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Lukas Coch/AAP

10 things every politician should know about history

Education Minister Alan Tudge has rejected the draft history curriculum. He wants students to learn that ‘we live in the greatest country on Earth’. That’s not history. It’s jingoistic nationalism.
The Morrison government has committed $50million to celebrate next year’s 250th anniversary of Cook’s landing at Kurnell on April 29, 1770. AAP/Marc McCormack

Rough seas ahead: why the government’s James Cook infatuation may further divide the nation

The government’s investment in a celebration of 250 years since James Cook’s voyage to and along Australia, if not done properly, will further inflame the history wars in Australia.
Does this rock painting, featuring a long, white gun, depict first contact? Is it a work of history? Author provided

Friday essay: on listening to new national storytellers

Australian history is already a hotly contested discipline but is it time to broaden our definitions of the canon? Might an indigenous rock painting or a novel or a poem constitute a work of history?
Koori women Treahna Hamm, Vicki Couzens and Lee Darroch wear ‘Biaganga’, traditional possum coats at the Melbourne Museum’s Aboriginal Cultural Centre in Melbourne. Julian Smith/AAP

How living museums are ‘waking up’ sleeping artefacts

Museums are cracking open the temperature-controlled, dehumidified display cases and inviting people in. Working with Aboriginal communities is reawakening cultural connections and ancient art forms.
There’s too much evidence of violence in Australia’s past to hide behind euphemisms. The Founding of Australia, Algernon Talmadge, 1937.

Of course Australia was invaded – massacres happened here less than 90 years ago

Detailed historical research on the colonial frontier unequivocally supports the idea that Aboriginal people were subject to attack, assault, conquest and subjugation: all synonyms for the term ‘invasion’.
Drape ‘Anzac’ over an argument and, like a magic cloak, the argument is sacrosanct – even though it shouldn’t be. AAP/Alexander Turnbull Library

The past is not sacred: the ‘history wars’ over Anzac

Never has the Anzac tradition been more popular and yet never have its defenders been more chauvinistic, bellicose and intolerant of other viewpoints.
History in schools is not engaging our students. History class image from www.shutterstock.com

Stop tinkering with school history, and start teaching it

In 2008, historian Dr. Anna Clark conducted a survey of the state of history education in Australian classrooms. The book that resulted from this study — History’s Children — presented a bleak image of…

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