Hugh Mackay ‘The state of the nation starts in your street‘, The Conversation, 2 February 2017 The Gandhi Oration at the University of New South Wales, 30 January. Mackay ranges widely from politics to personal happiness, the ‘fair go’ to…
Tan, Monica: I’m dizzily in love with Australia. Patriotism shouldn’t be reserved for the right
Monica Tan ‘I’m dizzily in love with Australia. Patriotism shouldn’t be reserved for the right‘, Guardian Australia, 1 February 2017 Reflection following a trip around Australia. Attracted more than 500 comments pro and con. Patriotism has become a touchy subject…
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Babkenian, Vicken: Gladys Berejiklian, the Great War, Gallipoli and the Armenian Genocide
Vicken Babkenian ‘Gladys Berejiklian, the Great War, Gallipoli and the Armenian Genocide‘, Independent Australia, 30 January 2017 Marks the election of Australia’s first premier of Armenian ethnicity. Ms Berejiklian’s grandparents were among those liberated by Allied forces in 1918, surviving…
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Davies, Robin & Andrew Rosser: FactCheck: What are the facts on Australia’s foreign aid spending?
Robin Davies & Andrew Rosser ‘FactCheck: What are the facts on Australia’s foreign aid spending?‘ The Conversation, 31 January 2017 Questions the assertion by World Vision’s Tim Costello that Australia’s best foreign aid performance was under the Menzies government before…
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Five recent pieces of direct relevance to Australia – and the rest of the world
We at Honest History have been working hard to get the corrected proofs of The Honest History Book off to the publisher. We have also been trying, however, to keep up with world events because, even more than is normally…
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Butler, Richard: Trump: a sideshow?
Richard Butler ‘Trump: a sideshow?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 27 January 2017 updated Update 5 March 2017: More from Butler on Trump and the implications for Australia. Update 9 February 2017: related piece by Ramesh Thakur in Pearls and Irritations on…
Hochman, Zvi, David L. Gobbett & Heidi Horan: Changing climate has stalled Australian wheat yields: study
Zvi Hochman, David L. Gobbett & Heidi Horan ‘Changing climate has stalled Australian wheat yields: study‘, The Conversation, 25 January 2017 In this article, CSIRO researchers take a historical view of Australian wheat yields, concentrating particularly on the years since 1990.…
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Bongiorno, Frank: The Australian history boom has busted, but there’s hope it may boom again
Frank Bongiorno ‘The Australian history boom has busted, but there’s hope it may boom again‘, The Conversation, 25 January 2017 First in a series on Australian identity, this piece from one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, Frank Bongiorno, looks at…
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McQueen, Humphrey: 26 January – or thereabouts
Humphrey McQueen ‘26 January – or thereabouts‘, Overland 233, Summer 2018 An earlier version of this piece was posted on the Honest History site on 23 January 2017, by courtesy of the author. Below are some of our introductory remarks…
An offering for the Inauguration of the 45th President of the United States: Professor Harry Frankfurt on the nature of bullshit
Update 27 January 2017: Norman Abjorensen in Inside Story looks at the long history of post-truth politics. This is good also, from Rod Tiffen in Inside Story. And US academic Lauren Griffin (The Conversation US) applies Frankfurt to today’s reality.…
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Honest History’s Alison Broinowski quoted on 1975 Australian election and possible US involvement
Honest History vice president, Alison Broinowski, is quoted today in a story in The New Daily about whether the United States interfered in the Australian election of 1975. The article references authors Andrew Fowler and John Pilger and former CIA…
Tillerson takes the helm in Foggy Bottom: three commentaries not from the mainstream media
Updated 20 January 2017 From the same Pearls and Irritations blog as the items below and on related subjects are former diplomats Richard Butler on Trump and nuclear weapons and Mack Williams on the South China Sea. (Butler is one…
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Death of eminent Australian historian, Jill Roe
Emeritus Professor Jill Roe AO died last week after a long illness. She was 76. Death and funeral notices are here along with a condolence book. An obituary by Daniela Torsh. A note from the History Council of NSW. Biography…
Evans, Kevin: Koalas are at the centre of a perfect storm. The species is slipping away
Kevin Evans ‘Koalas are at the centre of a perfect storm. The species is slipping away‘, Guardian Australia, 16 January 2017 Climate change threatens koala habitat, adding to their usual problems with fire and drought. But more to the point…
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Broinowski, Alison: Don’t ask about the war
Alison Broinowski ‘Don’t ask about the war‘, Pearls and Irritations, 10 January 2017 Conservative leaders’ reputations grow over time, John Howard being an example. Howard has refused to apologise for his Iraq decision of 2003. ‘His actions and opinions have…
Croke, Jacky: Old floods show Brisbane’s next big wet might be closer than we think
Jacky Croke ‘Old floods show Brisbane’s next big wet might be closer than we think‘, The Conversation, 10 January 2017 Historical view of flooding in the Brisbane area. It links to more detailed material done under an Australian Research Council…
Stephens, David & John Myrtle: Review notes: Geoffrey Bolton on Paul Hasluck
‘Review notes: Geoffrey Bolton on Paul Hasluck’, Honest History, 11 January 2017 This book (Paul Hasluck: A Life) was published in 2014 and its author, Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Bolton, has since died. The book deserves recognition after this lapse of…
McDonald, Neil with Peter Brune: Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent
Neil McDonald with Peter Brune Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 Chester Wilmot (1911–1954) was a renowned Australian war correspondent, broadcaster, journalist and writer. Covering the first triumphant North African battles of Bardia,…
Shield, John: Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent (review of McDonald with Brune)
‘Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent‘, Honest History, 12 January 2017 John Shield* reviews Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent, by Neil McDonald with Peter Brune There is a lovely sequence in…
Economist Ian McAuley on Brexit, Trump and the Lucky Country: new series on Pearls and Irritations blog
The Pearls and Irritations blog is always worth following for thoughtful explications of current issues, ones which the mainstream media mostly no longer has the resources or patience to run. Today, P&I publishes nine articles (introduction plus eight) by economist…
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Trewin, Blair: Australia’s climate in 2016 – a year of two halves as El Niño unwound
Blair Trewin ‘Australia’s climate in 2016 – a year of two halves as El Niño unwound‘, The Conversation, 5 January 2017 Places climate records of the year just past into their historical context: overall temperatures the fourth highest on record;…
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Swain, Dave: Food for thought: the rise of Australia’s mighty Brahman
Dave Swain ‘Food for thought: the rise of Australia’s mighty Brahman‘, The Conversation, 8 January 2017 Historical view of the cattle industry of Northern Australia. Despite the successes of the Brahman breed, the challenge facing the north Australian industry remains…
MYEFO impacts on cultural institutions – but still some mystery about what War Memorial money is for
The Mid-Year Economic and Financial Outlook (MYEFO) statement came out this week and included these paragraphs relevant to national cultural institutions: The Government will provide $20.4 million over five years from the Public Service Modernisation Fund — Agency Sustainability Stream…
Barker, Renae: Australians have an increasingly complex, yet relatively peaceful, relationship with religion
Renae Barker ‘Australians have an increasingly complex, yet relatively peaceful, relationship with religion‘, The Conversation, 21 December 2016 A good subject for a time of year in Australia when those who were nominally Christian in their youth (or perhaps a…
Webster, Beth: Budget deficit hoo-ha is about 0.5% of GDP
Beth Webster ‘Budget deficit hoo-ha is about 0.5% of GDP‘, The Conversation, 20 December 2016 A useful corrective to the mainstream media-political class herd mentality that gives too much profile to deficit and surplus and not enough to what should…
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Season’s greetings to all from Honest History
Festive greetings seem a mite incongruous in light of recent events in Berlin and Ankara and Aleppo (and in many less well reported locations) but we will pass them on anyway in the hope that they may add to the…
Sherratt, Tim: Turning the inside out: Keynote at Australian Society of Archivists Annual Conference 2016
Tim Sherratt Turning the inside out: Keynote presented at the Australian Society of Archivists Annual Conference, Parramatta, 2016 A detailed examination, using a case study, of ‘the workings of legislation, archival practice and technology’. In this talk, I want to…
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Faber, David: An activist sense of history: indications for users
David Faber* ‘An activist sense of history: indications for users’, Honest History, 20 December 2016 ‘Never underestimate the power of dogma when propagandistically spread about among people who do not know much history.’ (Lawrence Davidson) We all know that those…
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More from Pearls and Irritations on saying ‘No’ to the United States
This is our second post recently on this topic. (The first was here.) We have made a point of linking to the Pearls and Irritations blog because, unlike much of the mainstream media, it is trying to probe the implications…
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Willis, Ian: Local history: a view from the bottom
Ian Willis ‘Local history: a view from the bottom‘, History Workshop, 5 December 2016 Camden, NSW, historian writes about the practice of local history. Scholars occasionally need to take a look downwards from the heights of the academy to see…
Cashen, Phil: The war against drink
Phil Cashen ‘The war against drink‘, Shire at War, 9 December 2016 Another post from the excellent Shire at War blog from down Alberton way in Gippsland. This one is about local efforts to defeat the demon drink during the…
Curran, James: Trump and the future of the US-Australia alliance
James Curran ‘Trump and the future of the US-Australia alliance‘, Daily Review, 17 December 2016 Extract from a Lowy Institute paper to be published 19 December and titled, Fighting with America. The tag line of this publication is ‘Why saying…
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Frank Bongiorno wins ACT Book of the Year Award for The Eighties
Frank Bongiorno, Associate Professor of History at ANU (and one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters) has been announced as the winner of the ACT Book of the Year Award for his book The Eighties: The Decade that Transformed Australia. Congratulations,…
Honest History E-newsletter No. 40, 13 December 2016
ISSN: 2202-5561 © SEASON’S GREETINGS This is our final newsletter for 2016. Our next edition will be around the end of January. Meanwhile, we wish all readers, followers and fellow-travellers the very best for Christmas, Hanukkah, Hogmanay, Mohammed’s birthday, New…
Culture Victoria: Out of the Closets, Into the Streets
Culture Victoria Out of the Closets, Into the Streets This project documents the very beginning of the Gay Liberation Movement in Melbourne. Through the manifestos, photographs, flyers and recollections of those who were part of the movement, this digital story…
Edgar, Bill: Where’s the 19th century in the National History Curriculum?
Bill Edgar ‘The Australian National History Curriculum: A note of concern: whither the 19th century?‘ Honest History, 16 December 2016 We have received the attached brief document from Dr Bill Edgar of Perth. He asks: Have the “movers and shakers”…
Silent Centenary: Australian voices questioning the war of 1914-18
Our regular correspondent, singer-songwriter, Tony Smith, has sent us a CD wrangled by himself and musical and poetical colleagues. It is called ‘Silent Centenary: Australian voices questioning the war of 1914-18’. It includes a mixture of sung songs, recited poems,…
Spark, Seumas: Ken Inglis and the Dunera: a seventy-year history
Seumas Spark ‘Ken Inglis and the Dunera: a seventy-year history‘, Inside Story, 12 December 2016 Discusses the work of Inglis and the American historian, Jay Winter, on the Dunera boys, mostly Jewish internees from Britain, who made such a contribution…
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Daley, John & Brendan Coates: Why every generation feels entitled
John Daley & Brendan Coates ‘Why every generation feels entitled‘, The Conversation, 15 December 2016 Refers to the Grattan Institute’s report Age of Entitlement, on age-based tax breaks, which concluded ‘senior Australians get tax breaks unavailable to younger Australians worth…
Rizzetti, Janine: Contesting Australian history: a festschrift for Marilyn Lake
Janine Rizzetti ‘Contesting Australian History: a Festschrift for Marilyn Lake‘, The Resident Judge of Port Phillip, 13 December 2016 A report of this recent event held at the University of Melbourne in honour of Professor Marilyn Lake. The author mentions…
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Saying ‘No’ to the United States: new material on non-MSM Pearls and Irritations blog
Honest History is always ready to publicise material from the feisty Pearls and Irritations blog wrangled by former senior public servant and diplomat, John Menadue. Pearls and Irritations has guest blogs from many former senior players in government and academia…
Tanter, Richard: Fifty years on, Pine Gap should reform to better serve Australia
Richard Tanter ‘Fifty years on, Pine Gap should reform to better serve Australia‘, The Conversation, 9 December 2016 In the last 50 years, Pine Gap’s growth has burst its original security compound. There are now 33 separate antenna systems at…
Mein Smith, Philippa: The ‘NZ’ in Anzac: different remembrance and meaning
Philippa Mein Smith ‘The “NZ” in Anzac: different remembrance and meaning‘, Journal of First World War Studies, vol. 7, 2016, pp. 1-19 This article examines differences of emphasis in Australia and New Zealand in the rituals of Anzac Day, the…
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Stanley, Peter: Review of The Holocaust: Witnesses and Survivors at the Australian War Memorial
Peter Stanley* ‘Review of The Holocaust: Witnesses and Survivors at the Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 13 December 2016 updated Update 26 February 2020: expanded exhibition opened by the Treasurer. Update 29 April 2019: speech by War Memorial Director Nelson…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Reality of war
Gainsborough, Vance: The animals and advertisements of Canberra: review of two new exhibitions
Vance Gainsborough* ‘The animals and advertisements of Canberra: review of two new exhibitions’, Honest History, 13 December 2016 The Popular Pet Show, National Portrait Gallery This exhibition has around 160 works by 15 artists, is open until March, and adults…
Centenary Watch December 2016-January 2017
Update 13 December 2016: Peak Anzac passes as ministers come and go; elsewhere in this edition Peak Anzac passes as ministers come and go We have forgotten who coined the term ‘Peak Anzac’, but we know what it means: the…
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Scates, Bruce & Melanie Oppenheimer: The Last Battle: Soldier Settlement in Australia, 1916-1939
Bruce Scates & Melanie Oppenheimer The Last Battle: Soldier Settlement in Australia, 1916-1939, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2016 When Australian soldiers returned from the First World War they were offered the chance to settle on “land fit for heroes”. Promotional…
Settling for less (review of Scates and Oppenheimer)
‘Settling for less’ (review of Scates and Oppenheimer), Honest History, 13 December 2016 Michael Piggott* reviews The Last Battle: Soldier Settlement in Australia, 1916-1939 by Bruce Scates and Melanie Oppenheimer At last the book is out. Its official genesis dates…
Recently on the Honest History site (13 December 2016)
As in recent months, we have been pushing quite a lot of material through the site, both commissioned work and links to other sources. Under our Top recent posts thumbnail you can find, for example, commissioned reviews of books on…
Honest History document: the primary schools – the teaching of history
‘Honest History document: the primary schools – the teaching of history’, Honest History, 13 December 2016 From The Catholic Press (Sydney), 31 January 1918, p. 14 From all sides we hear the complaint that history is a difficult subject both…
What Honest History read and reviewed during 2016: a round-up of book reviews (and reviewers)
‘What Honest History read and reviewed during 2016: a round-up of book reviews (and reviewers)’, Honest History, 13 December 2016 The Honest History team gets to read a lot of books during a year and we are getting more and…
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Myrtle, John: Review note: Antipodes: In Search of the Southern Continent by Avan Judd Stallard
John Myrtle* ‘Review note: Antipodes: In Search of the Southern Continent by Avan Judd Stallard’, Honest History, 13 December 2016 According to the Macquarie Dictionary, Terra Australia Incognita was the mass of land stretching across much of the south of…
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Donate to the UNSW Press Literary Fund
Below is a link to information about the UNSW Press Literary Fund. Donations to the Fund support all books published by NewSouth, including The Honest History Book, and are tax deductible. If you donate to the Fund we would love…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (19) The 1916 coal strike
The Divided Sunburnt Country series ‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (19): The 1916 coal strike’, Honest History, 13 December 2016 ‘The strikes and upheavals, political and industrial, we see around us are the manifestations of a deliberate policy which aims at destroying…
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Pung, Alice: Living with racism in Australia
Alice Pung ‘Living with racism in Australia‘, New York Times, 7 December 2016 Summarises her life since birth in Melbourne in 1981. Australia’s fling with multiculturalism was temporary. In less than 15 years [after 1981], politicians began advocating assimilation for…
Australia in the 21st Century (A21C): We need a transformational foreign policy
Australia in the 21st Century (A21C) ‘We need a transformational foreign policy: Submission to the Minister for Foreign Affairs for the White Paper on Foreign Affairs and Trade‘, Pearls and Irritations, 9 December 2016 The submission is headed ‘FILLING THE…
Five from the Pearls and Irritations blog: China, Trump, our out of touch MSM
Honest History’s distinguished supporter, John Menadue, continues to add solid content to his Pearls and Irritations blog, both his own articles, guest bloggers and material reproduced from other sources. Apart from the important submission on foreign policy, this week’s new…
Daley, Paul: The Armenians and the Warlpiri: two genocides that sparked a pilgrimage to the outback
Paul Daley ‘The Armenians and the Warlpiri: two genocides that sparked a pilgrimage to the outback‘, Guardian Australia, 8 December 2016 Describes the journey of two Armenian priests into Warlpiri country. The visit was organised by Judith Crispin, who has…
Catching up with The Conversation: three very worthwhile days (and no pay-wall)
Queensland University of Technology academic, Axel Bruns, set out earlier this year a cogent argument for preserving social media as ‘a first draft of the present’ in a similar way to how journalism has traditionally been described as ‘the first…
Edwards, John: The plight of the right
John Edwards ‘The plight of the Right‘, Inside Story, 5 December 2016 A long, thoughtful review of an expensive book of essays published in July, following a conference in Perth in 2014 of ‘conservative’ economists and journalists. The book is…
While we are on the subject: four articles on aspects of democracy – and its possible future currency
Last Sunday we put up a post riffing off four articles which said something about the nature of politics. Without exactly saying so, we were talking about democratic politics and about how it can be a long, hard slog. We…
National Film and Sound Archive: Melbourne Time Capsule: Marvellous Melbourne: Swanston and Collins Streets
National Film and Sound Archive ‘Melbourne Time Capsule: Marvellous Melbourne: Swanston and Collins Streets‘, NFSA website A marvellous two minute point-of-view film from a tram trundling through Melbourne in 1910 (date picked exactly by our HH guru before he saw…
Hocking, Jenny: The palace letters case: ‘a matter of our national history’
Jenny Hocking ‘The palace letters case: “a matter of our national history”‘, Pearls and Irritations, 29 November 2016 Update 16 October 2017 referring to further discoveries in UK archives. Revised edition of Professor Hocking’s book. Whitlam biographer and constitutional activist…
Eureka 162 years on: resources on the Honest History site
Tomorrow, 3 December, is the 162nd anniversary of the attack on the Eureka Stockade at Ballarat. Honest History has a number of resources on the site, links to lectures by Andrew Leigh MP and historian Humphrey McQueen, a post about…
Abjorensen, Norman: Politicians behaving badly
Norman Abjorensen ‘Politicians behaving badly‘, Inside Story, 28 November 2016 If the Trump victory in the United States represented a backlash against a perceived self-interested “political class,” just as the Brexit vote did in Britain, Australia is by no means…
Death of Dr Sigrid McCausland
Honest History notes with regret the death of one of our Brisbane supporters, Dr Sigrid McCausland. Sigrid had been ill for some time. Sigrid had been a senior archivist in Canberra and president of the ACT Branch of the Labour…
Minister releases preliminary results of study into veterans’ suicide; but are priorities still skewed?
