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BOOK REVIEW
| Deborah Gare and David Ritter (eds), Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past since 1788, Thomson Learning Australia, South Melbourne, 2008. pp. xxxvii + 618. $82.95 paper.
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| This book of 19 'themes' or 'topics' in Australian history has already gained 'reading list' popularity in undergraduate and senior secondary school Australian history courses. Gare and Ritter have considered carefully the needs of their audiences and have melded core principles of historical and historiographical scholarship with an effective teaching and learning format. Nineteen sections explore topics from the 'Enlightenment' and Indigenous Australians' first contacts with non-Indigenous peoples through to the end of the Howard years. Each opens with one to four 'primary sources' offering one or more insights into key issues, events and characters relevant to the topic, and readers are encouraged through the prudent selection of each document and its bibliographic details to access the document in entirety and develop an awareness of its historical context. A second layer of context discovery is that of 'agenda setting' where readers encounter historically and historiographically important previously-published materials selected for inclusion on the basis of their sustained scholarly influence, sometimes controversial, in relation to the topic. The third sub-section or 'perspective' is a newly commissioned chapter by an eminent historian, with contributions often including commentary on the section's previous offerings but, foremost, bringing scholarship up to date. An 'opinion' piece, also new and by a leading commentator, either offers a literature review, addresses a more specific issue within the wider topic or, tantalisingly, invites a wholly new discussion. Each of the first four sub-sections opens with a short editorial introduction, and a final sub-section of 'further reading' enables readers to continue their journeys. The foreword claims that nearly 80 people have contributed new scholarship or offered previous works to the collection, but a survey of 'contents' alone indicates 130 contributors of primary and secondary source materials. |
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The book enables Australian historians to reacquaint themselves with – or learn anew – histories of Australia beyond their usual comfort zone in an experience that is highly instructive, pleasurable and, in some cases, challenging. For the purposes of brief review, I nevertheless chose to submit sections 10 and 11 on the Great War – my comfort zone – to a greater test. |
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The writings of Ashmead-Bartlett (1915) and CEW Bean (1941), as well as the Section 11 focus on the conscription plebiscites, are essential inclusions and whilst 'more experienced' scholars may be able to quote the documents from memory, each primary source is a vital inclusion for readers new to the history. The selection in Section 10 under 'agenda setting' of an edited version of Bill Gammage's 'Anzac' (1982) is clever not only for its provision of one early critical re-assessment but serves also as evidence of an historian's evolution of thought and expression over time – even when as follow-up to a work as ground-breaking and exemplary as The Broken Years (1974), a book recommended in the section's 'further reading' along with the works of 16 other historians (two by Bean). Such lists throughout the book afford valuable starting points for forays into the wider literature. |
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At some point during the book's production, the editors or publisher apparently decided to include no more than 18 recommendations for 'further reading' per section. At 18, the bibliography in Section 10 is one of the largest, and selecting the 18 from the sweep of primary and secondary sources on the Great War, especially on debates over whether 'Anzac' is more 'myth', 'legend' or 'tradition', would have presented a challenge to the editorial advisory board. Yet, the list consists of authors who have made numerous, notable or enduring contributions to the discourse; the same holds true for the 16 references in Section 11. |
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