Boomerang by Philip Jones

From Aboriginal history to kitschy souvenirs to the shelves of your local sports store, boomerangs have a fascinating place in history and popular culture. Author Philip Jones draws on the world's largest boomerang collection at the South Australian Museum to describe the boomerang's traditional uses and its more recent flight into western culture.

Boomerang is an extensive pictorial guide to this unique Australian icon, covering its uses and traditional and contemporary history. Also included are sections on the boomerang in world sport, the physics of a returning boomerang, and instructions on how to make your own. Illustrated with over 100 full-colour photographs.

Praise for Boomerang
'Painstaking and wide-ranging research underpins a factual text, enlivened by quotations and excerpts from contemporary journals and newspapers. Jones’s closing essay steps aside from the body of research and the museum collections. He observes the dissociation of the objects from their origins and sees a parallel in attitudes to those who crafted them. A resurgence in interest for cultural authenticity is occurring in tandem with Aboriginal art’s evolving expression.' - Jill, M/C Reviews

Philip Jones is an author and historian based at the South Australian Museum, where he undertakes research on Aboriginal art, history and material culture, and on anthropological, photographic and expeditionary history. He has undertaken fieldwork with Aboriginal people in the Simpson Desert region and, more recently, with Warlpiri people of Yuendumu. His landmark book, Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and encounters on Australian frontiers, won the 2008 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Non-fiction. He has an abiding interest in unlocking the histories of objects and their collectors.