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Dan Tehan (with Health Minister Ley) has released preliminary results of a study of suicide by Australian veterans. Key findings are as follows: ● there were 292 deaths by suicide among people with at least one…
Australian War Memorial opens permanent display on Holocaust
The Australian War Memorial has opened a permanent display on the Holocaust. (SBS report.) The exhibition, The Holocaust: Witnesses and Survivors, builds on the memories of 30 000 Holocaust survivors who made their homes in Australia after World War II.…
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Blaxland, John & Rhys Crawley: The Secret Cold War: The Official History of ASIO, 1975-1989
John Blaxland & Rhys Crawley The Secret Cold War: The Official History of ASIO, 1975-1989, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2016 The blurb reveals that the book deals with espionage by foreign agents, terrorist attacks, the underground Cold War of tensions…
Metz, Walter: At the movies: ‘Canaries’, a review of Denial
Walter Metz ‘At the movies: “Canaries”, a review of Denial‘, Origins (Ohio State University), 23 November 2016 Metz teaches cinema history at Southern Illinois University. This post riffs off the election of Trump and the vogue for ‘post-truth’. Metz notes…
Pearls and Irritations experts ask where are we going with ANZUS now that Trump towers: more than you get on MSM
Pearls and Irritations is a blog wrangled by former senior public servant John Menadue, with the help of some knowledgeable guest writers. It has a new series entitled ‘Quo vadis and ANZUS’. ‘Quo vadis?’, for those who have no Latin…
Stephens, David: These four articles on politics reinforce each other in unexpected ways
David Stephens ‘These four articles on politics reinforce each other in unexpected ways’, Honest History, 27 November 2016 Fifty years on In 1966, 50 years ago, Lyndon Baines Johnson was in the White House, Australia’s new prime minister, Harold Holt,…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (18): The Prime Minister is determined to carry on
The Divided Sunburnt Country series ‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (18): The Prime Minister is determined to carry on’, Honest History, 26 November 2016 The referendum (plebiscite) had been held on 28 October. Prime Minister Hughes was the guest of…
Snell, Ted: Long before Europeans, traders came here from the north and art tells the story
Snell, Ted ‘Long before Europeans, traders came here from the north and art tells the story‘, The Conversation, 24 November 2016 Indigenous oral tradition and bark and rock paintings have recorded the early visits of Macassan trepangers to northern Australia.…
Markus, Andrew: Australians more alarmed about state of politics than impact of migration and minorities, survey finds
Markus, Andrew ‘Australians more alarmed about state of politics than impact of migration and minorities, survey finds‘, The Conversation, 22 November 2016 Links to detailed report of the latest survey. In 2016 just 34% of respondents considered that the immigration…
Braithwaite, Richard Wallace: Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy
Braithwaite, Richard Wallace Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Only six escapees survived the Sandakan death marches of 1945 in North Borneo, the worst atrocity ever inflicted on Australian soldiers. 1787 Australian…
At war with the Braithwaites (review of Braithwaite, Fighting Monsters)
‘At war with the Braithwaites’, Honest History, 23 November 2016 Peter Stanley reviews Richard Wallace Braithwaite, Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy Around the end of the 1960s the twenty-year-old Richard Braithwaite, then a university student, wore…
Shield, John: Top End Anzackery: an illustrated review note (featuring a mouse who flys a Spitfire)
Shield, John* ‘Top End Anzackery: an illustrated review note (featuring a mouse who flies a Spitfire)’, Honest History, 22 November 2016 Re-enactment, 74th anniversary of Darwin bombings, 2016 (Defence department) In 2012, the 70th Anniversary of the Bombing of Darwin…
Frances, Raelene & Bruce Scates, ed.: Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac
Frances, Raelene & Bruce Scates, ed. Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Much of the scholarship on the Great War, and especially the Dardanelles/Çanakkale campaign, has been viewed through a narrow national prism and focused…
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New views from a little way beyond Gallipoli (review of Scates & Frances ed., Beyond Gallipoli)
‘New views from a little way beyond Gallipoli’, Honest History, 21 November 2016 David Stephens reviews Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac, edited by Raelene Frances and Bruce Scates This book is a collection of 15 papers (plus introduction) from…
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Sewell, Stephen: Friday essay: the arts and our still-born national identity
Sewell, Stephen ‘Friday essay: the arts and our still-born national identity‘, The Conversation, 18 November 2016 Wide-ranging essay from NIDA academic and commentator. Compares cuts to arts funding with spend on Anzac commemoration. But at the same time government spends heavily…
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Productivity Commission: Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2016
Productivity Commission Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2016 This comprehensive report card measures where things have improved (or not) against 52 indicators across a range of areas including governance, leadership and culture, early childhood, education, health, home and safe and…
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Hamilton, Clive: What do we want? Charting the rise and fall of protest in Australia
Hamilton, Clive ‘What do we want? Charting the rise and fall of protest in Australia‘, The Conversation, 17 November 2016 updated Discusses the author’s new book, What Do We Want? The Story of Protest in Australia, just published. Traces the…
Pearls and Irritations blog provides non-MSM views of Trump
John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations, has the following: Allan Patience on the failure of neo-liberalism; Wayne Swan MP on the need to spread prosperity more widely; Andrew Farran on foreign policy implications; John Menadue and Mungo McCallum on general…
Green, Jonathan: Why must a war define us? Honest History highlights reel
Green, Jonathan ‘Why must a war define us?‘ ABC The Drum, 24 April 2014 (Honest History highlights reel) Over the last three years Honest History has tried to collect significant pieces written about Australia’s relationship with war. We have commissioned…
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Honest History E-newsletter No. 39, 11 November 2016
ISSN: 2202-5561 © Special edition for Remembrance Day and the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Australian War Memorial The Honest History book is coming in April 2017; donate to UNSW Press Literary Fund New on the Honest History site…
The Conscription Conflict and the Great War (review of Archer, Damousi, et al)
‘The Conscription Conflict and the Great War’ (review of Archer, Damousi, et al), Honest History, 16 November 2016 Derek Abbott* reviews The Conscription Conflict and the Great War, edited by Robin Archer, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot and Sean Scalmer. See…
Archer, Robin, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot & Sean Scalmer, ed.: The Conscription Conflict and the Great War
Archer, Robin, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot & Sean Scalmer, ed. The Conscription Conflict and the Great War, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Collection with articles by the editors, Douglas Newton, Frank Bongiorno, John Connor and Ross McKibbin. While the Great…
Haigh, Gideon: Basic income for all: a 500-year-old idea whose time has come?
Haigh, Gideon ‘Basic income for all: a 500-year-old idea whose time has come?‘ Guardian Australia, 11 November 2016 Long article under the heading ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, with links to other relevant material. Haigh looks at ‘the potential of ideas such…
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Stanley, Peter: Three Great War histories review: was the slaughtering really worth it?
Stanley, Peter ‘Three Great War histories review: was the slaughtering really worth it?‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 12 November 2016 Honest History’s president reviews Victory at Villers-Bretonneux, by Peter FitzSimons, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923,…
Catching up with The Conversation: five recent items on climate
The Conversation has become a well-used and high quality media outlet in Australia. It presents topical, usually succinct pieces by writers who have at least a nominal academic affiliation. It now has overseas editions. Its rules about reposting are generous…
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Reid, Richard: ‘That famous army of generous men’: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day
Reid, Richard ‘“That famous army of generous men”: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day‘, Honest History, 11 November 2016 An extended article about six men who fought in the Great War and the reflections their stories provoked in the…
Stephens, David: When a motley crew of Canberra stirrers protected the War Memorial from competition
Stephens, David ‘When a motley crew of Canberra stirrers protected the War Memorial from competition‘, Honest History, 11 November 2016 Tells the story of the Lake War Memorials Forum, a group which fought for two years to prevent the building…
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‘The Call to the People of Australia’, Remembrance Day, 1951: highlights reel
‘” The Call to the People of Australia”, Remembrance Day, 1951: highlights reel’, Honest History, 11 November 2016 This Remembrance Day is the 65th anniversary of one of the stranger documents of early post-war Australia. Titled ‘The Call to the…
Stanley, Peter: AWM sixtieth anniversary: the Memorial and its people
Stanley, Peter ‘AWM sixtieth anniversary: the Memorial and its people, 11 November 2001‘, Australian War Memorial Today, Peter Stanley is Associate Director of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales Canberra, as well…
Recent posts on the Honest History site (11 November 2016)
We continue to move posts quickly through the site, mainly because we have become information-brokers (linking to useful resources within our areas of interest) as well as creators of original material. Readers can catch up with recent additions under our…
The Australian War Memorial is opened, 11 November 1941
The Australian War Memorial was opened 75 years ago today. The Australian War Memorial at Canberra, symbol of a young nation’s courage and sacrifice, was officially opened yesterday [began the report in the Canberra Times]. The impressive service of tribute…
When a motley crew of Canberra stirrers protected the War Memorial from competition
David Stephens ‘When a motley crew of Canberra stirrers protected the War Memorial from competition’, Honest History, 11 November 2016 updated Twelve years ago, some Canberra citizens conceived the idea of building in the city new war memorials, one for…
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Two years of commentary on the Australian War Memorial: from the Honest History archives
Rationale Critiquing the Anzac-centred received view of Australian history necessarily involves forensic examination of the work of our premier commemorative institution, the Australian War Memorial. The Memorial – rather surprisingly, in view of its interest in warlike matters – has…
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‘That famous army of generous men’: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day
Richard Reid* ‘”That famous army of generous men”: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day’, Honest History, 11 November 2016 In early November 1993 I stood at 8.00 am in the misty cold of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Adelaide…
Donalds are Trumps: going deeper after the breast-beating
There is so much being said on the US election result that we are not going to add to it (yet). Except to say three things: roughly half of eligible Americans did not vote; roughly a quarter of eligible Americans…
Myrtle, John: Review note: Great Australian Journeys by Graham Seal
Myrtle, John* ‘Review note: Great Australian Journeys by Graham Seal’, Honest History, 8 November 2016 Graham Seal, Professor of Folklore at Curtin University, is a well-published author of popular works on Australian history. His latest book is Great Australian Journeys:…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (17): Three post-mortems on the first conscription referendum
The Divided Sunburnt Country series Note: No. 16 in the series was updated on 7 November to include a short speech by Michael McKernan on the impact of conscription in Jugiong, NSW, and a paper by Frank Bongiorno on why…
Lesh, James: Preserving cities: how ‘trendies’ shaped Australia’s urban heritage
Lesh, James ‘Preserving cities: how “trendies” shaped Australia’s urban heritage‘, The Conversation, 4 November 2016 updated Looks at the heritage history of the inner suburbs of Australian cities since the 1960s. Until the mid-to-late 20th century, the Australian inner suburbs…
Thakur, Ramesh: The nuclear refuseniks: how the recent nuclear vote put Australia on the wrong side of history
Thakur, Ramesh ‘The nuclear refuseniks: how the recent nuclear vote put Australia, Japan, and South Korea on the wrong side of history, geography, and humanity‘, Policy Forum, 4 November 2016 updated Update 16 November 2016: more on this subject in…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (16): Conscription miscellany – and mainstream avoidance
The Divided Sunburnt Country series ‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (16): Conscription miscellany – and mainstream avoidance’, Honest History, 4 November 2016 updated Update 16 November 2016: review of Archer, et al, ed., The Conscription Conflict and the Great War.…
De Moore, Greg & Ann Westmore: Finding Sanity: John Cade, lithium and the taming of bipolar disorder
De Moore, Greg & Ann Westmore Finding Sanity: John Cade, Lithium and the Taming of Bipolar Disorder, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2016 The first biography of the ground breaking Australian doctor who discovered the first pharmacological treatment for mental illness.…
Wilson, Janet: Finding sanity: John Cade, lithium and the taming of bipolar disorder (review of De Moore and Westmore)
Janet Wilson* ‘Finding sanity: John Cade, lithium and the taming of bipolar disorder’ (review of De Moore and Westmore), Honest History, 3 November 2016 Janet Wilson reviews Finding Sanity, a new book by Greg de Moore and Ann Westmore John…
Bond, Catherine: Is it time to repeal Australia’s century-old laws on the use of the word “Anzac”??
Bond, Catherine ‘Is it time to repeal Australia’s century-old laws on the use of the word “Anzac”?‘ The Conversation, 1 November 2016 Article marks the centenary of Australian restrictions on the use of the word ‘Anzac’. (The author has a…
Piggott, Michael: Peace, love and world war: the Denmans, Empire and Australia, 1910–1917: a review of a Canberra exhibition
Michael Piggott* ‘”Peace, love and world war: the Denmans, Empire and Australia, 1910–1917″: a review of a Canberra exhibition’, Honest History, 1 November 2016 Note: The exhibition concludes on 13 November 2016 First, an admission. Actually, two. As a rule,…
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Braganza, Karl & Steve Rintoul: State of the Climate 2016: Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO
Braganza, Karl & Steve Rintoul ‘State of the Climate 2016: Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO‘, The Conversation, 27 October 2016 Summarises the main points in the report and provides links to it, to a summary video and the portal Climate…
Manne, Robert: How we came to be so cruel to asylum seekers
Manne, Robert ‘How we came to be so cruel to asylum seekers‘, The Conversation, 26 October 2016 updated ‘If you had been told 30 years ago that Australia would create the least asylum seeker friendly institutional arrangements in the world,…
Brophy, Kevin: Friday essay: Judith Wright in a new light
Brophy, Kevin ‘Friday essay: Judith Wright in a new light‘, The Conversation, 28 October 2016 Everyone loves Judith Wright [Brophy begins]. Her poetry was consistently brilliant and stunningly lyrical. She opened Australian eyes in the 1940s to the possibilities of…
Worried about Russia? Four recent articles provide food for thought – for Australians, too
Thoughtful Australians have been keeping an eye on the South China Sea for some time. Honest History has tried to keep up. Today, it’s worth cocking an eye towards Russia also, more than a century after Australians watched the then…
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Monthly, The: Moran Prize finalists: finalists for the 2016 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize
Monthly, The ‘Moran Prize finalists: finalists for the 2016 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize‘, The Monthly, 24 October 2016 Something restful for the weekend, and not behind The Monthly‘s fierce pay-wall. (It has some good stuff, though.) There are about 30…
Australian War Memorial Annual Report, another new exhibition and Story Time
The Australian War Memorial’s Annual Report 2015-16 is now available on the Memorial’s website. From our quick look the Memorial’s overall visitor numbers seem much the same as last year though there are the usual quirks in measurement which mean…
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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (15): Final thunderous appeals, pro and con, on the eve of the conscription plebiscite
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (15): Final thunderous appeals, pro and con, on the eve of the conscription plebiscite 100 years ago’, Honest History, 27 October 2016 The Divided Sunburnt Country series Pro Prime Minister Hughes’s final appeal appeared in…
Griffiths, Tom: The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft
Griffiths, Tom The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2016 No matter how practised we are at history, it always humbles us. No matter how often we visit the past, it always surprises us. The art…
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An anthropologist, an historian and his historians: Diane Bell on Tom Griffiths
‘An anthropologist, an historian and his historians: Diane Bell on Tom Griffiths’, Honest History, 26 October 2016 Diane Bell* reviews Tom Griffiths, The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft Who is your favourite Australian historian? Why? In 14…
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Veterans’ Affairs team visits Estimates Committee for another round
Last week, the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee hosted a phalanx of officers from the Defence portfolio which included, as usual, a team from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and a smaller team from the Australian War Memorial.…
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Stephens, David: Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the building of the Atatürk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85: Part II
David Stephens ‘Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the building of the Atatürk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85: Part II’, Honest History, 25 October 2016 updated This is a revised and extended version of an article…
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Nash, Joshua: Buggered if I know where I am: the stories behind Australia’s weird and wonderful place names
Nash, Joshua ‘Buggered if I know where I am: the stories behind Australia’s weird and wonderful place names‘, The Conversation, 24 October 2016 Just what it says, in case you always wanted to know about Chinamans Knob, Governors Knob, Iron…
Possibly coming to a theatre near you: a movie about the Armenian Genocide
The Promise is a new movie about the Armenian Genocide. Directed by Terry George, starring Oscar Isaac, Christian Bale and Charlotte Le Bon, it has been expensive to produce and is now facing distribution issues in the United States, partly…
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Frankopan, Peter: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
Frankopan, Peter The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2015 For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in the west – in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east…
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The Silk Roads to everywhere (review of Frankopan)
‘The Silk Roads to everywhere’, Honest History, 21 October 2016 Derek Abbott reviews Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World ‘Europe is but a molehill, all the great reputations have come from Asia’ (Napoleon Bonaparte, 1797).…
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Conscription plebiscite centenary in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra
Those who follow only the official Great War centenary bandwagon may not be keeping up with commemoration of events on the home front. Next Friday, 28 October, is the centenary of the first conscription referendum (technically a plebiscite) and events…
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Stephens, David: ‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats
Stephens, David ‘“Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats‘, Honest History, 20 October 2016 This article continues our analysis of ten of Dr Nelson’s speeches from…
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‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats
David Stephens ‘“Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats’, Honest History, 20 October 2016 updated In our previous article we looked at the structure, themes and…
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Rees, Anne: How women historians smashed the glass ceiling
Rees, Anne ‘How women historians smashed the glass ceiling‘, The Conversation, 19 October 2016 Since the 1970s, the [history] profession has become conspicuous for the number of women in its ranks and the widespread acceptance of feminist scholarship. Compared to…
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O’Malley, Vincent: What a nation chooses to remember and forget: the war for New Zealand’s history
O’Malley, Vincent ‘What a nation chooses to remember and forget: the war for New Zealand’s history‘, Guardian Australia, 18 October 2016 Interesting article for itself and for comparisons with Australia. The author’s book, The Great War for New Zealand Waikato…
Honest History scales Capital Hill and reaches the Netherlands
Australian MPs and Senators get Information Kits done for them by the Parliamentary Library. One such is headed ‘Anzac Day 2016’ and we have just discovered it. Right down the bottom of Section 2 ‘The relevance of Anzac’ is this…
Aileen Palmer and Maralinga: Honest History highlights reel
‘Aileen Palmer and Maralinga: Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 18 October 2016 updated This material has been made available by Sylvia Martin, author of Ink in Her Veins: The Troubled Life of Aileen Palmer, published earlier this year by…
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Rose, James: From Tampa to now: how reporting on asylum seekers has been a triumph of spin over substance
Rose, James ‘From Tampa to now: how reporting on asylum seekers has been a triumph of spin over substance‘, The Conversation, 14 October 2016 Considers three media management tactics deployed in 2001 and refined since: closing down news channels; depriving…
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Sherrell, Henry & Peter Mares: How many migrants come to Australia each year?
