Lewis Hyde A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past, Canongate, Edinburgh, 2019; originally published Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2019; electronic version available We live in a culture that prizes memory—how much we can store, the quality of…

Jack Holmes ‘Does it matter that the President knows nothing about history? We asked 3 historians‘, Esquire, 13 April 2019 From the politics editor of Esquire magazine, interviews three youngish American historians, riffing off the Trumpian ignorance of history (and…

Melanie Innes & Heather Sharp ‘World War I commemoration and student historical consciousness: a study of high-school students’ views‘, History Education Research Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, 26 October 2018, pp. 193-205 (open access) Establishes that ‘Gallipoli and, more broadly,…

Frank Bongiorno ‘Historical constructions of knowledge: Pymble Ladies College address, 12 September 2017‘ This address was delivered to History Extension students from Pymble and other schools. (Honest History representatives do these engagements frequently: contact admin@honesthistory.net.au to discuss possibilities.) All documents,…

Paul Daley ‘Statues are not history. Here are six in Australia that need rethinking‘, Guardian Australia, 25 August 2017 Daley targets statues of Lachlan Macquarie, John Batman, Thomas Mitchell, Angus McMillan, Alfred Canning and James Cook. We do not learn…

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…

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…

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…

Nevius, James ‘To teach only “American exceptionalism” is to ignore half the country’s story‘, Guardian Australia, 3 August 2015 Ostensibly an American story but relevant to every country, including Australia, where it is a theme Honest History has returned to…

Kelly, T. Mills ‘Teaching students to lie: historical method through hoaxes‘, The Conversation, 18 August 2012 Fifty-one posters commented on this article which claims that, when you teach students how to lie, they become better historians. Kelly’s aim is to…

Houlbrook, Matt ‘On being a one trick historian‘, The Trickster Prince, 29 June 2015 The author looks at why he always ends up writing the same sort of history. Habits shape and constrain how we work as historians. From the…

Sangha, Laura ‘What is history for? Or: doing history/thinking historically‘, The Many-headed Monster, 16 June 2015 Blog piece based on a lecture to a second year university class. Researching, says the author, ‘I was struck by the fact that the…

Conway, Michael ‘The problem with history classes‘, The Atlantic, 16 March 2015 Currently, most students learn history as a set narrative—a process that reinforces the mistaken idea that the past can be synthesized into a single, standardized chronicle of several…

Cutler, David ‘“You have to know history to actually teach it”‘, The Atlantic, 10 January 2014 Eric Foner is a Pulitzer Prize winner (2011 for The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery) who has written a number of books…

Clark, Anna ‘Inheriting the past: historical consciousness across generations‘, Historical Encounters, 1, 1, 2014, pp. 88-102 Despite significant research into the meaning and operation of historical consciousness, there is still much to be understood about its hereditary function. For example,…

Evans, Richard J. ‘The wonderfulness of us (the Tory interpretation of history‘, London Review of Books, 17 March 2011 This article was brought to our attention by a reference in Clive Logan’s Supplementary Material to the Report of the Curriculum…

Stephens, David ‘Donnelly-Wiltshire gunners fire a civilised salvo – but will Minister Pyne follow up?‘ Honest History, 15 October 2014 Analysis of the report of the national curriculum review, paying particularly attention to what it says about the teaching of…

Taylor, Tony ‘Evidence-free beliefs: history in the hands of the Coalition‘, The Conversation, 22 August 2014 The author anticipates the (possibly imminent) release of the Donnelly-Wiltshire report to Minister Pyne on the national curriculum, including the history component. He reports a survey…

Stephens, David ‘The children suffer‘, Honest History, 11 August 2014 A version (including links) of an article that appears on John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations. An earlier piece on the same subject appeared in Honest History’s first newsletter. There…

[Stanley, Peter] ‘Peter Stanley on history‘, NSW Writers’ Centre (2014) Transcript of brief interview in which Stanley answers questions: what inspired you to become an historian? what are the most challenging aspects of writing history? how do you choose your…

David Stephens ‘Minister Pyne and the curriculum – again’, Honest History, January 2014 (and updated) The preliminary report of the Donnelly-Wiltshire review was released in June 2014. Donnelly interviewed. Gary Foley and Elizabeth Muldoon question the treatment of Indigenous history…

Honest History ‘The national history curriculum and the coalition: Honest History Factsheet’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 5, September 2013 When you change the government, do you change the curriculum as well? Should you? This article brings together some Coalition remarks…

Hurst, Daniel ‘Say after the minister: old is new again‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 September 2013 Minister Pyne’s first extensive interview, touching on the history curriculum and other aspects. Comments from Honest History spokesperson.

Carr, EH What is History? Penguin, Camberwell, Vic., 2008; first published Macmillan, London, 1961; 2nd edition 1987 A slim classic. Some of the key passages relate to fish and they are directly relevant to the recurring battles over the nature…

Taylor, Tony ‘History in politics: neoconservative progressivism, knowledgeable ignorance and the origins of the next history war‘, History Australia, 10, 2, August 2013, pp. 227-40 This article outlines the relationship between neoconservative politics in Australia and history education. It categorises…

Taylor, Tony ‘Curriculum: a matter of history … and politics‘, Monash University: News and Events, 5 October 2012 Analyses a recent speech by former prime minister Howard, referring also to the response to it from the curriculum authority. (The author…

Macintyre, Stuart, ed. The Historian’s Conscience: Australian Historians on the Ethics of History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2004 The editor posed six questions to the contributors. Summarised: how do historians choose their histories? what balance do they strike between…

Clark, Anna Teaching the Nation: Politics and Pedagogy in Australian History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2006 Starts from Prime Minister’s Howard’s well-known remark in 2000 at Gallipoli that ‘history was not being taught as it should be in Australia’s…

Ann Curthoys & John Docker Is History Fiction? University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2010; first published 2005 ‘John Docker and Ann Curthoys find that history has a double character. It is both a rigorous scrutiny of sources, and,…