'‘In 1993, Manning Clark came under severe (posthumous) attack in the pages of Quadrant by none other than Peter Ryan, who had published five of the six volumes of Clark’s epic A History of Australia. In applying what he called “an overdue axe to a tall poppy”, Ryan lambasted the History as “an imposition on Australian credulity” and declared its author a fraud, both as a historian and a person. This unprecedented public assault by a publisher on his best-selling author was a sensation at the time and remains lodged in the public memory. In History Wars, Doug Munro forensically examines the right and wrongs of Ryan’s allegations, concluding that Clark was more sinned against than sinning and that Ryan repeatedly misrepresented the situation. More than just telling a story, Munro places the Ryan-Clark controversy within the context of Australia’s History Wars. This book is an illuminating saga of that ongoing contest.’
— James Curran, University of Sydney
'‘The Ryan-Clark controversy … speaks to the place of Manning Clark in Australia’s national imagination. Had Ryan taken his axe to another historian, it’s unlikely that we would be still talking about it 30 years later. But Clark was the author and keeper of Australia’s national story, however imperfect his scholarship and however blinkered that story. Few, if any, historians in the Anglo-American world have occupied the space that Clark occupied by dint of will, force of personality, and felicity of pen.’
— Donald Wright, University of New Brunswick' (Publication summary)
'For mostly practical reasons of time and distance, Doug Munro has relied on documentary sources and email correspondence to analyse the perplexing story of Manning Clark’s publisher defaming his prize author three years after his death. Oral history would have helped fill in some of the gaps in the account, but the book manages to explain in sufficient detail the contours of the episode, and to place it in the larger story of Australia’s History Wars. Key figures in the new Albanese Ministry promise an end to these History Wars, but, for reasons that are implicit in Munro’s account, the struggles to define Australian history and how it has been ‘manufactured’ are likely to continue unabated.' (Introduction)
'The Australian Historical Studies guideline that critiques should be conducted ‘in the spirit of generosity and engagement, and of furthering an academic conversation’ is particularly apposite when reviewing this book about one of the most bitter historical controversies in recent years. Doug Munro offers a restrained and reflective account of Peter Ryan’s surprising, tasteless and relentless posthumous attack on the person and writings of Manning Clark.' (Publication summary)
'It was one of the most notorious episodes in the annals of Australian publishing. In September 1993, writing in Quadrant, Peter Ryan, the former director of Melbourne University Press (1962–87), publicly disowned Manning Clark’s six-volume A History of Australia. Clark had been dead for barely sixteen months. For scandalous copy and gossip-laden controversy, there was nothing to equal it, particularly when Ryan’s bombshell was dropped into a culture that was already polarised after more than a decade of the History Wars.' (Introduction)
'The Australian Historical Studies guideline that critiques should be conducted ‘in the spirit of generosity and engagement, and of furthering an academic conversation’ is particularly apposite when reviewing this book about one of the most bitter historical controversies in recent years. Doug Munro offers a restrained and reflective account of Peter Ryan’s surprising, tasteless and relentless posthumous attack on the person and writings of Manning Clark.' (Publication summary)
'For mostly practical reasons of time and distance, Doug Munro has relied on documentary sources and email correspondence to analyse the perplexing story of Manning Clark’s publisher defaming his prize author three years after his death. Oral history would have helped fill in some of the gaps in the account, but the book manages to explain in sufficient detail the contours of the episode, and to place it in the larger story of Australia’s History Wars. Key figures in the new Albanese Ministry promise an end to these History Wars, but, for reasons that are implicit in Munro’s account, the struggles to define Australian history and how it has been ‘manufactured’ are likely to continue unabated.' (Introduction)