Sherrell, Henry & Peter Mares ‘How many migrants come to Australia each year?‘ Inside Story, 14 October 2016 Analyses questions of definition around our migrant intake, particularly over the difference between permanent and temporary migrants. There are other complications as…
Daley, Paul: Why Australia Day and Anzac Day helped create a national ‘cult of forgetfulness’
Daley, Paul ‘Why Australia Day and Anzac Day helped create a national “cult of forgetfulness”‘, Guardian Australia, 16 October 2016 updated Update 21 August 2017: Tony Smith on Pearls and Irritations muses about the proposal by Yarra Council in Melbourne…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (14): No conscription! Facts for doubting boneheads
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (14): No conscription! Facts for doubting boneheads’, Honest History, 16 October 2016 The Divided Sunburnt Country series Here are some extracts from a piece in Direct Action for 14 October 1916 (just two weeks before…
Honest History E-newsletter No. 38, 11 October 2016
ISSN: 2202-5561 © New on the Honest History website (honesthistory.net.au) Honest History: Beyond Anzackery: announcing the Honest History book due out in April 2017 ‘Awkward humility’: the speeches of Brendan Nelson (Part I: Thrice more with feeling): David Stephens writes Turks did the…
Gillard, Julia: Julia Gillard speaks in London in memory of Jo Cox MP
Gillard, Julia ‘Julia Gillard speaks in London in memory of Jo Cox MP‘, Julia Gillard, 11 October 2016 (updated) As well as being a tribute to the assassinated British Labour MP this is a wide-ranging speech on women in politics.…
‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon Brendan Nelson AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling
David Stephens ‘“Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 The received Australian view of war can be encapsulated in phrases like ‘Lest we forget’, ‘the…
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Broinowski, Alison: Review note: Homeground in Sydney
Alison Broinowski ‘Review note: Homeground in Sydney’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 Marking the 60th anniversary of the Maralinga nuclear tests, Sydney displayed several First Nations events over the weekend of 8-9 October. In the forecourt of the Opera House…
Tynan, Elizabeth: Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story
Elizabeth Tynan Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 How could a democracy such as Australia host another country’s nuclear program in the midst of the Cold War? In this meticulously researched and shocking work, journalist and academic Elizabeth…
Thomas, Nelly: Understanding Pauline
Thomas, Nelly ‘Understanding Pauline‘, New Matilda, 9 October 2016 ‘I come from Hanson country’, says the author, ‘working class, socially conservative, racist, homophobic, xenophobic Australia’. The article looks at Hansonism in class terms. The first thing to know about Hanson…
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Stephens, David: Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the story of the Ataturk Memorial, Canberra, 1984-85: Part I
David Stephens ‘Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the story of the Atatürk Memorial, Canberra, 1984-85: Part I’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 updated This material revises and extends an article published in April 2016 and based…
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Stephens, David: ‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon Brendan Nelson, AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling
Stephens, David ‘” Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon Brendan Nelson AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling‘, Honest History, 11 October 2016 The article analyses ten speeches from 2007 to 2016 regarding their structure, recurring themes and sets…
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McQueen, Humphrey: ‘A material triumph and an aesthetic calamity’: the work of Australian architect Robin Boyd’
McQueen, Humphrey ‘“A material triumph and an aesthetic calamity”: the work of Australian architect Robin Boyd’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 Humphrey McQueen wrote this article in 2002 on the 50th anniversary of the publication in 1952 of Robin Boyd’s…
Centenary Watch updates October-December 2016
[Links checked 17 November 2017 and all found to be live. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Update 2 December 2016: Holocaust exhibition at War Memorial…
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Atomic Thunder: 60 years on from Maralinga (review of Tynan)
‘Atomic Thunder: 60 years on from Maralinga’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 Richard Broinowski* reviews Elizabeth Tynan’s Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story. David Pope’s cartoon of the 60th anniversary of Maralinga (Fairfax, 3 October 2016) shows Prime Minister Robert Menzies…
Honest History highlights reel: Nick Dyrenfurth’s Mateship: A Very Australian History
‘Honest History highlights reel: Nick Dyrenfurth’s Mateship: A Very Australian History’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 updated Update 22 October 2021: A survey on mateship throws up some interesting results. *** Nick Dyrenfurth’s book Mateship: A Very Australian History, was…
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‘A material triumph and an aesthetic calamity’: the work of Australian architect Robin Boyd
Humphrey McQueen ‘“A material triumph and an aesthetic calamity”: the work of Australian architect Robin Boyd’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 ‘A material triumph and an aesthetic calamity’ was how architect and cultural critic Robin Boyd summed up our domestic…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (13): DVA materials help children today debate conscription then
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (13): DVA materials help children today debate conscription then’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 updated Update 21 October 2016: Queensland Government Anzac Centenary website has a useful summary on conscription in 1916. The Divided Sunburnt…
Honest History goes to the pictures: movie and TV reviews from the Honest History archives
Quite early in the Honest History project we realised that it was important to review movies and television series that came within our areas of interest. (We even explained why we were doing it.) Practically (due to resource limitations), this…
Recently on the Honest History site (11 October 2016)
The Honest History site continually tries to source significant material within our areas of interest and to post links accordingly. (We also commission lots of original material.) If readers need to know more about what our areas of interest are,…
Roberts, Rhoda: There is no Aboriginal disadvantage. Our culture is our advantage, and all Australians can share it
Roberts, Rhoda ‘There is no Aboriginal disadvantage. Our culture is our advantage, and all Australians can share it‘, Guardian Australia, 7 October 2016 Article written to accompany Homeground cultural festival in Sydney. We have over 700 languages and dialects and…
Burgess, Rob: The banks didn’t save Australia – they ate it
Burgess, Rob ‘The banks didn’t save Australia – they ate it‘, New Daily, 6 October 2016 Analysis in the context of the appearance of banking CEOs before a parliamentary committee, which was followed by a proposal for a banking tribunal…
Pearls and Irritations an antidote to Main Stream Media: asylum seekers, SA outage, submarines, CEO remuneration and other matters
John Menadue’s blog Pearls and Irritations continues to canvass a wide range of issues with a large collection of writers and usually from a different angle than is occupied by the remains of the Main Stream Media. In the latest…
Lyons, Tim: The Labour Movement: my part in its downfall
Lyons, Tim ‘The Labour Movement: my part in its downfall‘, Meanjin, Spring 2016 (vol. 75, no. 3, pp. 85-92 in hard copy) Works backwards from the demise of the resources super profits tax in 2010 to make some important points…
Irvine, Jessica: This is what would happen if Australia halted immigration
Jessica Irvine ‘This is what would happen if Australia halted immigration‘, Age, 2 October 2016 Considers effects in terms of faltering economic growth, aging work-force, Budget blow-out, still crowded roads, still expensive housing, education and tourism impacts and difficulties in…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (12): The conscription battle hots up
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (12): The conscription battle hots up – 100 years ago’, Honest History, 30 September 2016 The Divided Sunburnt Country series Our intrepid researcher, Steve Flora, has worked his way through the National Library’s excellent Trove…
Broinowski, Alison: Your laptop is watching you: Snowden the movie – review note
Broinowski, Alison* ‘Your laptop is watching you: Snowden the movie – review note’, Honest History, 26 September 2016 Before Snowden comes on, there’s a short film of Oliver Stone, the director, warning cinema audiences that they can be surveilled, so…
Haigh, Gideon: Stroke of Genius: Victor Trumper and the Shot that Changed Cricket
Haigh, Gideon Stroke of Genius: Victor Trumper and the Shot that Changed Cricket, Penguin Random House, Sydney, 2016 If Trumper is a legend, George Beldam’s ‘Jumping Out’ has become an icon. But that image has almost paradoxically obscured the story…
Federated Australia’s first champion (review of Haigh on Trumper)
‘Federated Australia’s first champion’ (review of Haigh on Trumper), Honest History, 25 September 2016 Derek Abbott* reviews Gideon Haigh’s book, Stroke of Genius: Victor Trumper and the Shot that Changed Cricket (2016) Muhammad Ali, young, brash and confident, mouth agape…
Aspects of foreign and defence policy: eight blogged Pearls that are likely to Irritate
Pearls and Irritations, the blog run by John Menadue, one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters and former senior public servant and businessman, regularly serves up pithy and thought-provoking pieces from experts with strong backgrounds in their fields. The blog’s masthead…
Behrendt, Larissa: Indigenous Australians know we’re the oldest living culture – it’s in our Dreamtime
Behrendt, Larissa ‘Indigenous Australians know we’re the oldest living culture – it’s in our Dreamtime‘, Guardian Australia, 22 September 2016 Responds to recent material on DNA-based research on Indigenous culture. More. ‘Scientific research often reaffirms what is in an oral…
Death of Professor John Mulvaney, father of Australian archaeology
Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney died yesterday in Canberra, aged 90. He was known as ‘the father of Australian archaelogy’, particularly because of his pioneering work on Indigenous Australia. An ABC News item on John Mulvaney and a collection of tweets…
Dando-Collins, Stephen: The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill
Dando-Collins, Stephen The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill, Penguin Random House, Melbourne & Sydney, 2016 In The Hero Maker, award-winning historical author and biographer Stephen Dando-Collins exposes the contradictions of one of Australia’s most successful, but troubled, writers.…
Paul Brickhill: chronicler of bombers, busters and a great escape (review of Dando-Collins biography)
‘Paul Brickhill: chronicler of bombers, busters and a great escape’ (review of Dando-Collins biography), Honest History, 22 September 2016 John Myrtle* reviews The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill by Stephen Dando-Collins In the 1950s Australian-born Paul Brickhill wrote…
Essential poll on banning Muslim immigration and listening to Pauline Hanson
The Essential Report poll on attitudes to Muslim migration is here, along with responses to questions about Pauline Hanson. One thousand people were polled. The poll was run in August and re-run in case it was a ‘rogue’. Key responses…
Koopman, Catharina: Campo 78 – the WWII Aussie camp in Abruzzo
Catharina Koopman* ‘Campo 78 – the WWII Aussie camp in Abruzzo‘, Dante Alighieri Society, Canberra, 29 June 2016 updated A review of the bilingual book, Campo 78: The Aussie Camp, by Gabriella Di Mattia (Accademia degli Agghiacciati, Sulmona, Italy, 2015).…
Habibis, Daphne, Maggie Walter & Penny Taylor: To move forward on reconciliation, Australia must recognise it has a race relations problem
Daphne Habibis, Maggie Walter & Penny Taylor ‘To move forward on reconciliation, Australia must recognise it has a race relations problem‘, The Conversation, 20 September 2016 updated Our research in Darwin [survey of 474] shows most Indigenous people feel judged,…
Gorman, Alyx & Rick Kuhn: If Australia had its current refugee policy in 1939, we wouldn’t be alive today
Alyx Gorman & Rick Kuhn ‘If Australia had its current refugee policy in 1939, we wouldn’t be alive today‘, Guardian Australia, 19 September 2016 Compares Australia’s treatment of 1930s refugees from Nazism with today’s treatment of detainees on Manus and…
Port of Melbourne pictures just the tip of the photographic iceberg
Photo credit for home page, 23 September. The port of Melbourne has been leased for a lot of money. This provoked the Melbourne Age to run a set of photographs of the port, dating back well into the 19th century.…
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Stephens, David: Review note: Howard on Menzies rolls out on the ABC
David Stephens ‘Review note: Howard on Menzies rolls out on the ABC’, Honest History, 18 September 2016 updated So much is available about this two-part ABC doco that we won’t attempt more than some random thoughts which we’ll update after…
Now this is a Maiden Speech: Senator Malarndirri McCarthy (ALP, Northern Territory)
Senator McCarthy’s speech brings together the stories of Indigenous Australia – the Senator is Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Mara and Kudanji – and settler Australia – her McCarthy ancestors came from Ireland in 1842. A great read and a great listen (30…
Woods, Martin: Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War
Woods, Martin Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War, National Library of Australia Publishing, Canberra, 2016 A selection of maps from the National Library’s collection along with detailed explanatory text. The war produced more maps than any…
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Fighting against the tide? (review of Martin Woods on World War I maps)
‘Fighting against the tide?’ (review of Martin Woods on World War I maps), Honest History, 15 September 2016 Peter Stanley reviews Martin Woods, Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War The National Library of Australia, uniquely now…
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Online Gem No. 12: David Scott Mitchell and his library, a Sydney icon
Online Gem No. 12: David Scott Mitchell and his library, a Sydney icon, Honest History, 13 September 2016 David Scott Mitchell, born in Sydney in 1836, has been described as Australia’s greatest book collector. He was an early undergraduate of…
Broinowski, Alison: Review note: What was all that about? Abe Forsythe’s Down Under
Broinowski, Alison ‘Review note: What was all that about? Abe Forsythe’s Down Under’, Honest History, 12 September 2016 A longer version of this article, taking up more general issues to do with Afghanistan, is here on Pearls and Irritations. A…
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Life and work in the city and suburbs adds up to lots of Australian stories: Honest History miscellany
The Australian story has always had a gumleaves and distance tone to it even though most of us for most of our history have lived in cities. Yet our cities have grown so big and spread so far – as…
Stephens, David: We go to Rio: questioning received war history
Stephens, David ‘We go to Rio: questioning received war history’, Teaching History (History Teachers’ Association of New South Wales), 50, 3, September 2016, pp. 4-6 Pdf accessible here made available by courtesy of HTANSW, which holds copyright. Anzac may be…
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Honest History distinguished supporter Stuart Macintyre wins NSW Premier’s History Award
One of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, Stuart Macintyre, has won the New South Wales Premier’s History Award for his book Australia’s Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s. Last year’s winner of this award, Joan Beaumont, is also a…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (11): The Case for Universal Service
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (11): The Case for Universal Service‘, Honest History, 8 September 2016 The Divided Sunburnt Country series When Prime Minister WM Hughes announced the first conscription referendum there was already plenty of literature in circulation…
Snyder, Don: Poland poised to put ‘bad’ historians in prison
Don Snyder ‘Poland poised to put “bad” historians in prison‘, The Forward (New York), 2 September 2016 updated Poland’s parliament is considering a law which would make it a criminal offence to implicate Poland, or the Polish people, in the…
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Flanagan, Richard: Australia has lost its way: The inaugural Boisbouvier Lecture, Melbourne Writers Festival 2016
Flanagan, Richard ‘Australia has lost its way: The inaugural Boisbouvier Lecture, Melbourne Writers Festival 2016’, The Monthly, 1 September 2016 This article, originally a lecture, is subtitled, ‘Does writing matter?’ The author says he does not believe in national literature,…
E-newsletter No. 37, 30 August 2016
ISSN: 2202-5561 © New on the Honest History website (honesthistory.net.au) ‘Anzackery’ defined in new edition of the Australian National Dictionary: Bruce Moore writes Press baron Lord Northcliffe (egged on by Keith Murdoch) talks up the Anzacs after Pozières: Honest History document From…
Clark, Anna: On listening to new national storytellers
Clark, Anna ‘Friday essay: on listening to new national storytellers’, The Conversation, 2 September 2016 The author reminds us that ‘each piece of history has a message and context that depends on who wrote it and when. As the US…
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Concerning the proposed foreign policy White Paper: Alison Broinowski, Richard Woolcott, John Menadue, James Cogan
Australia has not had many foreign policy White Papers, though we have had a lot of Defence White Papers. There may be some significance in this. The recent announcement from the Foreign Minister provoked some responses to add to the…
Six of the best: recent posts on the future of history
Earlier this week we posted Neville Buch’s piece, ‘Do professional historians have a future?’ It has been very popular, with hundreds of views already. Serendipitously, blogs and online sources have thrown up lots of related material. Swansea University historian of…
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Turnbull, Noel: Leadership in the face of Anzackery
Turnbull, Noel ‘Leadership in the face of Anzackery’, Noel Turnbull (blog) 29 August 2016 Another to add to our series ‘Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context‘. The author has been a journalist, academic, public relations consultant, and…
Diamadis, Panoyiotis: Friendships are based on truths: looking again at the crime of crimes (Hellenic genocides 1914-22)
Diamadis, Panayiotis ‘Friendships are based on truths: looking again at the crime of crimes’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 Analysis of recent press articles on the genocides of the indigenous Hellenes, Armenians and Assyrians of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Two…
Buch, Neville: Do professional historians have a future?
