What makes a good historian?
Good historians are supposed to allow the material they uncover to influence them, they are not supposed to carefully select and massage the evidence to fit some political or ideological position of the present. Windschuttle[*] does the latter, he has carefully picked the weak and insufficiently argued points in the body of work of what he clearly from the very beginning classified as his ‘political opponents’, and rather than carefully investigate and apply some unbiased scholarship and analysis, and thus attempt to mend such gap in our knowledge, he went on to prey on it. He simply commenced to twist and spin-doctor on the evidence he had in front of him, for the purpose of some specific political interests and positions of the present.
[*] I'll get to this fellow shortly, in case you quite reasonably don't know who this pseudo-historian is.
Robert Ørsted-Jensen, Frontier History Revisited – Colonial Queensland and the ‘History War’, P. 166
Despite my teasing click-bait (sorry!) I don't want you, dear reader, to be in any doubt about where I stand with regard to Bill Gammage in the context of Ørsted-Jensen’s definition. Bill indubitably falls within that definition of a "good" historian. And the pseudo-historian Keith Windschuttle equally indubitably doesn't, for the precise reasons identified by Ørsted-Jensen. Don't fuss if you don't know who Windschuttle is, we'll get to him shortly.
So, was my click-bait a lie? Not at all. My point is Bill's much more than just a "good" historian. Indeed, I would say he's indubitably a great historian. No, this most certainly doesn't mean I accept all his deductions, at least without more thought and consideration of the work of others. I know absolutely nothing about Bill's political opinions, although I can possibly guess at some of them. However, I make no secret of my own leanings.
While I detest the old fashioned straight-line, overly simplistic "left wing/right wing" dichotomies, many find them useful as a general guideline. If you're one of them, in general terms I'm left wing, but range somewhat up and down the scale depending on the time of day, whether I'm feeling depressed or joyous, what's happening around me and around the world, and, of course, any specific matter being considered or discussed.
While it's suited me at times to call myself a communist, I'm not a Marxist as I regard his conclusions to be seriously faulty and I don't necessarily agree with his history. It would probably be more accurate to describe me as a democratic socialist of the generally but-not-necessarily leftish persuasion.
And my point? Just that I can also recognise that incredibly rare beast, a great right wing historian. Geoffrey Blainey, both a voice and a tool of the right wing side in Australia's "History Wars" of the 1990s and 20 noughties. And don't be misled into believing that it's over. We're just in a "cold war" phase at present.
So what sets Blainey and Gammage apart from the run-of-the-mill "good" historians, many of whom verge on greatness? It's their capacity to posit daring theses in ways that set a trend for following historians and people of other fields of study, thought, and action to follow. Blainey's book Tyranny of Distance was a great work of history in its day. It turned our understandings about the reasons for what Blainey would call "the white settlement" and I would call "the white invasion" of Australia on their heads.
While the need for a place to send convicts is mostly accepted again these days (2016) as the primary reason for the 1788 expedition to Australia, it's also accepted that there were other considerations floating around as well. Well over 40 years after Blainey's book was published we're still arguing degrees of importance. Others may have been working along similar lines, others may have published similar works or made similar suggestions before, but Blainey made it his own with that book.
Similarly, while not as ground-breaking, nor as lasting in its influence, and more indicative of the times in which it was written, Blainey's Triumph of the Nomads brought the amazing success of the people I call the "First Australians" in settling and surviving in conditions the equal of the worst anywhere on earth for tens of thousands of years. This was a seminal work in my own developing understanding of the extent to which the white history of Australia has been artificially altered to minimise the successes achieved by these remarkable people, and which has led me to Bill Gammage's great work The Biggest Estate.
I'll be covering The Biggest Estate in much more detail in my review, and my opinion of the work is clear. So I won't go into any detail of why it's a great work of history here. But this is not Bill's only indubitably great piece of history. And his other is in such an amazingly different field as to really highlight Bill's abilities. During the current centenary years of World War 1 (1914-1918, in case any Americans think it was limited to the brief few months of their active albeit critical and brutally bloody involvement) there have been many histories produced, several of which are purportedly intended to be written from the soldiers' perspectives.
These works have depended for their material on the many diaries and letters that have surfaced over the years, written by men and in a few cases women who later died, were injured, or survived, and who experienced some of the trauma of that terrible conflict. There have been reprints and edited versions of some these letters and diaries, and some edited collections of the primary documents.
But did it ever occur to you, dear reader, that someone must have been the first to think of collecting together letters and diary entries of soldier participants, and publishing them with edited comments about what happened to the writers? Surely something like that must have happened way back in the 1920s, or 30s, or maybe the 50s. But no, it wasn't until Bill's great book The Broken Years, based on his 1970 doctoral thesis and finally published in 1976 that anyone thought to write about more than generals and general histories.
