'In Australia’s rush to commemorate all things Anzac, have we lost our ability to look beyond war as the central pillar of Australia’s history and identity?
'The passionate historians of the Honest History group argue that while war has been important to Australia – mostly for its impact on our citizens and our ideas of nationhood – we must question the stories we tell ourselves about our history. We must separate myth from reality – and to do that we need to reassess the historical evidence surrounding military myths.
'In this lively collection, renowned writers including Paul Daley, Mark McKenna, Peter Stanley, Carolyn Holbrook, Mark Dapin, Carmen Lawrence, Stuart Macintyre, Frank Bongiorno and Larissa Behrendt explore not only the militarisation of our history but the alternative narratives swamped under the khaki-wash – Indigenous history, frontier conflict, multiculturalism, the myth of egalitarianism, economics and the environment'.(Publication summary)
'In their introduction to this collection, David Stephens and Alison Broinowski distinguish between ‘honest history’, the concept, and ‘honest history’, the coalition: a group of (mostly) historians disturbed at the unbalanced mobilisation of Australia's past for political purposes. The Honest History Book is a reflection of that coalition and its concerns. Here, ‘dishonest history’ resides largely in politicians’ persistent and exaggerated emphasis on the importance of Anzac in the making of Australia, otherwise termed ‘Anzackery’. The book's stated aim is to provide a perspective on Australian history in which the significance of war and the Anzac tradition is reduced, and drawn in proportion to other major themes in the national past.' (Introduction)
'In their introduction to this collection, David Stephens and Alison Broinowski distinguish between ‘honest history’, the concept, and ‘honest history’, the coalition: a group of (mostly) historians disturbed at the unbalanced mobilisation of Australia's past for political purposes. The Honest History Book is a reflection of that coalition and its concerns. Here, ‘dishonest history’ resides largely in politicians’ persistent and exaggerated emphasis on the importance of Anzac in the making of Australia, otherwise termed ‘Anzackery’. The book's stated aim is to provide a perspective on Australian history in which the significance of war and the Anzac tradition is reduced, and drawn in proportion to other major themes in the national past.' (Introduction)