Buch, Neville ‘Do professional historians have a future?‘ Honest History, 30 August 2016 The author, a professional historian based in Queensland, looks at statistics for tertiary history courses. He spells out the need to grow the non-academic employment market for…
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Moore, Bruce: Anzackery and other Australianisms: Australian National Dictionary second edition
Bruce Moore ‘Anzackery and other Australianisms: Australian National Dictionary second edition’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 The first edition of this dictionary came out in 1988 in one volume. Now there is a two volume second edition. Chief Editor Bruce…
Baker, Mark: Phillip Schuler: The remarkable life of one of Australia’s greatest war correspondents
Baker, Mark Phillip Schuler: The Remarkable Life of One of Australia’s Greatest War Correspondents, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2016 A biography of The Age war correspondent, who reported unofficially from Egypt in 1914-15, spent time at Gallipoli, producing two ground-breaking…
McQueen, Humphrey: Time and Bob Menzies’ essence: lifting the cover on Australia 1960
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Time and Bob Menzies’ essence: lifting the cover on Australia 1960′, Honest History, 30 August 2016 When Humphrey McQueen first wrote this article in 2000 he had this to say: ‘Forty years ago this week, Time presented a…
Centenary Watch updates September-October 2016
[Links checked 17 November 2017 and all found to be live. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Updates 30 August 2016: Minister Tehan back in harness;…
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Disappointing take on an interesting man (review of Baker on Phillip Schuler)
‘Disappointing take on an interesting man’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 Kristen Alexander* reviews Mark Baker’s Phillip Schuler: The Remarkable Life of One of Australia’s Greatest War Correspondents Phillip Schuler was a journalist working at Melbourne’s Age newspaper when the…
Diamadis, Panayiotis: Friendships are based on truths: looking again at the crime of crimes (Hellenic genocides 1914-22)
Panayiotis Diamadis ‘Friendships are based on truths: looking again at the crime of crimes’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 In recent weeks, there have been three major pieces published in The Australian and the Daily Telegraph (Sydney) on the genocides…
Lord Northcliffe (egged on by Keith Murdoch) talks up the Anzacs after Pozieres: Honest History document
‘“These young giants from the furthest corner of the earth”: Lord Northcliffe (egged on by Keith Murdoch) talks up the Anzacs after Pozières: Honest History document’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 The document below is taken from The Sun (Sydney)…
From the Honest History archives: ‘Defining Moments’ at the National Museum of Australia (September 2014 and since)
Honest History has tracked the ‘Defining Moments’ project at the National Museum of Australia pretty much since it began. The project was an expression of the NMA’s claim to be ‘Where our stories live’ – ‘stories’ plural – which we…
Anzackery and other Australianisms: Australian National Dictionary second edition
Bruce Moore ‘Anzackery and other Australianisms: Australian National Dictionary second edition’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 The new edition of the Australian National Dictionary has been published. The first edition, published in 1988, was a one-volume work of 814 pages.…
Do professional historians have a future?
Neville Buch ‘Do professional historians have a future?’ Honest History, 30 August 2016 Peter Mandler argued in his 2015 Aeon essay that the ‘crisis in the humanities’ since the 1950s has never existed except in the minds of humanities professors.[1]…
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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (10): Prime Minister Hughes announces the first conscription referendum, 100 years ago today
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (10): Prime Minister Hughes announces the first conscription referendum, 100 years ago today’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series Just after 3.53 pm on Wednesday, 30 August 1916, on a cold…
Time and Bob Menzies’ essence: lifting the cover on Australia 1960
Humphrey McQueen ‘Time and Bob Menzies’ essence: lifting the cover on Australia 1960’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 Note: this article includes a photograph of an Indigenous Australian who has died Time magazine ‘Indignation’ and ‘hilarity’ jostled each other through…
Hell No! We Won’t Go anti-conscription project goes to the Australian War Memorial
Australia’s Vietnam War had many facets, some of which we explored in our recent Honest History series. One of these facets, local Australian opposition to the war and to conscription, gets some coverage in the galleries at the Australian War…
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Australia’s Vietnam War in context – and other recent posts on Honest History
We have recently run a series called ‘Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context’. The series proved popular and timely, given the issues over the Long Tan commemoration and the official blind spots regarding aspects of the war…
Bach, Willy: A “kick in the guts”? A final look at Long Tan
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series Willy Bach ‘A “kick in the guts”? A final look at Long Tan’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 I am happy to say there were others who…
Many facets of inequality revealed in online sources: Honest History miscellany
A current article in Guardian Weekly wonders if the abundance of online sources is killing memory. We don’t need to remember anything because we can look it up. Maybe. The upside is the ease of finding information online – information…
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Butler, Richard: Nuclear disarmament – Australia’s profound and cynical failure
Butler, Richard ‘Nuclear disarmament – Australia’s profound and cynical failure‘, Pearls and Irritations, 23 August 2016 updated The author looks at Australia’s distinguished history in nuclear disarmament negotiations, before commenting on the recent decision by Australia to insist that there…
Markus, Andrew: Scanlon Foundation Social Cohesion Survey 2016
Andrew Markus ‘Migrants from Africa bear brunt of discrimination but remain positive, survey finds‘, The Conversation, 24 August 2016 updated Update 29 November 2017: the findings of the 2017 survey. Comment in Guardian Australia by David Marr. Summarises the findings…
Moses, John: The fallacy of Presentism in Australian history
John Moses ‘The fallacy of Presentism in Australian history‘, Honest History, 23 August 2016 The paper seeks to illustrate that historiography can be misused for promoting political agendas. It uses examples from Marxism-Leninism, particularly in the then East Germany and…
ABC Conversations with Richard Fidler: Liz Tynan on the secret history of Maralinga
ABC Local Radio ‘Liz Tynan on the secret history of Maralinga‘, Conversations with Richard Fidler, 9 August 2016 The ABC (actually Sarah Kanowski) talked to science journalist Elizabeth Tynan (49 minutes) about her book on the British nuclear tests at…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (9): Billy Hughes girds his loins for the conscription battle
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series On 31 July 1916, Prime Minister WM Hughes returned to Australia (Fremantle) after six months in Britain and Europe, where he had raised Australia’s profile in Allied war councils. He spoke at the Melbourne Town…
Viet Thanh Nguyen : Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series ________________________________ Viet Thanh Nguyen Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2016 This is the final post in our series…
From the Honest History archives: People who turn up – nurses in Vietnam (June 2016)
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series ________________________ This week’s commemoration of Australia’s Vietnam War (hanging off the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan) underlines that history is made by those who…
Stephens, David: We need to talk about how we commemorate our wars in other people’s countries – and our own
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series _______________________________ David Stephens ‘We need to talk about how we commemorate our wars in other people’s countries – and our own’, Honest History, 18 August 2016 updated…
Broinowski, Richard: The Battle of Long Tan turns fifty – but not without a hitch
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series Richard Broinowski ‘The Battle of Long Tan turns fifty – but not without a hitch’, Honest History, 18 August 2016 updated An article by Mark Schliebs in…
Smith, Evan: ‘Between the bomb and the ballot box’: the history of the far-right in Australia
Smith, Evan ‘“Between the bomb and the ballot box”: the history of the far-right in Australia‘, Guardian Australia, 16 August 2016 updated The return of One Nation (on steroids) provokes this useful run-down of Australian fringe groups over the last…
From the Honest History archives: What happened to Australians after the Vietnam War (June 2015)?
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series _____________________________ Parades, recognition and misremembering Part of the narrative of Australia’s Vietnam War in the more than 40 years since our commitment ended has been that Australian…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (8): Jennie Scott Griffiths: ‘She Fought Where She Stood’
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series Victoria Haskins writes in her Anzac Her Story blog about Jennie Scott Griffiths, born in Texas in 1875, mother of ten children, newspaper editor, and anti-war campaigner in World War I Australia and just after…
From the Honest History archives: Agent Orange – Vietnam scourge of soldiers and civilians alike (March 2015, March 2016)
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series Honest History has published a number of posts on the effects of Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by United States forces during the Vietnam War.…
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: Honest History series
‘Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: an Honest History series’, Honest History, 15 August 2016 updated UPDATE 11.45 am FRIDAY: Still difficulties with access. UPDATE 6.00 AM THURSDAY: Restricted access to be allowed. STOP PRESS: Cancellation of…
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From the Honest History archives: 1965-75 another Vietnam: unseen images of the war from the winning side (February 2016)
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series This post shows the Vietnam War from the other side, with pictures (curated by Alex Q. Arbuckle for Mashable) by Vietnamese photographers of civilians, militia and…
Gaita, Raimond: Reflections on the idea of a common humanity
Gaita, Raimond ‘Friday essay: reflections on the idea of a common humanity‘, The Conversation, 12 August 2016 Gaita argues that ‘to recognise the humanity of others we must rise to the humanity in ourselves, but to do that we must…
Lamperd, Ruth: Families speak about military loved ones lost and how we failed them
Lamperd, Ruth ‘Families speak about military loved ones lost and how we failed them‘, Sunday Herald-Sun, 13 August 2016 The story reveals 41 military personnel and veterans died this year from suicide, the same as the number of Australians who…
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Online Gem No. 11: The Airlines of Australia Stinson plane crash, 1937
Online Gem No. 11: The Airlines of Australia Stinson plane crash, 1937, Honest History, 12 August 2016 updated On 19 February 1937, an Airlines of Australia Stinson aircraft carrying five passengers and two pilots disappeared during a scheduled trip from…
Farrell, Paul, Nick Evershed & Helen Davidson: The Nauru files: 2,000 leaked reports reveal scale of abuse of children in Australian offshore detention
Farrell, Paul, Nick Evershed & Helen Davidson ‘The Nauru files: 2,000 leaked reports reveal scale of abuse of children in Australian offshore detention‘, Guardian Australia, 10 August 2016 updated Leaked files reveal assaults, sexual assault and self-harm. The devastating trauma…
Schultz, Julianne, ed.: Our sporting life: Griffith Review 53
Schultz, Julianne, ed. ‘Our sporting life’, Griffith Review, 53, August 2016, available online to subscribers Collection of essays on something which, we are told, ‘lies at the heart of what it means to be Australian’. At a time when sport…
Many codes, many circuses, much money: Griffith Review 53: Our sporting life
‘Many codes, many circuses, much money: Griffith Review 53: “Our sporting life”’, Honest History, 9 August 2016 A review by Derek Abbott* of the latest Griffith Review, published 1 August 2016. Griffith Review always presents a collection of writings that…
Sheil, Christopher & Frank Stilwell: Land of the ‘fair go’ no more: wealth in Australia is becoming more unequal
Sheil, Christopher & Frank Stilwell ‘Land of the “fair go” no more: wealth in Australia is becoming more unequal‘, The Conversation, 9 August 2016 Yet another piece to add to our collection under the thumbnail, ‘Inequality’. Reports and analyses continue…
Wishart, Alison: Importance of food, water and diet to the Anzac campaign at Gallipoli
Wishart, Alison ‘“As fit as fiddles” and “as weak as kittens”: the importance of food, water and diet to the Anzac campaign at Gallipoli‘, First World War Studies, August 2016 The reasons for the allied defeat at Gallipoli in 1915…
Williams, George: Australia needs a treaty and constitutional recognition for Indigenous people
Williams, George ‘Australia needs a treaty and constitutional recognition for Indigenous people’, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 August 2016 Indigenous journalist, Stan Grant, claims in the video with this piece that Australia is the only Commonwealth country that lacks a treaty…
McKinley, Michael: The ANZUS Alliance-as-disastrous diffusion
McKinley, Michael The ANZUS Alliance-as-disastrous diffusion: The political virology of a wartime liaison: Presented to the Panel WA 71 Diffusion-as-Empire: Theory and Comparative Studies in Disastrous Circulations of Power, 54th Annual Convention, The International Studies Association, San Francisco, California, USA,…
Horrocks, Lucinda: Memories of war: A film and research project in Ballarat
Horrocks, Lucinda ‘Memories of war: A film and research project in Ballarat‘, Honest History, 8 August 2016 Hearing about this Ballarat project, Honest History agreed with producer Lucinda Horrocks that she should describe what the project set out to do,…
Memories of war: A film and research project in Ballarat
Lucinda Horrocks ‘Memories of war: A film and research project in Ballarat’, Honest History, 8 August 2016 In 2014 I embarked on a collaborative film and research project to explore the history and impact of World War I in the…
From the Honest History archives: Hiroshima 1945; Managing Hiroshima
Update 31 August 2016: an article on The Millions website commemorating the 70th anniversary of the publication in The New Yorker of John Hersey’s long article Hiroshima. The anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings tends to creep up on…
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McQuire, Amy: 200 years of trauma through a CCTV lens (Don Dale and after)
McQuire, Amy ‘200 years of trauma through a CCTV lens‘, New Matilda, 3 August 2016 The best piece that we have seen on this issue. Darumbul journalist, Amy McQuire, looks behind the Royal Commission kneejerk reaction. Aboriginal affairs moves at…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (7): An overview of the 1916-17 conscription referenda
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series Michael Hamel-Green wrote in Green Left Weekly earlier this year an article called ‘When Australia voted no to war: the 1916-17 conscription referenda‘. The article is a useful brief introduction to the conscription struggle, an…
From the Honest History archives: Wounded and damaged soldiers then and now (November 2014)
Between the centenary of Fromelles and Pozières it seems appropriate to re-run a small collection Honest History put together late in 2014 on the physical effects of war on the men and women who fight it. The collection was provoked…
Rizzetti, Janine: Graeme Davison on visions of the future
Rizzetti, Janine ‘Graeme Davison on visions of the future‘, The Resident Judge of Port Phillip, 31 July 2016 Nice piece from this excellent blog. It riffs off an exhibition in Melbourne (about to close) and an article by Graeme Davison…
Piggott, Michael: Charles Bean’s legacy: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016
Michael Piggott ‘“Charles Bean’s legacy”: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016‘, Honest History, 2 August 2016 Update 6 August 2016: Peter Stanley, Honest History professor, Research Professor at UNSW Canberra, and a curator of the Bean exhibition, writes about the exhibition.…
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Charles Bean’s legacy: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016
Michael Piggott ‘”Charles Bean’s legacy”: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016’, Honest History, 2 August 2016 For once in considering a conference, the curate’s egg judgment ‘good in parts’ doesn’t apply, though this conference did have parts and it was hosted…
Death of distinguished military historian, Professor Jeffrey Grey of UNSW Canberra
Honest History records with sadness the death last week of Professor Jeffrey Grey of the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, Australian Defence Force Academy School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales…
AHRC Working Group: Leading for Change: A Blueprint for Cultural Diversity and Inclusive Leadership
Australian Human Rights Commission Working Group Leading for Change: A Blueprint for Cultural Diversity and Inclusive Leadership, The Commission, Sydney, 2016 The Working Group was chaired by Tim Soutphommasane, Race Discrimination Commissioner, and included Greg Whitwell, Rae Cooper, Ainslie Van…
Ashenden, Dean: The educational consequences of the peace (education policy over a century)
Ashenden, Dean ‘The educational consequences of the peace‘, Inside Story, 28 July 2016 Long article on the history of education policy from the nineteenth century, through the Labor Split of 1955, the Goulburn schools boycott in 1962 to the Karmel…
Broinowski, Anna (dir).: Pauline Hanson: Please explain!
Broinowski, Anna (dir.) ‘Pauline Hanson: Please explain!‘ SBS, 1 August 2016 Full video and supporting material of the documentary shown on SBS on 31 July. Another link. The documentary moves back and forth between 1996 and more recently, interviewing many…
Lydon, Jane: Worth a thousand words – how photos shape attitudes to refugees
Lydon, Jane ‘Friday essay: worth a thousand words – how photos shape attitudes to refugees‘, The Conversation, 29 July 2016 Looks at the politicisation of migration over the last two decades and how ‘[p]hotography has mapped a distinctively Australian version…
Davison, Graeme: Distance and destiny (about Blainey’s Tyranny of Distance)
Davison, Graeme ‘Distance and destiny‘, Inside Story, 28 July 2016 Reflection on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Geoffrey Blainey’s The Tyranny of Distance. The Tyranny of Distance changed our map of the Australian past. It was a bestseller…
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Baker, Mark: The myth of Keith Murdoch’s Gallipoli letter
Baker, Mark ‘The myth of Keith Murdoch’s Gallipoli letter‘, Inside Story, 26 July 2016 Extract from the author’s new book, Phillip Schuler: The Remarkable Life of One of Australia’s Greatest War Correspondents, just published. A brief biographical note on Schuler…
Lone Pine commemorative service will not be held this year
A media release today from Minister Tehan advises that the annual Lone Pine commemorative service, scheduled for 6 August, will not proceed this year. This follows discussions with the Turkish Government. Private visits on 6 August will still be possible…
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Sherratt, Tim: Unremembering the forgotten: Digital Humanities 2015 keynote
Sherratt, Tim Unremembering the forgotten: Keynote address, Digital Humanities 2015, University of Western Sydney, 3 July 2015 The article looks at some aspects of the history of science in Australia, including how we have been visited by scientists from overseas.…
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Sparrow, Jeff: The greyhound ban and the working man: what exactly does “working class culture” mean?