No-one had considered the writings of common soldiers to be of importance or relevance. I can't read Bill's great book without tears, which means because of my depression I can rarely look at it at all. I had a great uncle and a great grandfather killed in the war, and both my grandfathers were injured, one lost an arm. Bill's book brought to light for the first time for me why these men so rarely spoke of the war and their experiences.
The Broken Years has not only influenced the production of similar and, to my thinking, always at least slightly inferior books, but turned the ways the war was studied, right around to finally take proper account of the men who were killing, dying, screaming in no-man's-land, who were obliterated by artillery, lived in the most astoundingly appalling conditions, and returned scarred for life. It's unusual to find a history of Australia in World War 1 that doesn't now include at least some of this material.
So, yes, like Blainey, Bill is a great historian. Sadly, however, one has to write in Blainey's case that he was a great historian, although the works he wrote then are still great. He became a social commentator, and then allowed his thoughts in that regard influence his history, so one can no longer read his wiork without bearing that clear bias in mind.
And Keth Windschuttle? He switched from left to right, then publicising himself by making outrageous and false claims about Australian historians and Australian history, all tainted with his purpose in pushing Australia towards right wing politics by appealing to those in our community who viewed all academics and leftists with an overly jaundiced eye. Racists, homophobes, fantasists, conspiracy theorists, they were all chanters of the Windschuttle garbage. He was one of the leading warriors of the so-called “History Wars” in Australia.
My labelling of him as a "pseudo-historian" has little, if anything, to do with the fact he’s not qualified as a historian. I’ve lived long enough, have observed enough, have met enough people, and am intelligent enough (just!) to be more than happy to accept what might be called, without any intention of a patronising tone, “amateur” historians (I just can’t think of a better term off the top of my head, so my apologies to any I've unwittingly and unintentionally insulted). By these, I mean people without qualifications who carry out important work in the historians’ field.
Tertiary qualifications are far from the be-all-and-end-all of the making of a professional of any sort. I’ve met illiterate labourers and factory workers who make better experts in their field of interest than many with academic qualifications. And many who are, in fact, qualified historians also produce work that makes it fitting to label them “pseudo-historians” – and not just those who disagree with me!
Nonetheless, some who call themselves “historians” aren’t. Nothing can stop them calling themselves a “historian”, unlike medical practitioners or police officers, and I most certainly don't believe there should be any such limitations. But to be an actual "historian" requires much, much more skill and probity than simply applying the label.
Almost unbelievably, Windschuttle's self-promotion lifted him to the editorship of a journal called Quadrant. This magazine was established in an attempt to provide the right with claims of some sort of intellectual credibility. But it lost all such claims, if they ever existed, with Windschuttle's appointment, and it's become no more than a base for next-to-insane ranting. I suspect the few intellectuals on the right are understandably embarrassed by Quadrant's performance. If they're not that puts their claims to some sort of intellectual validity in considerable doubt.
I note, also, that while someone may, in fact, be a great historian, they don’t necessarily make a good social commentator. Geoffrey Blainey, take a bow.
So, was my click-bait a lie? Not at all. My point is Bill's much more than just a "good" historian. Indeed, I would say he's indubitably a great historian. No, this most certainly doesn't mean I accept all his deductions, at least without more thought and consideration of the work of others. I know absolutely nothing about Bill's political opinions, although I can possibly guess at some of them. However, I make no secret of my own leanings.
While I detest the old fashioned straight-line, overly simplistic "left wing/right wing" dichotomies, many find them useful as a general guideline. If you're one of them, in general terms I'm left wing, but range somewhat up and down the scale depending on the time of day, whether I'm feeling depressed or joyous, what's happening around me and around the world, and, of course, any specific matter being considered or discussed.
While it's suited me at times to call myself a communist, I'm not a Marxist as I regard his conclusions to be seriously faulty and I don't necessarily agree with his history. It would probably be more accurate to describe me as a democratic socialist of the generally but-not-necessarily leftish persuasion.
And my point? Just that I can also recognise that incredibly rare beast, a great right wing historian. Geoffrey Blainey, both a voice and a tool of the right wing side in Australia's "History Wars" of the 1990s and 20 noughties. And don't be misled into believing that it's over. We're just in a "cold war" phase at present.
So what sets Blainey and Gammage apart from the run-of-the-mill "good" historians, many of whom verge on greatness? It's their capacity to posit daring theses in ways that set a trend for following historians and people of other fields of study, thought, and action to follow. Blainey's book Tyranny of Distance was a great work of history in its day. It turned our understandings about the reasons for what Blainey would call "the white settlement" and I would call "the white invasion" of Australia on their heads.
While the need for a place to send convicts is mostly accepted again these days (2016) as the primary reason for the 1788 expedition to Australia, it's also accepted that there were other considerations floating around as well. Well over 40 years after Blainey's book was published we're still arguing degrees of importance. Others may have been working along similar lines, others may have published similar works or made similar suggestions before, but Blainey made it his own with that book.
