In this article, John Roskam contextualises and disseminates Tony Abbot’s book Australia: A history.
One way to tell the difference between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull is to look at what they did after they finished as prime minister. Turnbull wrote a 702-page book about himself. Abbott has just written a 400-page history of Australia since 1788.
Launched a few weeks ago, Abbott’s Australia: A History has already sold out its first print run of 10,000 copies, and its second print run is 35,000.
On Booktopia, the country’s largest online bookseller, it’s currently the second-ranked best-selling non-fiction work behind a cookbook. Appropriately enough, Arnott’s The Cookbook is also about Australia and how to bring Tim Tams, Mint Slices, Monte Carlos, and Iced VoVos, ‘to life in creative and mouthwatering ways’.
Arnott’s was founded In 1853, when William Arnott a 26-year-old immigrant from Scotland opened his first bakery in West Maitland in the Hunter Valley. Today, the company is owned by US private equity firm KKR, and the Arnott’s corporate website declares, ‘We stand for Fostering Equality, Diversity and Sustainability’. Some might suggest the story of Arnott’s is the story of Australia writ large.
There’s no mystery to why Australia: A History is already a bestseller. Abbott is a gifted communicator and writer who is proud of Australia and its history. They’re not necessarily things you can say about those teaching Australian history at universities, which explains why Australian history is dying as an academic discipline.
People still want to read, listen to and watch history, as the success of podcasts like The Rest is History proves. What potential undergraduate students don’t want is being peddled postmodern left-wing social theory masquerading as “history”.
A few months ago, there was a fascinating discussion on ABC Radio National. The title of the segment was The decline of history teaching threatens our future leaders.
“Once upon a time, commentators apologised for Australia’s British heritage. Now they don’t even do that – they just ignore it.”
Chris Wallace, a professor at the University of Canberra, blamed “fifty years of neoliberalism” as enrolments in “useful” subjects grow. The host David Marr, then asked a perceptive rhetorical question, “Has history made itself a bit boring in the last twenty or thirty years?”
There’s nothing boring in Abbott’s history. As someone who has made history himself, he knows that individuals make a difference and that individuals are interesting.
The Myall Creek massacre in 1838 is taught in the national curriculum, as it should be. But there’s no mention of John Plunkett, an Irish Catholic who, as New South Wales attorney-general, led the prosecution of the perpetrators through two trials, leading to the conviction and execution of seven white men for murder. Plunkett’s attempts to get justice were bitterly opposed by elite Sydney opinion. Abbott writes about both the massacre and what Plunkett did.
Perhaps the only thing worse than making history boring is forgetting about it. Which is what Justin Wolfers did in the first of this year’s Boyer Lectures that aired a fortnight ago. Wolfers, is an Australian who is professor of economics at the University of Michigan. His lecture, Australia is freaking amazing makes some good points about the country’s exceptionalism. For how long Australia will stay exceptional he doesn’t say.
Wolfers justifiably praises Australia’s democratic institutions and “our norms, traditions, culture” – what he calls “the rules of the game governing economic and political life”. But to listen to Wolfers it’s as if culture can somehow be conjured out of thin air. If you’re predicting the future of institutions, it’s a good idea to understand their past.
Yet, incredibly, for an entire lecture devoted to Australian culture, history, and politics, Wolfers makes no mention of the fact that basically all the norms and traditions he talks about, and that make Australia so special, are British in origin. Wolfers’ historical understanding – or lack thereof – is all too common. Once upon a time, commentators like Wolfers apologised for Australia’s British heritage. Now they don’t even do that – they just ignore it.
Which is why Australia needs Tony Abbott’s history. As Abbott writes, “if to be an Australian is still to have won the lottery of life, the history that’s produced us is surely something to savour.”