Sparrow, Jeff ‘The greyhound ban and the working man: what exactly does “working class culture” mean?‘ Guardian Australia, 21 July 2016 Explores the idea that the proposed ban on greyhound racing in New South Wales will particularly affect something called…
Review note: Maggie’s Kitchen can be read between courses
‘Review note: Maggie’s Kitchen can be read between courses’, Honest History, 27 July 2016 Gentle Reader* reviews a war book that mixes fiction and fact. Maggie’s Kitchen by Caroline Beecham is technically fiction but it manages to weave in a…
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Richard Butler AC becomes distinguished supporter of Honest History
Honest History is pleased that Richard Butler AC has agreed to become one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters. Mr Butler is a former senior diplomat, United Nations official and Governor of Tasmania. 25 July 2016
Graham, Chris: NT juvenile prison abuse: the most shocking part is that anyone is actually shocked
Graham, Chris Update 4 August 2016: Calla Wahlquist in Guardian Australia on Indigenous incarceration rates. Thalia Anthony in The Conversation on the same subject. Update 1-3 August 2016: Take 2: Commissioner No. 1 steps down and Commissioners Nos 2 and…
Riches, Leah & James Bennett: We can’t see the war for the memorials: balancing education and commemoration
Riches, Leah & James Bennett ‘We can’t see the war for the memorials: balancing education and commemoration‘, The Conversation, 25 July 2016 This article raises issues similar to those that have concerned Honest History over the last three years; some…
Know any bushrangers whose stories should be told but haven’t been?
Meg Foster is currently a PhD Candidate in history at the University of New South Wales. She is working on a project called ‘The “other” bushrangers’, investigating the impact of bushrangers (those of them who were not white men) on…
Warren Snowdon MP returns to Centenary of Anzac job in Labor shadow ministry
Warren Snowdon, MP for Lingiari in the Northern Territory, has been appointed Shadow Assistant Minister for the Centenary of Anzac. He had responsibility for this area in the most recent Labor government. The Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs is Amanda…
Sweetman, Terry: Great War remembrance high in cost, low on inclusion for Australians
Sweetman, Terry ‘Opinion: Great War orgy of remembrance high in cost, low on inclusion for Australians‘, Sunday Mail (Brisbane), 24 July 2016 Veteran columnist is provoked by Fromelles-Pozieres commemoration into questioning the whole commemoration extravaganza. He uses Honest History estimates…
E-newsletter No. 36, 19 July 2016
ISSN: 2202-5561 © New on site ALLIANCES AND IMPLICATIONS Is this the most sycophantic speech by an Australian prime minister? David Stephens does the analysis. Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (6): ‘I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier’. Peter…
Earls, Nick: Australia once banned Catholics from mass and vilified the Irish
Earls, Nick ‘Australia once banned Catholics from mass and vilified the Irish. Haven’t we learned anything?‘ Guardian Australia, 22 July 2016 Reminiscences about the historical treatment of Irish in Australia – and other immigrants – and draws some parallels with…
Kelly, Sean: Trump and circumstance
Kelly, Sean ‘Trump and circumstance‘, The Monthly Today, 22 July 2016 updated The teaser to this piece runs, ‘How Donald Trump is exploiting the rules of politics and media, and what it means for Australia’. The article is about much…
HILDA tells an Australian story about wealth and poverty – and there is an international angle as well
HILDA stands for the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey and it has been run by the Melbourne Institute since 2001. It is one of many surveys and studies reporting on inequality in Australia. Honest History has been…
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Paul Daley’s The Hansard Monologues: Age of Entitlement coming soon
Paul Daley, author and journalist and one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, has written The Hansard Monologues: Age of Entitlement, using only the actual words uttered by our elected representatives. It is being presented at two locations in Sydney, in…
Pearls and Irritations posts on foreign policy and going to war
John Menadue, one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, and former senior public servant and diplomat, runs the Pearls and Irritations blog which has new posts on the South China Sea arbitration (Tony Kevin), how easily we in Australia go to…
McGrath, Ann: Secrets of nation
McGrath, Ann ‘Secrets of nation‘, Inside Story, 15 July 2016 By the 1960s, when I was growing up there, Queensland had become skilled at burying the Aboriginal past, and Queenslanders spoke about its traces in hushed tones. As a child,…
Stephens, David: Is Julia Gillard’s speech to the US Congress the most sycophantic speech by an Australian PM?
Stephens, David ‘Is this the most sycophantic speech by an Australian prime minister? Julia Gillard’s address to the United States Congress, March 2011’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 This article analyses a recent claim by former Australian diplomat, Richard Butler,…
Turna, Burak: The Hidden Victory of Anzacs: Gallipoli
Turna, Burak The Hidden Victory of Anzacs: Gallipoli, Robotto Publishing, London, 2016; available electronically A self-published book. The Battle of Gallipoli was not a disaster for Anzacs, it was an absolute victory. But for jaw dropping reasons, this victory has…
Landers, Rachel: Who bombed the Hilton?
Landers, Rachel Who Bombed the Hilton? NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 On 13 February 1978 a bomb exploded outside the Hilton Hotel in George Street, Sydney. Two garbage collectors and a police officer were killed. Often called the first act of terrorist…
Centenary Watch updates July-August 2016
[Links checked 17 November 2017 and all found to be live. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Update 15 August 2016: Australia’s Vietnam War – and…
Click here for all items related to: Centenary Watch
Is Julia Gillard’s speech to the US Congress the most sycophantic speech by an Australian PM?
David Stephens ‘Is this the most sycophantic speech by an Australian prime minister? Julia Gillard’s address to the United States Congress, March 2011’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 Former Prime Minister Rudd gets Anzac biscuit, 2012 (Courier-Mail/Brad Cooper) Anzackery precedents:…
Stephens, David: How some Turks would rather that Johnnies and Mehmets were not equal
David Stephens ‘How some Turks would rather that Johnnies and Mehmets were not equal: research report’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 updated The equality of death ‘There is no difference’, we are told every Anzac Day, ‘between the Johnnies and…
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Ozakinci, Cengiz: 25 April 1985: Arıburnu, “Anzac Cove”, the Mehmets and the Johnnies
Özakıncı, Cengiz ‘25 April 1985: Arıburnu, “Anzac Cove”, the Mehmets and the Johnnies’, Butun Dunya (Ankara), April 2016 (English translation) This article looks from the Turkish perspective at how Arıburnu became Anzac Cove, as part of a Turkish-Australian deal in…
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Stanley, Peter: Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (6): ‘I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier’: pacifists
Stanley, Peter ‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (6): “I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier”: pacifists’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 This is an extract from Chapter 23 of John Connor, Peter Stanley & Peter Yule, The War…
Macedonians in Constantinople, drones over Gaba Tepe (review of Turna)
‘Macedonians in Constantinople, drones over Gaba Tepe’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 Peter Stanley reviews Burak Turna’s The Hidden Victory of Anzacs: Gallipoli. Imagine a world in which all historical sources, archival and published, on World War I have been…
Australia’s no-go zones: Rachel Landers’ Who Bombed the Hilton?
‘Australia’s no-go zones: Rachel Landers’ Who Bombed the Hilton?’ Honest History, 19 July 2016 Alison Broinowski reviews Rachel Landers’ book Who Bombed the Hilton? We are not suddenly making the world uninhabitable all at once. Instead, the world is creating…
From the Honest History archives: Alison Broinowski from October 2013 on Iraq 2003 and war powers reform
In the wake of the Chilcot report and recognising its relevance for Australia, we are re-running a perspicacious October 2013 piece from Alison Broinowski (vice president of both Honest History and Australians for War Powers Reform). Called ‘The streaker’s defence:…
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From the Honest History archives: Doug Hynd from January 2015 on aspects of the Martin Place siege of 2014
Doug Hynd has lectured in Christian ethics at Charles Sturt University and is now in the final stages of a PhD at the Australian Catholic University. In this short piece written just after the Martin Place (Lindt) siege, he considers…
For those who came in late: recently on Honest History
We recall an old television or radio show which ended with the line ‘you have been watching, or you have just missed [name of show]’. This post serves the same purpose. Look out for these recent posts under the thumbnails…
Loewen, James W.: Lies my teacher told me
Loewen, James W. ‘Lies my teacher told me‘, Information Clearing House, 9 July 2016 Undated video interview with Loewen, who is a sociologist critical of the received view of American history. Loewen’s widely read Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything…
Viner, Katharine: How technology disrupted the truth
Katharine Viner ‘How technology disrupted the truth‘, The Guardian, 12 July 2016 updated More than 1500 comments on this article by Guardian editor-in-chief about how ‘[s]ocial media has swallowed the news – threatening the funding of public-interest reporting and ushering…
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Pennell, Catriona & Mark Sheehan: Official World War I memorial rituals could create a generation uncritical of the conflict
Catriona Pennell & Mark Sheehan ‘Official World War I memorial rituals could create a generation uncritical of the conflict‘, The Conversation, 12 July 2016 A New Zealand-United Kingdom co-written article with some Australian input from Christina Spittel of UNSW Canberra…
American historians use Facebook to blow the whistle on Donald Trump
A number of distinguished American historians, led by David McCullough (Truman, John Adams) and Ken Burns (The Civil War), have started a Facebook page to oppose the candidacy of Donald Trump. While the group is conscious of the need to…
Halford, James: Reading three great southern lands: from the outback to the pampa and the karoo
Halford, James ‘Reading three great southern lands: from the outback to the pampa and the karoo‘, The Conversation, 11 July 2016 The common threads of the literature of Argentina, Australia and South Africa as presented in the work of a…
Sherratt, Tim: Investigating the Hansard black hole
Sherratt, Tim ‘Investigating the Hansard black hole‘, Tim Sherratt: Research Notebook, 29 May, 10 July 2016 Not about the Budget black hole this time but about deficiencies in the ParlInfo search engine which countless people have used for research in…
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Fielding, Victoria: The big election story the media missed
Fielding, Victoria ‘The big election story the media missed‘, New Matilda, 7 July 2016 PhD student writes on the lack of attention during the election campaign to growing inequality. (The Honest History website has collected extensive resources on inequality.) She…
Sarra, Chris: We Indigenous people are stronger than we believe, and smarter than we know
Sarra, Chris ‘We Indigenous people are stronger than we believe, and smarter than we know‘, Guardian Australia, 10 July 2016 Address after Dr Sarra received NAIDOC 2016 Person of the Year award. In the course of it, he supports negotiation…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (5): Catholic and Protestant schooling in Gippsland
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series This series focuses on the home front and asks whether issues at home were actually the big stories of the Great War, especially of the years 1916-18. We have seen already how national issues like…
From the Honest History archives: Gough Whitlam centenary, 11 July 2016
Monday, 11 July 2016, is 100 years since the birth of Edward Gough Whitlam, prime minister of Australia 1972-75. Gough Whitlam died in October 2014 and at that time, Honest History collected a lot of resources, obituaries, reminiscences, commentaries, extracts,…
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Chilcot lessons for Australia as well as for powerful friends: Honest History miscellany
After seven years, Sir John Chilcot has reported on how the United Kingdom found itself in Iraq in 2003 and what it all meant. Chilcot’s report considers the actions and words of British Prime Minister Blair, United States President George…
Five uneasy pieces on the mainstream media and the election
Update 3 August 2016: Richard Denniss in The Monthly on Brexit, election, perceptions, the media and the whole damn thing. Update 22 July 2016: Sean Kelly in The Monthly Today on some of the issues below. ____________ The founder of…
Nicholls, Christine Judith & Dany Breelle: The voyage of Nicolas Baudin and ‘art in the service of science’
Nicholls, Christine Judith & Dany Breelle ‘Friday essay: The voyage of Nicolas Baudin and “art in the service of science”‘, The Conversation, 7 July 2016 On Baudin’s voyage commencing in 1800 to what is now Australia, during which he dealt…
Acquroff, Nick: Westography: images of a vanished suburbia
Acquroff, Nick ‘Westography: images of a vanished suburbia‘, Broadsheet, 5 July 2016 This is a story about a book of photographs, Westography, by Warren Kirk. The pictures are taken around the inner western suburbs of Melbourne. There are a dozen…
Australian War Memorial Council prefers not to hear about Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Memorial
On Anzac Day Honest History posted on our website our Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial. The Guide is intended for students from middle to senior Secondary level, for teachers and for members of the general public. Since Anzac…
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Daley, Paul: Indigenous songlines: a beautiful way to think about the confluence of story and time
Daley, Paul ‘Indigenous songlines: a beautiful way to think about the confluence of story and time‘, Guardian Australia, 4 July 2016 For NAIDOC Week (3-10 July), a sensitive introduction (by a whitefeller) to songlines, a central part of Indigenous Australian…
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The Resident Judge of Port Phillip journeys to AHA Ballarat
Update 8 July 2016: Janine has added some more about the next day of the Conference, covering papers on the Red Cross during World War I, Australian soldiers in the Boer War, museums, and living and dying. Of particular interest…
From the Honest History archives: An old Queen and a new nation (Constitution Day, 9 July)
‘From the Honest History archives: An old Queen and a new nation (Constitution Day, 9 July)’, Honest History, 6 July 2016 Victoria by Charles Léandre, Le Rire, 12 June 1897 (Wikimedia Commons) Update: National Archives of Australia events on Constitution…
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Wide-ranging AHA conference in Ballarat nicely captured from a distance via Tweets
Yvonne Perkins, who blogs as Stumbling through the Past, didn’t go to the Australian Historical Association conference in Ballarat this year but she is still keeping in touch by following and collating the Tweets coming out of it (#ozha2016). Yvonne’s…
McQuire, Amy: More Aboriginal MPs shouldn’t let the major parties off the hook
McQuire, Amy ‘More Aboriginal MPs shouldn’t let the major parties off the hook‘, New Matilda, 5 July 2016 Darumbul journalist, Amy McQuire, notes the election of Wiradjuri woman, Linda Burney, ALP, as the first Indigenous woman in the House of…
Marks, Russell: An impoverished estate (media and politics)
Marks, Russell ‘An impoverished estate‘, The Monthly, 5 July 2016 The sub-heading reads ‘The Australian media prioritised personality over policy during this election campaign’. Honest History has avoided running ‘horse-race’ stories about this election campaign, punting (sorry) instead for the…
McAuley, Ian: Hung Parliament Explained: Too Much Party Testosterone Drives The Opposition
McAuley, Ian ‘Hung parliament explained: too much party testosterone drives the Opposition‘, New Matilda, 3 July 2016 Historical analysis of primary votes of major parties and other parties/independents since 1946, showing the decline for the major parties and the rise…
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Broinowski, Alison: What are we willing to fight for? (review of James Brown)
Broinowski, Alison ‘What are we willing to fight for?‘, Independent Australia, 3 July 2016 Honest History Vice President, Alison Broinowski, reviews Firing Line: Australia’s Path to War Quarterly Essay 62 by James Brown (Anzac’s Long Shadow) and expands upon the…
Coombs, Anne: It seems like a good time to ask: what are governments for?
Coombs, Anne ‘It seems like a good time to ask: what are governments for?‘ Guardian, 24 June 2016 This piece was re-run in the latest Guardian Weekly (1-7 July) where it earned the additional headline: ‘We give them power to…
Tavan, Gwenda: Beginning of the end of White Australia
Tavan, Gwenda ‘The beginning of the end of the White Australia policy‘, Inside Story, 1 July 2016 Detailed administrative history of the steps taken by the Coalition Government. They did not take matters all the way, however. It was clear…
Sharpe, Matthew: Battle of the Somme and the death of martial glory
Sharpe, Matthew ‘Friday Essay: The Battle of the Somme and the death of martial glory‘, The Conversation, 1 July 2016 Commemorating the death today 100 years ago of over 19 000 British soldiers in a stupid venture. The generals learnt…
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Johnson, Ian: China’s memory manipulators (on the use and abuse of history – a world-wide phenomenon)
Johnson, Ian ‘China’s memory manipulators‘, Guardian, 8 June 2016 Honest History has followed recent events in the South China Sea because of their relevance to Australia. We are also interested in material that shows how governments manipulate history, for example,…
Öztürk, Özgür: Gallipoli campaign: a symbolic battleground
Öztürk, Özgür ‘Gallipoli campaign: a symbolic battleground‘, Geliboluyuanlamak (Understanding Gallipoli), 24 June 2016 This is an essay from a Turkish MA student on the blog of Dr Tuncay Yilmazer, a Turkish specialist in the Ottoman Empire and the Great War.…
Online Gem No. 10: Official histories of Australia at war
‘Online Gem No. 10: Official histories of Australia at war’, Honest History, 29 June 2016 Over the past century Australian governments have commissioned six separate series of official war histories, one for each of the major conflicts in which Australia…
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From the Honest History archives: Do teachers have patriotic obligations?
