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The History Wars and You

• Michael Spurr
• History Teachers Association of Victoria

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History Wars

• An Introduction
• The Major Players
• The Debates
• The Classroom and You

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An Introduction

• History as contested
• Historical interpretation
• Politics and History
• Reflects underlying assumptions and concerns
  about the nature of Australian history and
  society

4
An Introduction

• History War as dominated discussion of
  particular topics in Australian History
• Similar to other history national debates
• US Culture Wars
• Smithsonian Museum Debate
• German Historikerstreit Historians Dispute

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The Flashpoints

• Frontier History
• Were there wars between European settlers and
  indigenous communities?
• Aboriginal Genocide
• Does Australia have a history of genocide?
• Stolen Generations
• Multiculturalism/White Australia Policy

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The Frontlines

• The Frontlines
• Politics
• Press, Television
• Journals and Periodical
• Academic and non-Academic Publications
• Museums
• Education Policy

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The Birth of Black Armband History

• Professor Geoffrey Blainey, 1993
• Black armband vs Three Cheers
• Three Cheers
• Whig History, positive development of a liberal
  democracy
• Black armband
• A history that recognises the unpalatable

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The Major Players

• Paul Keating
• The Monthly and QE
• Robert Manne
• Henry Reynolds
• Lyndall Ryan

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The Major Players

• John Howard
• The 'black armband' view of our history reflects
  a belief that most Australian history since 1788
  has been little more than a disgraceful story of
  imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and
  other forms of discrimination. (John Howard -
  1996 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture).
• Quadrant
• Geoffrey Blainey
• Keith Windschuttle
• Andrew Bolte

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Frontier Wars

• Reynolds
• 3,000 Europeans, 20,000 Aboriginal deaths in
  direct frontier violence
• With Lyndall Ryan argues that a guerrilla war
  against Europeans in Tasmania
• Windschuttle, The Fabrication of Aboriginal
  History
• Rejects notion of guerrilla war, argues Ryan and
  Reynolds falsify/distort evidence, no frontier
  war
• Rebuttals Manne (ed) Whitewash
• Plagiarism, manipulation of evidence

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Stolen Generation

• Bringing Them Home National Enquiry into the
  Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Straight
  Islanders from their Families
• Robert Manne, In Denial The Stolen Generation
  and the Right, Melbourne, 2001.
• Quadrant

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White Australia Policy

• Henry Reynolds North of Capricorn, The Untold
  Story of Australia's North, 2003
• WAP had a negative impact on development of
  Northern Australia
• Keith Windschuttle The White Australia Policy,
  2004
• WAP not informed by racism, based on social
  harmony

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National Museum

• National Museum of Australia
• Criticised Windschuttle "a repository of
  nothing more than the intellectual poverty of the
  tertiary-educated middle class of the
  post-Vietnam War era" that "panders to the same
  currently fashionable interest groups of women,
  ethnics and indigenes".

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Further Reading
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ON THE HOME FRONT

• History in the Classroom
• Matter of continuing attention
• National Enquiry
• Australian History Summit
• National Curriculum
• WHY MIGHT THE CLASSROOM MATTER IN SUCH DEBATES?