The Use And Abuse Of Australian History

This collection of engaging and vigorous essays examine what makes the 'history business' tick. Davison demonstrates that Australia's history can be relevant to the issues we confront everyday at the governmental level, at work, and in our communities.

A guide to the public statuary of Melbourne, based on two walks around the inner city. Many public monuments are often just accepted as part of the scene, but each statue or memorial has a story to tell whether about the sculptor, or the person or event it commemorates, and all of them represent a small piece of Melbourne history.

The past is capricious enough to support every stance - no matter how questionable. In 2002, the Bush administration decided that dealing with Saddam Hussein was like appeasing Hitler or Mussolini, and promptly invaded Iraq. Were they wrong to look to history for guidance? No; their mistake was to exaggerate one of its lessons while suppressing others of equal importance. History is often hijacked through suppression, manipulation, and, sometimes, even outright deception. MacMillan's book is packed full of examples of the abuses of history. In response, she urges us to treat the past with care and respect.

Sense and Nonsense in Australian History represents a lifetime's original reflection by Australia's most innovative and penetrating historian. Included here are classic essays on the pioneer legend, Australian egalitarianism and colonial culture. There are celebrated critiques of The Tyranny of Distance, multiculturalism and nationalistic history, as well as a substantial essay on Aboriginal dispossession and the history wars. In Sense and Nonsense in Australian History, John Hirst overturns familiar conceptions and deepens our sense of Australia's development from convict society to distinctive democracy.

The vast sweeping story of Aboriginal Australia from 1788 is told in Richard Broome's typical lucid and imaginative style. This is an important work of great scholarship, passion and imagination.' - Professor Lynette Russell, Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies, Monash University In the creation of any new society, there are winners and losers. So it was with Australia as it grew from a colonial outpost to an affluent society. Richard Broome tells the history of Australia from the standpoint of the original Australians: those who lost most in the early colonial struggle for power. Surveying over two centuries of Aboriginal-European encounters, he shows how white settlers steadily supplanted the original inhabitants, from the shining coasts to inland deserts, by sheer force of numbers, disease, technology and violence. He also tells the story of Aboriginal survival through resistance and accommodation, and traces the continuing Aboriginal struggle to move from the margins of a settler society to a more central place in modern Australia. Broome's Aboriginal Australians has long been regarded as the most authoritative account of black-white relations in Australia. This fifth edition continues the story, covering the impact of the Northern Territory Intervention, the mining boom in remote Australia, the Uluru Statement, the resurgence of interest in traditional Aboriginal knowledge and culture, and the new generation of Aboriginal leaders. 'Richard Broome's historical analysis breaks the back of every theoretical argument about colonialism and establishes a clear pathway to understanding the present situation.' - Sharon Meagher, Aboriginal Education Development Officer, Women's and Children's Hospital, Adelaide

A unique look at Australian history as seen through the perspective of the influence of alcohol In reading UNDER tHE INFLUENCE, I have not only discovered that alcohol has been integral to major events in Australian history, I have also found - as will many other readers - that it has also been integral to major events in the history of my own family. It's intoxicating to read the story of our country through the bottom of a glass. (from the Foreword by Mandy Sayer) UNDER tHE INFLUENCE is a unique look at Australian history as seen through the perspective of the influence of alcohol. Extremely readable and well researched, this book shows how the patterns for alcohol use (and abuse) can be traced back to the very early days of white settlement in Australia, taking us all the way up to the present day and our ongoing concerns about teenage drinking and alcohol-fuelled violence, as well as the role of the industry players in the promotion and packaging of an increasingly dizzying array of alcoholic products. Along the way we learn of the social, political and cultural facets of alcohol and it makes fascinating reading discovering what our attitude to alcohol says about who we are, who we care about, and what we care about.

In this compelling legal and social history of the origins and development of drug laws in Australia, Desmond Manderson traces, in a lively and irreverent style, the gradual politicization of the drug law debate. He argues that the selective enactment of drug laws has been driven by fear, racism, powerful international pressures, and the vested interests of the medical profession, bureaucrats, and politicians, rather than by genuine concerns about the welfare of users. Behind the controversy that surrounds illegal drug use lie previously unexamined assumptions about how and why certain substances, such as opium, heroin, and cannibis, have been prohibited, while others, namely tobacco and alcohol, have not. Manderson boldly challenges these assumptions, while evaluating the power and efficacy of law as a means of achieving social change.

"A Source Book of Australian History" is a concise full history of Australia from the discovery of Tasmania to the National Australian Convention and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia. The book was aimed at students interested in learning the subject. Each chapter has a short synopsis at the beginning to better comprehend the subject.

One of Australia's leading scholars and a highly distinguished professor of history, Marilyn Lake forged a career that spanned several decades across a number of universities. Her books have significantly advanced our understandings, not only of Australian social, cultural and political history but also of the interdependence of that history with those of Britain, the US and the Asia-Pacific. Lake's intellectual endeavours have encompassed many subjects over her illustrious career. She has made significant contribution to several fields including the impact of war and the history of Anzac, the history of feminism and women's history, gender, post-colonialism, race relations and racial identities, transnationalism and internationalism, human rights, biography, labour history, progressivist social reform, and settler colonialism. The chapters in this book span the breadth of Lake's scholarly influence on the directions historical research is taking today, and are based on papers by overseas colleagues and Australian scholars abroad, which were presented at a Festschrift held at the University of Melbourne over two days in December 2016. Lake has made an outstanding contribution to the history discipline, to the Australian academy, and to the community in promoting Australian history nationally and internationally. This volume is a tribute to her work and a recognition of her enduring influence and leadership in the profession.

This book tackles the historical relationship between colonial violence and monuments in Africa, Europe, the Indian subcontinent, North America, and Australia. In this volume, the authors ask similar questions about monuments in each location and answer them following a parallel structure that encourages comparison, highlighting common themes. The chapters track the contested histories of monuments, scrutinizing their narrative power and examining the violent events behind them. It is both about the history of monuments and the histories the monuments are meant to commemorate. It is interested in this nuanced relationship between violence, monuments, memory, and colonial legacies; the ways different facets of colonial violence—conquest, resistance, massacres, genocides, internments, and injustices—have been commemorated (or haven’t been), how they live in the present, and how pertinent they are in the present to different peoples. Legacies of colonial violence, and continued reinterpretations of the past and its meanings remain very much ongoing. They are still very much unsettled questions in large parts of the world. Colonial Violence and Monuments in Global History will be essential reading for students, scholars, and researchers of political science, history, sociology and colonial studies. The book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research.