Return to Eden: a Journey Through the Aboriginal Promised Landscaps of Amagalyuagba

In Return to Eden David Turner takes the theoretical insights of Life Before Genesis (Peter Lang, 1985/7) and returns with them to the Aboriginal people of Amagalyuagba - Bickerton Island - in northern Australia. What he finds is not only that his theoretical speculations are confirmed but also that these Aboriginal people are on the same theoretical wavelength as himself. Indeed, some are well in advance of him. Turner recounts his experience in narrative style in the form of a journey back to Amagalyuagba from Canada, proceeding from his last visit there in 1974. His first period of research had been in 1969. His Findings illuminate the meaning of the Secret of the Tree of Life in the Book of Genesis.

About the Author :
The Author: David H. Turner is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto and a Fellow of Trinity College as well as a Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies. He left Canada in 1967 after completing his B.A. at Carleton University in Ottawa to undertake his Ph.D. at the University of Western Australia under Professor R.M. Berndt. He inaugurated Aboriginal Studies in the School of General Studies at the Australian National University between 1972 and 1974 before returning to Canada. He has also worked with the Mara/Anyula people of southern Arnhem Land in Australia, surveyed the Aboriginal population of the Northern Territory as a whole and conducted comparative research in northern Canada with the Cree, in Bali, in north India, in Japan and in aspects of contemporary English and Canadian societies. He is author of Tradition and Transformation, Dialects in Tradition, Shamattawa (with Paul Wertman) and Life Before Genesis (also in this series).

Review :
«If publications are to be prized for their ability to stimulate, for their capacity to present the world in a new light, and so to persuade us to view others afresh, then David Turner has surely given us one of the finest ethnographies Aboriginal studies has yet to see.» (Tony Swain, Department of Religion, University of Sydney, Method-Theory in the Study of Religion) «...this book is stimulating - for some perhaps unsettling; and it is certainly one of the most interesting ethnographies about Aborigines for many years.» (Erich Kolig, Man/The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute) «David Turner's work over the last few years has established the presence of an exciting and challenging scholar in the Australian scene. What makes his work so outstanding is his bold framing of very large questions. Turner takes us on a rapid tour of transcendental pluralities, Dreaming form, the social organisation of scarcity and sharing, manganese mining, Dreaming songs, alcohol abuse, taxonomies and much more.» (Deborah Rose, Australian Aboriginal Studies)