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Memory. Silence. Time.

A puzzling, provocative look at historiography
by
March 2022, no. 440

Making Australian History by Anna Clark

Vintage, $34.99 pb, 429 pp

Memory. Silence. Time.

A puzzling, provocative look at historiography
by
March 2022, no. 440

There are many ways one might write a history of Australian history, but from any angle it is a heroic project. In Making Australian History, Anna Clark is open about the difficulties, the possibilities, and her choices. How do you make sense of Australian history, she asks, amid a ‘swirl of changing sensibilities, methods, culture, politics and place’? How do you trace the story of a discipline across time, when each generation has defined the contours and boundaries of that discipline differently? How do you write a genuinely inclusive history of Australian History – one that gives due place to the full range of historical forms, not just those approved in academic circles?

Penny Russell reviews 'Making Australian History' by Anna Clark

Making Australian History

by Anna Clark

Vintage, $34.99 pb, 429 pp

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Comment (1)

  • This extensively researched book somewhat monotonously relates the appalling treatment served up to the original first colonists of Australia (and to the newly arrived convicts) by the second wave of colonist from UK -
    unfortunately similar to the ruthless suppression by waves of invaders throughout the history of the world from the Persians, Romans and Normans, through to the Russians in Ukraine and the Chinese in Tibet and with the Uyghurs today
    Posted by peter stride
    21 October 2022

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