Similarly, while not as ground-breaking, nor as lasting in its influence, and more indicative of the times in which it was written, Blainey's Triumph of the Nomads brought the amazing success of the people I call the "First Australians" in settling and surviving in conditions the equal of the worst anywhere on earth for tens of thousands of years. This was a seminal work in my own developing understanding of the extent to which the white history of Australia has been artificially altered to minimise the successes achieved by these remarkable people, and which has led me to Bill Gammage's great work The Biggest Estate.
I'll be covering The Biggest Estate in much more detail in my review, and my opinion of the work is clear. So I won't go into any detail of why it's a great work of history here. But this is not Bill's only indubitably great piece of history. And his other is in such an amazingly different field as to really highlight Bill's abilities. During the current centenary years of World War 1 (1914-1918, in case any Americans think it was limited to the brief few months of their active albeit critical and brutally bloody involvement) there have been many histories produced, several of which are purportedly intended to be written from the soldiers' perspectives.
These works have depended for their material on the many diaries and letters that have surfaced over the years, written by men and in a few cases women who later died, were injured, or survived, and who experienced some of the trauma of that terrible conflict. There have been reprints and edited versions of some these letters and diaries, and some edited collections of the primary documents.
But did it ever occur to you, dear reader, that someone must have been the first to think of collecting together letters and diary entries of soldier participants, and publishing them with edited comments about what happened to the writers? Surely something like that must have happened way back in the 1920s, or 30s, or maybe the 50s. But no, it wasn't until Bill's great book The Broken Years, based on his 1970 doctoral thesis and finally published in 1976 that anyone thought to write about more than generals and general histories.
No-one had considered the writings of common soldiers to be of importance or relevance. I can't read Bill's great book without tears, which means because of my depression I can rarely look at it at all. I had a great uncle and a great grandfather killed in the war, and both my grandfathers were injured, one lost an arm. Bill's book brought to light for the first time for me why these men so rarely spoke of the war and their experiences.
The Broken Years has not only influenced the production of similar and, to my thinking, always at least slightly inferior books, but turned the ways the war was studied, right around to finally take proper account of the men who were killing, dying, screaming in no-man's-land, who were obliterated by artillery, lived in the most astoundingly appalling conditions, and returned scarred for life. It's unusual to find a history of Australia in World War 1 that doesn't now include at least some of this material.
So, yes, like Blainey, Bill is a great historian. Sadly, however, one has to write in Blainey's case that he was a great historian, although the works he wrote then are still great. He became a social commentator, and then allowed his thoughts in that regard influence his history, so one can no longer read his wiork without bearing that clear bias in mind.
And Keth Windschuttle? He switched from left to right, then publicising himself by making outrageous and false claims about Australian historians and Australian history, all tainted with his purpose in pushing Australia towards right wing politics by appealing to those in our community who viewed all academics and leftists with an overly jaundiced eye. Racists, homophobes, fantasists, conspiracy theorists, they were all chanters of the Windschuttle garbage. He was one of the leading warriors of the so-called “History Wars” in Australia.
My labelling of him as a "pseudo-historian" has little, if anything, to do with the fact he’s not qualified as a historian. I’ve lived long enough, have observed enough, have met enough people, and am intelligent enough (just!) to be more than happy to accept what might be called, without any intention of a patronising tone, “amateur” historians (I just can’t think of a better term off the top of my head, so my apologies to any I've unwittingly and unintentionally insulted). By these, I mean people without qualifications who carry out important work in the historians’ field.
Tertiary qualifications are far from the be-all-and-end-all of the making of a professional of any sort. I’ve met illiterate labourers and factory workers who make better experts in their field of interest than many with academic qualifications. And many who are, in fact, qualified historians also produce work that makes it fitting to label them “pseudo-historians” – and not just those who disagree with me!
Nonetheless, some who call themselves “historians” aren’t. Nothing can stop them calling themselves a “historian”, unlike medical practitioners or police officers, and I most certainly don't believe there should be any such limitations. But to be an actual "historian" requires much, much more skill and probity than simply applying the label.
Almost unbelievably, Windschuttle's self-promotion lifted him to the editorship of a journal called Quadrant. This magazine was established in an attempt to provide the right with claims of some sort of intellectual credibility. But it lost all such claims, if they ever existed, with Windschuttle's appointment, and it's become no more than a base for next-to-insane ranting. I suspect the few intellectuals on the right are understandably embarrassed by Quadrant's performance. If they're not that puts their claims to some sort of intellectual validity in considerable doubt.
I note, also, that while someone may, in fact, be a great historian, they don’t necessarily make a good social commentator. Geoffrey Blainey, take a bow.