‘From the Honest History archives: Do teachers have patriotic obligations? (May 2014)’, Honest History, 28 June 2016 As Honest History closes in on our 2000th post, we have found value in – and an interest from readers in – re-running…
Important First Australians material on election eve
Honest History tries to keep up with links, both brief and wordy, relevant to First Australians, with particular reference to dispossession, invasion and policy backtracks, cover-ups and Closing the Gap. (Perhaps the last could be dubbed ‘Polyfilla Policy’.) We put…
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Davey, Melissa: Australia’s gun laws stopped mass shootings and reduced homicides
Davey, Melissa ‘Australia’s gun laws stopped mass shootings and reduced homicides, study finds‘, Guardian Australia, 23 June 2016 Over 500 comments on this piece which reports a longitudinal (20 year) study by Sydney and Macquarie University researchers. The original article…
Review note: Irish Easter Rising commemoration has lessons for Australia
‘Review note: Irish Easter Rising commemoration has lessons for Australia’, Honest History, 23 June 2016 I am just one-eighth Irish and by no means an expert in being Irish or in Irish history. But Honest History’s recent collecting of material…
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Ward, Stuart: Brexit wounds
Ward, Stuart ‘Brexit wounds‘, The Monthly, June 2016 updated On the eve of the vote in Britain, the author looks at the history of Australian attitudes towards British attitudes and actions towards Europe. ‘Whatever the fallout’, the author concludes, ‘it…
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Land rights, Treaty, not hearing and family violence: First Australians miscellany
Five mid-week items: NITV has an explainer on Treaty: What is it? What do other countries have? What kind could we have? Sovereignty; Treaty and recognition; Where to from here? Timeline. Guardian Australia has a rundown on the successful culmination…
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Bongiorno, Frank: Politicians’ inability to speak freely on issues that matter leaves democracy all the poorer
Bongiorno, Frank ‘Politicians’ inability to speak freely on issues that matter leaves democracy all the poorer‘, The Conversation, 21 June 2016 The author notes the poor quality of political debate in Australia, particularly during the current election campaign, but also…
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Canberra’s Demos is a newish and feisty online voice with wide-ranging content
Honest History is always on the lookout for media outlets which take a punt and launch into new territory, particularly if the venture looks professional and takes – or facilitates – firm, evidence-based positions. (We try to do a bit…
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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (4): AIF enlistment starts to fall
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series One hundred years ago this month, as Anzac troops settled in on the Western Front – 600 had been killed by the end of June, enlistments in the AIF dropped to their lowest monthly total…
Megarrity, Lyndon: Northern Dreams, National Realities: The Life and Times of Dr Rex Patterson
Megarrity, Lyndon Research Report 46: Northern Dreams, National Realities: The Life and Times of Dr Rex Patterson, TJ Ryan Foundation, Brisbane, May 2016 Rex Patterson (1927-2016) was Australia’s first minister for portfolios specialising in Northern Australia. After a career in…
Vinnies CEO Sleepout again helps homeless, including veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq
The St Vincent de Paul Society (Vinnies) is again holding a CEO Sleepout to raise funds for homeless Australians. This year’s is on 23 June (except in Adelaide, where it has already happened). There is still (just) time to donate,…
New anti-war song is counterpoint to War Memorial rejigging donations policy
There is an anti-war event in London this weekend, organised by the No Glory in War and Stop the War coalition. The event commemorates the Battle of the Somme. A feature will be the song ‘Dandelions’ by Steve Donoghue, the…
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Review note: Meanjin short of funds but maintains high quality
‘Review note: Meanjin short of funds but maintains high quality’, Honest History, 17 June 2016 Meanjin Quarterly has been around since 1940 but now it is struggling for funds as the Australia Council cuts its cloth to fit reduced funding…
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Midwinter (almost) Miscellany from Honest History (info-brokers to the gentry)
Illness has cut a swathe through the Honest History engine-room this week so the remaining HH elves have been forced to bundle some useful links together below. The bundling exercise also warmed us up in an unusually cold Canberra early…
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SMH picks up Honest History point about literary prizes defaulting to war books
The Sydney Morning Herald‘s literary editor, Susan Wyndham, has picked up some points Honest History made in response to Colin Steele’s report about the manipulation of literary prizes: three of the winners after prime ministerial intervention were books about military…
Honest History competition: win The Art of Time Travel by Tom Griffiths
Tom Griffiths‘ new book The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft is to be published by Black Inc. on 27 June. Update 26 October: our review of the book. Meanwhile, a fortunate mistake by the publisher means we…
Two invasions in Australian history: can we now stop using euphemisms about 25 April 1915?
Both Prime Minister Turnbull and Opposition Leader Shorten have used the word ‘invasion’ to describe what happened in Australia in 1788. (They still differ over reconciling, recognising, and whether or not to have a treaty.) Now that we have bipartisan…
Honest history of massacres in the United States and Australia
Some reports of the Orlando massacre, horrible as it was, described it as the United States worst massacre (and again). It wasn’t, as Native Americans would know. Some reminiscences about the Port Arthur massacre, horrible as it was, described it…
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Brayley, Annabelle: Our Vietnam Nurses
Brayley, Annabelle Our Vietnam Nurses, Penguin, Sydney, 2016 When Australia joined the Vietnam War, civilian and military nurses were there to save lives and comfort the wounded. With spirit and good humour, they worked hard and held strong, even though…
Our Vietnam nurses’ stories should have been told before this (review of Brayley)
‘Our Vietnam nurses’ stories should have been told before this’ (review of Brayley), Honest History, 15 June 2016 Pamela Burton reviews Annabelle Brayley’s Our Vietnam Nurses. It is refreshing to read stories of heroism by those who travel to war…
E-newsletter No. 35, 7 June 2016
ISSN: 2202-5561 © New on site Keepers of the flame. Why do the people who control our war memorials look so unlike the rest of us and why does this matter? Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18. A century on, how much will…
Review note: The Soldier’s Curse by Meg and Tom Keneally
‘Review note: The Soldier’s Curse: Book One, The Monsarrat Series, by Meg and Tom Keneally’, Honest History, 13 June 2016 Gentle Reader reviews a Keneally family enterprise published by Vintage Random House. Tom Keneally is not only prolific but also…
Honest History Miscellany of the June Long Weekend
Some of our Honest History software fell over late on Thursday last week. Thanks to some sleuthing by our indefatigable Webmaster we got it back on track by late Saturday but it meant there was a buildup of new posts…
Steele, Colin: How The Sex Lives of Australians upset a PM and the PM’s Literary Awards
Steele, Colin ‘How The Sex Lives of Australians upset a PM and the PM’s Literary Awards‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 2016 updated Update 23 June 2016: Patrick Allington in The Conversation discusses the issues. The author of this article…
James Brown’s Quarterly Essay, Firing Line: Australia’s Path to War, launching in June and July
James Brown’s Quarterly Essay, Firing Line: Australia’s Path to War, is launching during June and July in Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney. Dates from 16 June and bookings are required in all venues. Details. James Brown investigates Australia at war.…
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RSL members miffed as PM mentions Soldier On
The ABC has a story today that some RSL members who heard the prime minister’s speech to the RSL National Conference were upset that he mentioned the work of veterans’ organisation, Soldier On. A reading of the PM’s speech shows…
Stephens, David: Keepers of the flame: making war memorial councils more representative
David Stephens ‘Keepers of the flame: why do the people who control our war memorials look so different from the rest of us and why does this matter?’ Honest History, 7 June 2016 This article analyses the composition of the…
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Venturini, VG (George): The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Government experiment (Parts 1-5)
Venturini, VG (George) ‘The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Government experiment (Parts 1-5)‘, Australian Independent Media Network, 2-6 June 2016 First of a planned multi-part series by this veteran commentator. The other parts will link from Part 1. With…
Dow, Aisha: Thousands face mental scars from modern war service
Dow, Aisha ‘Thousands face mental scars from modern war service‘, The Age, 5 June 2016 Like the generations before them, many of today’s returned soldiers are facing enormous challenges adapting back to everyday life. Forty-one Australians serving in the Australian…
A quick skim through some subscription journals: review note
‘Review note: a quick skim through some subscription journals’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 updated Update 18 June 2016: Nicholas Farrelly and James Giggacher write in the Canberra Times about the history of their highly successful academic blog, New Mandala,…
Cashen, Phil: Ireland, Empire and Irish-Australians
Cashen, Phil ‘Ireland, Empire and Irish-Australians‘, Shire at War, 4 June 2016 Microcosm in Yarram, Gippsland, Victoria, of tensions playing out across Australia. The article briefly outlines the movement towards Irish Home Rule, which stalled with the outbreak of war…
Keepers of the flame: making war memorial councils more representative
David Stephens ‘Keepers of the flame: why do the people who control our war memorials look so different from the rest of us and why does this matter?’ Honest History, 7 June 2016 updated Contents The Australian War Memorial Act…
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Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18: a new series from Honest History
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18: a new series from Honest History’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 updated Dorothea Mackellar in theatrical costume, 1918 (Wikimedia Commons/SLNSW) In 1904, Dorothea Mackellar, then aged 19, wrote her poem ‘My country’, which included…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (3): trade unions and Irish Australians
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series ___________________ By 1916 trade unions were pretty well established in Australia and so, for that matter, were people whose families came from Ireland. Catholics from Ireland probably tended to support the labour side in politics…
Centenary Watch updates June-July 2016
[Links checked 16 November 2017 and all found to be live. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Update 13 July 2016: Official World War I memorial…
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Hill, Anthony: For Love of Country
Hill, Anthony For Love of Country, Penguin Viking, Melbourne, 2016 At the close of the First World War, and after surviving a gas attack on the Western Front, Captain Walter Eddison moved his family from war-ravaged Britain to start a…
For love of country in war and peace (review of Anthony Hill)
‘For love of country in war and peace’ (review of Anthony Hill), Honest History, 7 June 2016 Gentle Reader reviews Anthony Hill’s For Love of Country. This book is described on the cover as ‘a true Australian family story of…
Moyal, Ann: Churchill and Gallipoli: a personal commentary
Moyal, Ann ‘Churchill and Gallipoli: a personal commentary‘, Honest History, 7 June 2016 Australian historian, Ann Moyal, knew Winston Churchill in his later life. Here she reflects on the letters Churchill wrote in 1915-16 to his wife, Clementine, and juxtaposes…
Churchill and Gallipoli: a personal commentary
Ann Moyal ‘Churchill and Gallipoli: a personal commentary’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 I have long enjoyed a personal and historical interest in Sir Winston Churchill. As a highly privileged young research assistant to Lord Beaverbrook, I spent a month…
From the Honest History Archives: Tangled up in red, white and blue
‘From the Honest History archives: Tangled up in red, white and blue (September 2013)’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 The Honest History website now includes more than 2000 posts and pages, many of them containing original writing. Readers can find…
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Tendering for the knight: film-makers bid to document Sir John Monash for the green fields of France
Regular readers of Honest History will have followed our coverage of the proposed Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre to be built next to the Australian memorial at Villers-Bretonneux in France. We have described the Centre as a boastful Aussie boondoggle.…
Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial (and other recent posts)
On Anzac Day, Honest History posted our Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial. Six weeks later the Guide has been downloaded 1268 times and we suspect a good number of those downloads have been copied multiple times. We are…
Jennings, Garry: How Australians die: cause #1 – heart diseases and stroke
Jennings, Garry ‘How Australians die: cause #1 – heart diseases and stroke‘, The Conversation, 6 June 2016 First of five articles (they will link from this one) on the leading causes of death in Australia and on how death rates…
Which bank do you know? Some notes from Humphrey McQueen on Australian banking history
‘Which bank do you know? Some notes from Humphrey McQueen on Australian banking history’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 and updated [*] The distinguished Australian historian, Humphrey McQueen, has sent Honest History extensive notes distilling his recent research on the…
Daley, Paul: 25 years of reconciliation and what do we have to show for it?
Daley, Paul ‘25 years of reconciliation and what do we have to show for it?‘ Guardian Australia, 3 June 2016 Written in Reconciliation Week, the article argues indicators are going backwards, gaps are widening and sovereignty is unacknowledged. And, after…
Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (2): the War Census
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series ________________ In 1915 Australians took part in a special census, called the War Census, ostensibly to help organise the country’s resources for total war but effectively to prepare for the introduction of conscription for war…
Leigh, Andrew: Markets, monopolies and moguls: the relationship between inequality and competition
Leigh, Andrew ‘Markets, monopolies and moguls: the relationship between inequality and competition: John Freebairn Lecture in Public Policy, University of Melbourne, 19 May 2016‘, Andrew Leigh MP website, 20 May 2016 Like a large tree that overshadows the saplings around…
Macarthur, Sally, Cat Hope & Dawn Bennett: Why aren’t Australia’s female composers being heard?
Macarthur, Sally, Cat Hope & Dawn Bennett ‘The sound of silence: why aren’t Australia’s female composers being heard?‘ The Conversation, 31 May 2016 Since 1987, 47 composers have been commissioned to write for the nation’s leading chamber music ensemble. and…
Coming up at the National Library, Canberra: sorting the past and imagining the future
Michael Piggott, National Library Fellow and Honest History Treasurer, is speaking at the National Library, Canberra, on 7 June on his work investigating the provenance of the manuscripts collected by Sir John Ferguson. Details (booking needed). Then, on 9 June,…
Jericho, Greg: Myths of the neoliberal economic model
Jericho, Greg ‘It’s time to expose the myths of the neoliberal economic model‘, Guardian Australia, 30 May 2016 Election commentary which takes a broad historical sweep. The writer looks at trend figures for GDP growth going back 20, 30 and…
Wolf, Charlie & Athol Bittley: AFL club songs ranked by ambition and boastfulness
Wolf, Charlie & Athol Bittley ‘AFL club songs ranked by ambition and boastfulness‘, Thermocow, 27 May 2016 Now that we’ve got your attention … This article on a comedy blog is just a bit of fun but go beyond the…
Hillman, Nick: The ten commandments for influencing policymakers
Hillman, Nick ‘The ten commandments for influencing policymakers‘, Times Higher Education Supplement, 26 May 2016 Honest History has always been interested in how the discipline of history can be used for good or ill in government. Many of our resources…
Divided sunburnt country (1): Australia 1916-18: recruiting in Gippsland
This post is by way of being a ‘soft launch’ for a new Honest History series. We are using the series to explore a crucial question: whether what happened at home in Australia during the Great War was actually more…
Tan, Monica: Nicholas Allbrook on Australia’s national anthem: ‘It’s ignorant and isolationist’
Tan, Monica ‘Pond’s Nicholas Allbrook on Australia’s national anthem: “It’s ignorant and isolationist”‘, Guardian Australia, 26 May 2016 Views of a 28-year-old rock singer with a range of comments beneath. Nicholas Allbrook, in his latest release ‘replaces the nation-fortifying intentions…
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National Library of Australia Magazine March 2016 edition
The National Library puts out a quarterly magazine. The March one (downloadable two ways or in hard copy at the Library) includes Kristen Alexander writing about her book on ‘aviatrix’ Lores Bonney, Honest History vice president, Alison Broinowski, on Norman…
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Salvation Army: Out of Reach: National Economic and Social Impact Survey 2016
Salvation Army Out of Reach: National Economic and Social Impact Survey 2016, Salvation Army Australia (Southern Territory and Eastern Territory), Melbourne and Sydney, 2016 The survey of 1600 Salvation Army clients found: Respondents affected by family violence were most affected…
van Otterloo, Jozua: Australia’s volcanic history is a lot more recent than you think
van Otterloo, Jozua ‘Australia’s volcanic history is a lot more recent than you think‘, The Conversation, 25 May 2016 The most recent volcanic activity in Australia was around 5000 years ago. More than 400 volcanoes have been identified in south-eastern…
Honest History sends copy of Alternative Guide to Australian War Memorial to every member of Memorial Council
Which word should we use to describe what happened on 25 April 1915: ‘landing’ or ‘invasion’? Why do we refer to dead soldiers as ‘the fallen’? Does the ‘freedom’ we are said to have fought for in our many wars…
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Dunn, Amanda, Emil Jeyaratnam & Fron Jackson-Webb: How we live now: Australian families at a glance
Dunn, Amanda, Emil Jeyaratnam & Fron Jackson-Webb ‘How we live now: Australian families at a glance‘, The Conversation, 24 May 2016 Collection of graphics introducing a ten-part series on the Australian family. The first article, on how diversity and change…
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Cohen, Roger: Australia’s offshore cruelty (New York Times Op ed)
Cohen, Roger ‘Australia’s offshore cruelty‘, New York Times, 23 May 2016 Cohen is visiting Australia. He writes on international affairs and diplomacy. This article had more than 100 comments by early on 24 May 2016 AEST. The Australian treatment of…
Kirby, Tim (dir.): Gallipoli: When Murdoch went to war
Kirby, Tim (dir.) ‘Gallipoli: When Murdoch went to war‘, BBC Two (2015); rebroadcast on SBS, 22 May 2016 One-hour documentary on the Keith Murdoch letter and subsequent events of September-October 1915. The letter is described by one of the talking…
Kindt, Julia: Guide to the classics: The Histories by Herodotus
Kindt, Julia ‘Guide to the classics: The Histories by Herodotus‘, The Conversation, 23 May 2016 For his pioneering critical enquiry into the past [Herodotus] was named “father of history” by Cicero. His love of stories and storytelling, however, was notorious…
York, Barry: Impossible becomes inevitable: my memory of the struggle against apartheid
York, Barry ‘When the impossible becomes inevitable: my memory of the struggle against apartheid‘, Museum of Australian Democracy Blog, 18 May 2016 Reminiscence of anti-apartheid activist now associated with the apartheid exhibition at MOADOPH, Canberra. Touches on his contacts with…
Armstrong, Mick: The radicalisation of the (Australian) campuses 1967-74
Mick Armstrong ‘The radicalisation of the campuses 1967-74‘, Australian National University course material for ‘Marxist interventions’ course Based on a chapter from Armstrong’s (now hard to get) book, One, Two Three, What are We Fighting For? (Socialist Alternative, Melbourne 2001).…
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Bright, Denis: The income divide in Australia: The return of class-based politics?
Bright, Denis ‘The income divide in Australia: the return of class-based politics?‘, Australian Independent Media Network, 19 May 2016 Gets beyond the politics of campaigning to look at some statistics – some of which have been used previously in the…
Wright, Clare: Who will be Australia’s future folk heroes?
Wright, Clare ‘Who will be Australia’s future folk heroes?‘ The Conversation, 19 May 2016 Riffs off the capture of five Australian citizens attempting to leave the country without passports, allegedly to fight in Syria. Compares Ned Kelly with Man Haron…
Babkenian, Vicken & Peter Stanley: Armenia, Australia and the Great War
Vicken Babkenian & Peter Stanley Armenia, Australia and the Great War, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016; available electronically Australian civilians worked for decades supporting the survivors and orphans of the Armenian Genocide. 24 April 1915 marks the beginning of two great epics of…
Babkenian, Vicken & Peter Stanley: ‘Armenian propaganda uses the ANZAC’ [sic]: A response
Babkenian, Vicken & Peter Stanley ‘”Armenian propaganda uses the ANZAC [sic]”: A response’, Honest History, 19 May 2016 The Australian Turkish Advocacy Alliance (ATA-A) website has published a review of Armenia, Australia and the Great War, by Vicken Babkenian and…
Who speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? (review of Babkenian and Stanley)
‘Who speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’ (review of Babkenian and Stanley), Honest History, 19 May 2016 Gareth Knapman reviews Armenia, Australia and the Great War by Vicken Babkenian and Peter Stanley ‘Who, after all, speaks today of…
Bruns, Axel: A first draft of the present: Why we must preserve social media content
Bruns, Axel ‘A first draft of the present: Why we must preserve social media content‘, The Conversation, 16 May 2016 History is written on the basis of records that survive and are accessible. Even journalism has traditionally been described as…
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Online Gem No. 9: Peter Norman: Australia’s greatest male sprinter (17 May 2016)
‘Online Gem No. 9: Peter Norman: Australia’s greatest male sprinter’, Honest History, 17 May 2016 updated Peter Norman (born 1942) was a remarkable Australian athlete. Through his achievement at the Mexico Olympic Games and his response to that achievement he…
Pascoe, Bruce: Dark Emu: Black Seeds, Agriculture or Accident?
