Russel Ward: Settlement and Apotheosis

There has been a good deal of debate lately about the national purposes of History, History-writing and History-teaching. Underneath much of it there seems to be an assumption that we need to revive, or create all over again, a long-term narrative shape for the Australian past. There may be doubts about that program in the universities, but no-one can escape the need to be published, and the market for history has an unavoidable impact on the way the subject is understood at all levels. And narrative that makes sense to a mass readership, maybe any readership, requires a familiar framework, a formulaic pattern. With the best will in the world, fresh episodes, new perspectives and original interpretations fall to the ground if they do not bear on the larger understanding.