Honest History promotes balanced consideration of Australian history by offering contesting, evidence-based interpretations to students, teachers, universities, journalists and the public. We challenge the misuse of history to serve political or other agendas.
Mark McKenna reviews Griffith Review 60: First Things First
Meredith Lake’s The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History is reviewed by Douglas Hynd
Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac by David Hastings is reviewed by Seumas Spark
Centenary Watch: Minister Chester’s recent pressers, including War Memorial Council appointments. Centenary of Great War recruitment nadir. ACT electoral redistribution: does Bean count?
HONEST HISTORY HIGHLIGHTS
Lies and bullshit. ‘It is disturbing to find an important political figure who indulges freely both in lies and in bullshit. What is perhaps even more deeply disturbing is to discover an important segment of our population responding to so incorrigibly dishonest a person with such pervasively enthusiastic acceptance …
Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are …’ Philosopher Harry Frankfurt On Bullshit. The first quoted paragraph refers explicitly to Donald Trump (23 June 2018).
And featuring…
Centenary Watch
Australia is more than Anzac – and always has been