Bruce Pascoe Dark Emu: Black Seeds, Agriculture or Accident? Magabala Books, Broome WA, 2014 (and later editions) Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the “hunter-gatherer” tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have…
Newton, Douglas: The Centenary of the Great War – and Anzac (five articles)
Newton, Douglas ‘The Centenary of the Great War – and Anzac‘, Pearls and Irritations, 7 May 2016 This overview article links to four others on changing war aims during the Great War and lost opportunities for peace 1914-18. As well…
Douglas Newton confronts the really important questions about war
‘Douglas Newton confronts the really important questions about war’, Honest History, 16 May 2016 David Stephens reviews five articles by Douglas Newton that take us ‘behind the scenes’ in the Great War. The piece also appears in John Menadue’s blog,…
A rectangular state of mind: Australian-American relations then and now – still soldiering on
Many years ago, President Lyndon Baines Johnson thought of Australia as ‘the next large rectangular state beyond El Paso‘. Other American presidents may have felt similarly and some Australian governments have done their best to reinforce this attitude – with,…
ABC RN The Drawing Room: How Greeks Americanised Australia
ABC RN ‘How Greeks Americanised Australia‘, The Drawing Room, 22 March 2016 A tribute (audio, no transcript) to Paragon Cafes throughout the wide brown land. Effy Alexakis and Leonard Janiszewski talk to Patricia Karvelas about their extensive work on Greek…
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War Memorial responds to Honest History questions about poppies
The Australian War Memorial has responded to questions from Honest History about the practice of placing red artificial poppies on exhibits at the Memorial. The response has been published unamended in our Centenary Watch column ahead of the original item…
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Curnoe, Darren: Ancient Australia: world’s first nation of innovators
Curnoe, Darren ‘Ancient Australia: world’s first nation of innovators‘, The Conversation, 11 May 2016 Discoveries of Indigenous Australian history discount the idea that pre-European society was ‘primitive’. Instead, ‘the continent’s Indigenous people were truly pioneers in the global (collective) journey…
Muldoon, Paul & Adrian Little: Indigenous reconciliation opens old wounds
Muldoon, Paul & Adrian Little ‘Indigenous reconciliation is hard, it re-opens wounds to heal them‘, The Conversation, 11 May 2016 First of a series, linking from this article, about the issues surrounding reconciliation (or treaty), starting from the assumption that…
Slezak, Michael: Historical rainfall record shows water management flawed
Slezak, Michael ‘Water management flawed owing to vastly underestimated drought risk, study finds‘, Guardian Australia, 11 May 2016 updated Drought and flood risk in New South Wales is vastly underestimated, with weather in the past 100 years being unusually stable…
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Snyder, Timothy: Poland vs history (Australian comparisons not far beneath)
Timothy Snyder ‘Poland vs history‘, New York Review of Books, 3 May 2016 updated In its exhibitions, the Museum of the Second World War [in Gdańsk, Poland] promised to tell the story of the 1930s and 1940s in an entirely…
McLean, Ian: With secrecy and despatch (review of exhibition)
McLean, Ian ‘With secrecy and despatch‘, Artlink, April 2016 This is a review of an exhibition (With Secrecy and Despatch, 9 April-12 June) at the Campbelltown Arts Centre on Australian and Canadian contemporary Indigenous art. It also touches on When…
Bongiorno, Frank: lessons from history on election campaigning
Bongiorno, Frank ‘Lessons from history in how to run a good election campaign – or how to avoid a really bad one‘, The Conversation, 9 May 2016 Don’t make yourself a big target, don’t write a (policy) book – or…
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The dogs of war at home and abroad: miscellany
(Australian Electoral Commission) As the election is announced, complete with warlike metaphors, it is timely to look at some other slices of our history, past and present, where war is rather more real or more possible. (Honest History will probably…
ABC Radio National Earshot: Hot summer land: anticipation, fires, rivers
ABC Radio National ‘Hot summer land [three parts], Earshot, 18-20 April 2016 updated Part one: anticipation; part two: fires; part three: rivers. Listeners’ stories and guest commentary (host Kirsti Melville) on how the Australian landscape changed during the three months…
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Daley, Paul: Australian patriotism: it’s not about war, it’s in our love of the land
Paul Daley ‘Australian patriotism: it’s not about war, it’s in our love of the land‘, Guardian Australia, 7 May 2016 updated Daley rejects violent metaphors for election campaigns and suggests patriotism, always evoked at such times, is more subtle and…
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Announcement of new appointments to Australian War Memorial Council
Update 11 May 2016: a spokesperson for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs has advised that Wing Commander Bown commences her term on 3 June 2016 and Corporal Keighran commences his term on 30 June 2016. Minister Tehan has announced the…
Honest History distinguished supporters feature at Sydney Writers Festival
The Sydney Writers Festival is on again from 16 to 22 May in, naturally enough, Sydney (and environs). Among the people featuring are a number of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, Michelle Arrow, Frank Bongiorno, Anna Clark, Carolyn Holbrook (also committee…
Commonwealth Budget 2016 and the size and direction of government
‘Commonwealth Budget 2016 and the size and direction of government’, Honest History, 5 May 2016 updated There has been lots of Budget analysis. Honest History wishes only to note the specifically commemorative elements and pick out some other aspects that…
ABC Radio National Big Ideas: Shell shock: a century of silence
ABC Radio National ‘Shell shock: a century of silence‘, Big Ideas, 25 April 2016 The affects and significance of shell shock have been underplayed for a century, according to Yale emeritus professor, Jay Winter. (Professor Winter is also associated with…
Review note: Griffith Review 52 ‘Imagining the future’
‘Review note: Griffith Review 52 ‘Imagining the future’’, Honest History, 2 May 2016 updated This quick look at Griffith Review 52 ‘Imagining the future’ is more of an alert than a review. It is difficult to keep up with the…
ABC RN The Drawing Room: History of mental illness in Australia
ABC Radio National ‘A history of mental illness in Australia‘, The Drawing Room, 28 April 2016 Patricia Karvelas talks to Professor Katie Holmes of La Trobe and Professor Mark Finnane of Griffith on aspects of mental illness, including inter-generational impacts…
Professor Stuart Macintyre wins inaugural Ernest Scott Prize for Australia’s Boldest Experiment
Professor Stuart Macintyre of the University of Melbourne has been awarded the inaugural Ernest Scott Prize for his book Australia’s Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s. A review note of the book is here and there is also…
Brown, AJ: Reforming the Federation requires strong bipartisan support
Brown, AJ ‘To really reform the federation, you must build strong bipartisan support‘, The Conversation, 26 April 2016 Includes results of a survey of politicians, state and federal. The survey found an issue that stood out. But where the most…
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Their Great War and ours: the commemorative view from Europe
There was an interesting presentation at UNSW Canberra yesterday from Professor Oliver Janz of the Free University of Berlin. It brought out some differences between the way World War I is being commemorated in Germany, France and the United Kingdom.…
Anzac Day miscellany 2016
Update 30 August 2016: Mick Cook (The Dead Prussian Podcast) talked to Sharon Mascall-Dare about Indigenous and non-Anglo Celtic Anzacs. Thirty minutes but no transcript. Update 27 May 2016: we found this one much later, paragraphs lurking at the beginning…
Clark, Anna: Private Lives, Public History
Clark, Anna Private Lives, Public History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2016 The past is consumed on a grand scale: popularised by television programs, enjoyed by reading groups, walking groups, historical societies and heritage tours, and supported by unprecedented digital…
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Lockhart, Greg: Gallipoli reckoning (review of Roberts and Uyar)
Lockhart, Greg ‘Gallipoli reckoning‘, Sydney Review of Books, 22 April 2016 Long review of The Landing at Anzac by Chris Roberts (2013) and The Ottoman Defence against the Anzac Landing, 25 April 1915 by Mesut Uyar (2015), which are appropriately…
Henry, Adam Hughes: The Gatekeepers of Australian Foreign Policy 1950-1966
Henry, Adam Hughes The Gatekeepers of Australian Foreign Policy 1950-1966, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2015 Analyses the role of, and networks between, important individuals, elected and in the bureaucracy, as they influenced the direction of Australian foreign policy during…
Frame, Tom, ed.: Anzac Day: Then & Now
Frame, Tom, ed. Anzac Day: Then & Now, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 John Connor, Jeff Doyle, Tom Frame, Michael Gladwin, Jeffrey Grey, Carolyn Holbrook, Ken Inglis, Gareth Knapman, John A. Moses, Heather Neilson, Robert Nichols, Christina Spittel and Peter Stanley explore…
Honest History: Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial
Update 13 June 2017: Look for the second edition of the Alternative Guide here. It contains pretty much everything that was in the first edition plus new material on World War II and later conflicts. The first edition has been…
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Recently on Honest History: under our thumbnails
It is six weeks since our last newsletter and we have been busy. You can track much of what has appeared on the website during that time by scrolling down Top Recent Posts, Reviews and Features. Or look at the…
Orthodoxy at the top (review of Henry’s The Gatekeepers)
‘Orthodoxy at the top’ (review of Henry’s The Gatekeepers), Honest History, 26 April 2016 Derek Abbott* reviews The Gatekeepers of Australian Foreign Policy 1950-1966 by Adam Hughes Henry Examinations of the ‘culture’ of institutions, industries and sectors of society are…
Anzac Day then and now – and probably for the future (review of Frame anthology)
‘Anzac Day then and now – and probably for the future’ (review of Frame anthology), Honest History, 26 April 2016 Paddy Gourley reviews Anzac Day: Then & Now, edited by Tom Frame. This book has been produced by the Australian…
Ankara calling: the rush to build the Ataturk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85
‘Ankara calling: the rush to build the Atatürk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85’, Honest History, 26 April 2016 (Note: a summary version of this article appeared in Pearls and Irritations.; an extended two-part version, using more sources, commences here.)…
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More on the Australian pilgrimages to Gallipoli, 1960 and 1965
‘More on the Australian pilgrimages to Gallipoli, 1960 and 1965’, Honest History, 26 April 2016 In Honest History’s work on the provenance of the alleged ‘Atatürk words’ of 1934 (‘Those heroes that shed their blood …’), we have found isolated…
Review note: a reasonably flexible Anzac Day package from DVA for little kids
‘Review note: a reasonably flexible Anzac Day package from DVA for little kids’, Honest History, 26 April 2016 Honest History has often been critical of the products the official commemoration industry puts in front of children. We thought the prize-winning…
Across the sea to Ireland: Australians and the Easter Rising 1916 – highlights reel
‘Across the sea to Ireland: Australians and the Easter Rising 1916 – highlights reel’, Honest History, 26 April 2016 updated Update 22 February 2017: Stephanie James paper for UNSW Canberra: ‘Australian Political Perceptions of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin’.…
Centenary Watch updates April-June 2016
[Links checked 16 November 2017 and all found to be live. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Update 24 May 2016: Honest History sends copy of…
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Review note: Vietnam – the war that made us what?
‘Review note: Vietnam – the war that made us what?’ Honest History, 26 April 2016 SBS showed a three-part series on the Vietnam War, Vietnam: The War that Made Australia (now on video), which had an unusually narrow focus and…
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McAuley, Ian: How the deficit obsession is eroding the budget’s usefulness
McAuley, Ian ‘How the deficit obsession is eroding the budget’s usefulness‘, The Conversation, 21 April 2016 Over many years the budget has morphed from an economic statement explaining how the government allocates resources, to a fiscal statement. The emphasis has…
Irving, Nick: Glorifying the Anzac myth and our attitudes to violent men
Irving, Nick ‘What does glorifying the Anzac myth say about our attitudes to violent men today?‘ Junkee, 21 April 2016 Reflections on Anzac leave out the violence that soldiers inflict. The author looks at remarks by David Morrison as head…
Kaine, Sarah: State of the union(s): perfect storm weakened workers’ voices
Kaine, Sarah ‘The state of the union(s): how a perfect storm weakened the workers’ voices‘, The Conversation, 21 April 2016 The author says that, given the current political focus on unions, an observer would think Australian unions were at the…
From the Honest History Archives: Five arguments for downsizing Anzac
Added to our collection ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery‘ is this article from March last year by David Stephens. It was originally published in Teaching History, the journal of the History Teachers’ Association…
Newton, Douglas: Hard questions we should face on Anzac Day 2016
Newton, Douglas ‘The hard questions we should face on Anzac Day 2016‘, Pearls and Irritations, 20 April 2016 Short, sharp piece by historian of the Great War. He asks: Why were Australians so exposed in this protracted catastrophe? (essentially, because…
Doyle, Brian: The national sport
Doyle, Brian ‘The national sport‘, The American Scholar, 15 April 2016 An American offers a note on Australian football – and does it in one long, lyrical paragraph. He is from the Pacific North-West so perhaps we should expect this.…
Tavan, Gwenda: Bipartisanship on immigration but racism, suspicion, division
Tavan, Gwenda ‘Ideas for Australia: bipartisanship on immigration does little to counter racism, suspicion and division‘, The Conversation, 20 April 2016 Immigration seems unlikely to be a big issue at the impending election, a matter which the author deprecates. [T]he…
A quieter year this year? Anzac Week news and reflections
These few links are taken at random from media coverage of what looks like being a quieter Anzac Day. Perhaps we are wrong. We’ll see. In any case, the quieter build-up has given some observers a chance to make some…
Alomes, Stephen: Our national folly: war romance and the Australian national imaginary
Alomes, Stephen ‘Our national folly: war romance and the Australian national imaginary‘, Anne-Marie Hede & Ruth Rentchsler, ed., Reflections on ANZAC Day: From One Millennium to the Next, Heidelberg Press, Heidelberg, Vic., 2010, pp. 89-105 (text made available by the…
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Daley, Paul: Canberra’s vision of the ideal city gets mired in ‘mediocrity’
Paul Daley ‘Story of cities #17: Canberra’s vision of the ideal city gets mired in “mediocrity”‘, Guardian, 7 April 2016 Long article for London Guardian about the history of Canberra. Daley has written a book on the city also. This…
Gilpin Faust, Drew: Two wars and the long twentieth century
Gilpin Faust, Drew ‘Two wars and the long twentieth century‘, New Yorker, 13 March 2015 Honest History just found this one but it is a useful comparison of the American Civil War and the Great War in terms of the…
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From the Honest History Archives: Will you be whistling this sentimental ditty for Anzac Day 2016?
Added to our collection ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery‘ is a link to extracts from a speech by Honest History committee member, Carolyn Holbrook, in Fremantle about this time last year. We noted…
Reynolds, Henry: Unnecessary Wars
Henry Reynolds Unnecessary Wars, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 Update 21 October 2017: Henry Reynolds on unnecessary wars (Brisbane Peace Lecture 2017, as broadcast on ABC RN) ‘Australian governments find it easy to go to war. Their leaders seem to be able…
Stan Grant to head Referendum Council on Indigenous recognition
Stan Grant, Wiradjuri journalist, is to head the Referendum Council on Indigenous recognition in the Australian Constitution. He has been appointed by the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. He replaces Pat Dodson, who is becoming a Labor…
Twenty-five years since Deaths in Custody Royal Commission: Honest History miscellany
‘Twenty-five years since Deaths in Custody Royal Commission: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 15 April 2016 Taking a line through the dozen or so news reports and pieces of commentary below, we do not attempt any summing up other than…
Kaching! Another $5 million from corporates to the Anzac spend
The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Dan Tehan, has announced a $5 million donation to the Anzac Centenary Public Fund from Suncorp, one of Australia’s largest financial services companies. The money will go towards refurbishing…
Fathi, Romain: Is Australia spending too much on the “Anzac centenary”? (plus HH background on spending politics)
Update 14 April 2016: Kaching! Another $5 million from corporates The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Dan Tehan, has announced a $5 million donation to the Anzac Centenary Public Fund from Suncorp, one of Australia’s…
Is Australia spending too much on the “Anzac centenary”? A comparison with France
Romain Fathi ‘Is Australia spending too much on the “Anzac centenary”? A comparison with France’, Honest History, 14 April 2016 How much exactly does the commemoration of the ‘Anzac centenary’ cost the Australian taxpayer? The group Honest History documents that,…
Keeping up with the Anzac centenary: have we passed ‘Peak Anzac’?
