul in from the fog of delusion. He proposes a way forward, beyond shady intellectual argument and immature nationalism: strengths intact; weaknesses acknowledged and addressed.

Contents: 1. Franks is dead -- 2. History, how it starts -- 3. The lakes -- 4. Lady Macbeth's clean hands -- 5. The lie of the land -- 6. The psychology of the frontier -- 7. Brave explorers -- 8. Lake Corangamite -- 9. The raised sword -- 10. The great Australian forge -- 11. The great Australian face -- 12. Golden boy -- 13. Don't mention the war -- 14. The language of war -- 15. The language of resistance -- 16. Native born -- 17. True hunter -- 18. Germaine to the problem -- 19. The whispering land -- 20. Elbows on the bar -- App. I. Wathaurong language sample and map -- App. II. Place names of the Geelong-Ballarat region -- App. III. Jillong timeline.

Includes bibliographical references and index.