‘Keeping up with the Anzac centenary: have we passed “Peak Anzac”? Honest History, 13 April 2016 The PHA seminar of 5 April The Professional Historians Association (Victoria) held a seminar on 5 April ‘reflecting on the Anzac centenary and memorialisation’.…
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Holbrook, Carolyn: Anzac centenary and memorialisation: speech to PHA (Vic)
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Professional Historians Association Historically Speaking: Reflecting on the Anzac centenary and memorialisation (Emerald Hill Library and Heritage Centre, South Melbourne, 5 April 2016)’, Honest History, 13 April 2016 My work has centred on the history of how Australians…
Tout-Smith, Deborah: Anzac centenary and memorialisation: speech to PHA (Vic)
Deborah Tout-Smith ‘Professional Historians Association Historically Speaking series, 5 April 2016: Reflecting on the Anzac centenary and memorialisation’, Honest History, 13 April 2016 I’d like to begin my reflections by acknowledging the size of the audience for the World War…
Frontier Wars commemoration in Canberra in Anzac Week
There will be a number of Frontier Wars-related events in Canberra in the week leading up to Anzac Day: Frontier Wars Story Camp 2016, 18-24 April at the Aboriginal Embassy (details on Facebook; flyer); Dr Libby Connors, University of Southern…
Online gem No. 8: Betty Cuthbert, champion athlete (12 April 2016)
‘Online gem No. 8: Betty Cuthbert, champion athlete (12 April 2016)’, Honest History, 12 April 2016 Update 25 July 2016: one aspect of the 1956 Olympics was the TV coverage, which created its own issues but set the early parameters…
From the Honest History Archives: Douglas Newton unpicks the Great War
Added to our collection ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery‘ is one of two forensic speeches by historian Douglas Newton in Anzac Week 2015. The speech covers respect for the dead, what Anzac commemorations…
Bain, Kevin: Review of Klaus Neumann’s Across the Seas: Australia’s response to refugees
Bain, Kevin ‘Review: Klaus Neumann’s Across the Seas: Australia’s response to refugees: a history‘, Independent Australia, 19 March 2016 Long, descriptive review of this book, published last year by Penguin, also reviewed in Fairfax, The Australian, Resident Judge blog, Sydney…
SBS and ‘Anzac tweets’ reporter resolve dispute
SBS has resolved its dispute with former sports reporter, Scott McIntyre, who was sacked in 2015 after tweeting a number of comments on Anzac commemoration. The settlement terms were confidential. More. Still more. McIntyre is still without a job. Some…
Stephens, David: Bill Shorten’s Royal Commission proposal: Labor and banks go way, way back
Stephens, David ‘Bill Shorten’s Royal Commission proposal: Labor and the banks go way, way back‘, Pearls and Irritations, 9 April 2016 and updated Update of some earlier material on the Honest History site about the history of Labor’s relations with…
Marsh, Ian: What’s wrong with Australian politics (Parts 1-3)
Marsh, Ian ‘What’s wrong with Australia’s political system?‘; ‘Disaffected electorates? Dysfunctional political systems?‘; ‘What’s wrong with Australian politics?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 4, 5, 7 April 2016 updated People fail to recognise ‘that the political world is … a complex interdependent…
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Labor call for banking Royal Commission has historical echoes aplenty
Update December 2017: a Royal Commission of a different feather is announced. Update June-September 2016: more from Humphrey McQueen and others. Update 9 April 2016: updated article on Pearls and Irritation website. ______________ Opposition Leader Shorten has called for a…
From the Honest History Archives: Genevieve Jacobs’ elegiac ‘Anzac Day at Wallendbeen’
Added to our collection ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery‘ is the 2014 Anzac Day address at Wallendbeen by Genevieve Jacobs, local resident, ABC Canberra presenter and host of the regular Honest History spot…
Fuller, Robert S.: Ancient Aboriginal star maps have shaped Australia’s highway network
Fuller, Robert S. ‘How ancient Aboriginal star maps have shaped Australia’s highway network‘, The Conversation, 7 April 2016 Fuller writes about the extensive network of trade routes used by Aboriginal people before 1788 for trading in goods and stories. Aboriginal…
Protest at Turkish government treatment of dissidents
Updated 8 April 2016: John Tulloh, former foreign editor, makes a useful point at the beginning of a piece in Pearls and Irritations on current Turkish politics: It is the time of the year when we have our annual bout…
Jabour, Bridie: Boomers and millenials: not intergenerational but class warfare
Jabour, Bridie ‘Boomers and millenials: this is not intergenerational warfare, it’s class warfare‘, Guardian Australia, 6 April 2016 Talk about intergenerational conflict is really about class conflict, based on differential access to capital, particularly housing. Some millenials can rely on…
101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide: Honest History miscellany
‘101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide: another April date that today’s Australians overlook’, Honest History, 6 April 2016 updated Update 23 April 2019: a new book by Israeli historians, Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi, The Thirty-Year Genocide, is reviewed by…
Miles, Elaine, et al.: This summer’s sea temperatures were the hottest on record for Australia
Miles, Elaine, Claire Spillman, David Jones & David Walland ‘This summer’s sea temperatures were the hottest on record for Australia: here’s why‘, The Conversation, 5 April 2016 updated Recent update on the Great Barrier Reef 20, 28 April 2016, May,…
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Colebatch, Tim: Australia’s urban boom: the latest evidence
Colebatch, Tim ‘Australia’s urban boom: the latest evidence‘, Inside Story, 5 April 2016 Sometime over the next three months, Sydney’s population will reach five million. If Melbourne keeps growing at its current pace, by 2020 it too will have five million…
Daley, Paul: Lachlan Macquarie was no humanitarian
Daley, Paul ‘Lachlan Macquarie was no humanitarian: his own words show he was a terrorist‘, Guardian Australia, 5 April 2016 Discusses the strategy employed towards Indigenous Australians by New South Wales Governor (1810-22) Lachlan Macquarie. Macquarie is perhaps the most…
Stanley, Peter, et al: From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery
Stanley, Peter, et al. ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery’, Honest History, April 2016 Honest History as a coalition has been going for three years. We have been publishing newsletters since May 2013 and…
Invasion, massacre and the Queen’s uniform: Honest History miscellany
‘Invasion, massacre and the Queen’s uniform: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 4 April 2016 updated This little collection pulls together a few threads relating to the following: the event of 1788 and afterwards that some of us call ‘white settlement’…
Smith, Tony: I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier
Smith, Tony ‘“I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier”: a presentation to the National Folklore Conference, Canberra, Easter 2016‘, Australian Folklore Network, April 2016 Starts from the broad context of the Anzac centenary, looks at the range of…
Carr, Nicholas: When our culture’s past is lost in the cloud
Carr, Nicholas ‘When our culture’s past is lost in the cloud‘, Washington Post, 25 March 2016 A review of Abby Smith Rumsey’s book When We are No More: How Digital Memory is Shaping our Future. (Perhaps significantly, some editions of…
Wading deeper into the South China Sea: three thoughtful pieces
Update 22 July 2016: The international arbitration between China and the Philippines has been completed. Marion Diamond looks at the deep background, viz. Grotius and freedom of the seas. _________________________ Honest History has followed developments in the South China Sea…
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Review note: Kristen Alexander’s Taking Flight (Lores Bonney)
‘Review note: Taking Flight: Lores Bonney’s Extraordinary Flying Career‘, Honest History, 31 March 2016 It is rare that the word ‘extraordinary’ is justified in the writing of biography. Intrinsic to the craft are stories worth telling, lives less ordinary. In…
Honest History’s David Stephens on 6PR Perth Drive with Adam Shand
Adam Shand on 6PR looked at issues to do with travel to Turkey, in the wake of DFAT upgrading travel alerts. He put questions to HH’s David Stephens about commemoration and appropriateness. Among other things, Stephens said that, if Anzac…
Daley, Paul: It’s not “politically correct” to say Australia was invaded, it’s history
Daley, Paul ‘It’s not “politically correct” to say Australia was invaded, it’s history‘, Guardian Australia, 30 March 2016 updated This article comments on the Daily Telegraph‘s comment on a diversity guide at the University of New South Wales, pointing out…
Barnwell, Ashley: The Secret River, silences and our nation’s history
Barnwell, Ashley ‘The Secret River, silences and our nation’s history‘, The Conversation, 28 March 2016 Explores the controversy surrounding the current stage adaptation of Kate Grenville’s novel, The Secret River. This controversy extends that associated with the original book: it…
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Congratulations to Honest History distinguished supporters shortlisted for Ernest Scott Prize
Stuart Macintyre of the University of Melbourne and Frank Bongiorno of the Australian National University are among the authors shortlisted for the Ernest Scott Prize for 2016, awarded by the Australian Historical Association. Professor Macintyre (shortlisted for Australia’s Boldest Experiment)…
Brennan, Frank: Deja vu for Timor as Turnbull neglects boundary talks
Brennan, Frank ‘Deja vu for Timor as Turnbull neglects boundary talks‘, Eureka Street, 21 March 2016 Looks at the history of and recent developments in the boundary dispute between Timor Leste and Australia. Oil and gas lies beneath the sea…
Review note: Certain Admissions by Gideon Haigh is a very Melbourne story
‘Review note: Certain Admissions by Gideon Haigh is a very Melbourne story’, Honest History, 24 March 2016 Update 30 August 2016: the book won the Ned Kelly award for 2016. This is a gripping ‘true crime’ story by a prolific…
Terrorism reprise in the wake of Belgian attacks and Lindt inquest: resources from the Honest History vault
We thought it would be useful today to bring out of the vault a collection we put together about a year ago on background to the then new anti-terrorism laws. It hangs off a review by Jeff Sparrow of a…
Many more Kiwis at Gallipoli than previously thought
New evidence uncovered in New Zealand strongly suggests twice as many New Zealanders served in the Dardanelles campaign than has previously been thought. Research by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and the New Zealand Defence Force shows more than…
Five Inside Stories and four Conversations: Honest History miscellany
‘Five Inside Stories and four Conversations: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 22 March 2016 updated Recent update on the Reef 20 April 2016: ABC report on the extent of bleaching, including map, showing particularly the extreme position in the northern…
Review note: UK-based Gallipoli 100 has useful resources for schools
‘Review note: UK-based Gallipoli 100 has useful resources for schools‘, Honest History, 17 March 2016 Gallipoli 100 is based in the United Kingdom and has put together some useful resources related to … yes, Gallipoli. The site includes information about…
Edwell, Penny: Review note: First World War Commemoration and Memory Conference, IWM North
Penny Edwell* ‘Review note: First World War Commemoration and Memory Conference, IWM North’, Honest History, 17 March 2016 Organised by the Imperial War Museum North Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers Network (FWW Network), the First World War: Commemoration and Memory…
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Wahlquist, Calla: how Australia embraced gun control after Port Arthur
Wahlquist, Calla ‘It took one massacre: how Australia embraced gun control after Port Arthur‘, Guardian Australia, 15 March 2016 Twenty years on from the Port Arthur massacre (35 dead, 23 wounded), the article traces how Prime Minister announced a package…
Liddle, Celeste: Looking past White Australia and white feminism
Liddle, Celeste ‘Looking past White Australia and white feminism‘, New Matilda, 9 March 2016 updated Update 17 March 2016: Liz Conor writes in New Matilda (excerpt from forthcoming book). Includes cringe-making cartoons and advertisements depicting Indigenous women. _______________ Arrernte woman…
Bird, Jacqueline: In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial
Bird, Jacqueline* ‘In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 15 March 2016 A detailed account of more than twenty years of history, leading up to the agreement by the Australian War Memorial…
Brookes, John: Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac
Brookes, John* ‘Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac‘, Honest History, 15 March 2016 The article explores how nationalism is ‘a politically constructed discourse designed to delineate and reveal a community to itself. The rise of Anzac in…
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Walsh, Michael JK & Andrekos Varnava, ed.: Australia and the Great War
Walsh, Michael JK & Andrekos Varnava, ed. Australia and the Great War: Identity, Memory and Mythology, MUP Academic, Carlton, 2016 Australia and the Great War explores both the immediate and long-term consequences of the war on this complex relationship, looking in…
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Martyrs’ Day in Turkey and what probably did not happen on 18 March 1934
‘Martyrs’ Day in Turkey and what probably did not happen on 18 March 1934: recent research from Cengiz Özakinci’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 updated Background The date 18 March marks the anniversary of the Ottoman naval victory in 1915,…
In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial
Jacqueline Bird ‘In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 * CONTENTS Opening comments Initial reaction to FB Smith’s work The 2008 trigger at the War Memorial The case against…
After the Fall: Singapore conference on World War I (review of Walsh and Varnava)
‘After the Fall: Singapore conference on World War I’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 updated David Stephens reviews Australia and the Great War: Identity, Memory and Mythology, edited by Michael JK Walsh and Andrekos Varnava Conference papers that wait too…
Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac
John Brookes* ‘Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac’, Honest History, 15 March 2015 Nationalism is a politically constructed discourse intended to delineate and reveal a community to itself. The rise of Anzac in Australia in the last…
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Centenary Watch updates March-April 2016
[Links checked 16 November 2017 and all found to be live. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Update 22 April 2016: Glorifying the Anzac myth and…
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Half the world away at home (review of Connor, Stanley & Yule)
‘Half the world away at home’ (review of Connor, Stanley & Yule), Honest History, 15 March 2016 Derek Abbott* reviews The War at Home: The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War Volume 4, by John Connor, Peter Stanley…
David Rieff: When history does more harm than good: Highlights reel
‘When history does more harm than good: highlights reel’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 David Rieff is about to publish a new book In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies. His short work, Against Remembrance, published in 2011,…
In case you missed them: recent posts on the Honest History site
It is six weeks since our last newsletter and we have been busy. You can track much of what has appeared on the website during that time by scrolling down Top recent posts, Reviews and Features. Or look at the…
Doing interesting history and want a gig on ABC Radio?
For two years now, Honest History and ABC Local Radio Canberra 666 and online across Australia have been co-operating in a fortnightly spot on Tuesday mornings. Honest History finds the talent and presenter Genevieve Jacobs makes the final pick and…
Bentley, Tom & Jonathan West: Time for a new consensus
Bentley, Tom & Jonathan West ‘Time for a new consensus: fostering Australia’s comparative advantages‘, Griffith Review 51 supplement, March 2016; available as pdf and electronically Australia has emerged from a spectacular resources boom without any clear approach to achieving growth…
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Defending the national tuckshop (again): Defence White Paper miscellany
Update 1 April 2016: four pieces on the South China Sea from former diplomats Broinowski, Miller and Woodward, published in Pearls and Irritations. ____________________ The title of this piece is pinched shamelessly from that of Michael Cathcart’s excellent book…
Grant, Stan: a 10-year-old girl has taken her own life
Grant, Stan ‘A 10-year-old girl has taken her own life. How can we possibly look away?‘, Guardian Australia, 9 March 2016 Discusses the death by suicide of a 10-year-old Indigenous girl in Western Australia, one of 19 Indigenous suicides in…
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Four reasons why the National Library of Australia is so valuable to Australia and Australians
The first three entries below are cut-and-pasted (with permission) from the Petherick Reading Room newsletter put out by the Library to Petherick readers. The fourth entry introduces to Trove those who do not know of it – or reminds those…
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Cox, Eva: Feminism has failed and needs a rethink
Cox, Eva ‘Feminism has failed and needs a rethink‘, The Conversation, 8 March 2016 The author says women achieved formal legal equality ‘but moving past that into wider social equity changes seems definitely to have stalled’. Partly due to neo-liberalism,…
Mendelssohn, Joanna: Breaking the silence: Australia must acknowledge a violent past
Mendelssohn, Joanna ‘Breaking the silence: Australia must acknowledge a violent past‘, The Conversation, 7 March 2016 Review of the exhibition, ‘When silence falls‘, at the Art Gallery of NSW till 1 May. From the northern tip of Cape York to…
Review note: Remembering Ben Chifley by Suzanne Martin: well meant but flawed
‘Review note: Remembering Ben Chifley by Suzanne Martin: well meant but flawed’, Honest History, 5 March 2016 This is a well meant but flawed book about one of our most attractive prime ministers. The author is Chifley’s great-niece, her sisters…
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PM’s remembrance rhetoric and alleged DVA performance: a fascinating juxtaposition
Two events in the last week juxtaposed enlightened commemorative rhetoric and complaints about bureaucracy. The rhetoric came from the prime minister on 26 February, opening the new Soldier On Robert Poate Reintegration and Recovery Centre in Canberra. It is critical…
Marshall, Daniel: Does Australia need a Queer History month?
Marshall, Daniel ‘Does Australia need a Queer History month?‘ The Conversation, 3 March 2016 In the wake of the Safe Schools controversy and just after the NSW Parliament and NSW Police apologise for the treatment of Gay and Lesbian marchers…
Abjorensen, Norman: The meaning of John Howard
Abjorensen, Norman ‘The meaning of John Howard‘, Inside Story, 1 March 2016 updated Written to mark the 20th anniversary of the coming to power of the Howard Government. Abjorensen is the doyen of the rise and fall of prime ministers,…
Murphy, Katharine: The politics we deserve
Murphy, Katharine ‘The politics we deserve‘, Meanjin, 74, 4, Summer 2015 The writer is deputy political editor of Guardian Australia. We are posting this link not much more than four months after the article was written – we had missed…
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Stephens, David: Malcolm Turnbull’s post-Anzac pitch to the Australian Defence Force
Stephens, David ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s post-Anzac pitch to the Australian Defence Force‘, Pearls and Irritations, 2 March 2016 Looks at a recent speech from the prime minister and a later doorstop (just prior to the release of the Defence White Paper)…
McQuire, Amy: the viral rise of Stan Grant: why diplomacy won’t be enough
McQuire, Amy ‘The viral rise of Stan Grant: why diplomacy won’t be enough for our people‘, New Matilda, 26 February 2016 The reaction to [Grant’s speech], the thought that maybe Australians are “better than this” … gives strength to many…
Fathi, Romain: ‘A piece of Australia in France’: Anzac Day at Villers-Bretonneux
Fathi, Romain ‘”A piece of Australia in France”: Australian authorities and the commemoration of Anzac Day at Villers-Bretonneux in the last decade’, Shanti Sumartojo & Ben Wellings, ed. Nation, Memory and Great War Communication, Peter Lang, Bern & Oxford, 2014,…
New Minister gets (smaller) commemoration bandwagon rolling
The latest Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Dan Tehan MP, was on his feet today in the Parliament taking note of the 25th anniversary of the end of the Gulf War in 1991 and setting…
Wilkie, Douglas: La Trobe’s decision to postpone gold exploitation until after 1851
Wilkie, Douglas ‘Ten thousand fathoms deep: Charles Joseph La Trobe’s decision to postpone gold exploitation until after Separation from New South Wales in 1851‘, La Trobeana, 14, 1, March 2015, pp. 6-14 The beginning of the Victorian gold rushes and…