The Frontier Wars - Historiography and Combatting Fake History

In the wake of the recent swell of interest in the Australian War Memorial (and its absence of material acknowledging frontier conflicts) there have been new contributions to the ongoing historiographical debates over the status and nature of the Frontier Wars (1, 2, 3). 

Throughout the 20th century there was reoccurring disagreement amongst historians as to whether these Frontier Wars happened, with prominent politicians such as John Howard and Paul Keating occupying different sides in the resultant 'History Wars' that played out in the media. The denial of the Frontier Wars was somewhat quelled in '00s and '10s due to cultural shifts in politics after the 2008 Apology but it would be wrong to say that pushback on this was ever truly gone. Suffice to say, it is now broadly accepted that the Frontier Wars happened.

As we move into the mid-2020s, however, we find that such historiographical debates are also now subject to the metaphysical knot of our times - fake news, information wars, and fake history. The sad reality today is that there are still people who seek to deny the existence of the Australian Frontier Wars, even in light of the increased coverage of this history. Thankfully there is very little in the mainstream media these days that flat-out rejects the Frontier Wars, but dismissal can still be witnessed in the words of politicians and throughout social media. Denial of the Frontier Wars and, by extension other historical tragedies faced by the Aboriginal peoples (such as the Stolen Generations), typically falls into two broad categories:

1. Misinformation - factually incorrect history reported or shared by someone who isn't aware that it's factually incorrect.
2. Disinformation - factually incorrect history but with the added complication that the person reporting or sharing the information is perfectly aware that it's factually incorrect.

On the surface, misinformation and disinformation look very similar but they operate in slightly different ways. Misinformation can be shared by people with a range of agendas - some may be seeking objective truth, others may be all too happy to find anything that confirms their own political biases. That's not a slight against a particular side of the political spectrum; everyone has political biases both conscious and unconscious.

Disinformation on the other hand is very much a sign of something more sinister. This is the creation of fake information intended to sway or mobilise support for something. It functions like the war propaganda of the 20th century but it's a lot sneakier - in the information age of the hyperactive 1440 minute news cycle with social media sharing, items going viral, and the increasingly blurred line between print and digital media, intentionally-created fake information can very quickly become legitimised. This legitimisation, in which the origins of the fakery become obscured through layers of information and widespread exposure, occurs when reputable public figures and news outlets pick up viral stories and report them under their own banner. This phenomenon (in which disinformation becomes widely available) is known as information laundering, and it's becoming disturbingly more common with every passing year. 

In connection to the above, something else to watch out for is pseudohistory - a practice in which myths, legends, conspiracy theories, etc., are treated as historical fact. This usually originates from non-academic and amateur sources and can (but not always) be explicitly politically motivated. Pseudohistory plays a part in this discussion of fake history because it can take the form of both misinformation and disinformation.

An example of pseudohistory:

• There is a pseudohistorical claim that, prior to the arrival of the Aboriginal peoples, Australia was inhabited by another race of 'pygmy' people. I won't go into too much detail because I don't want to get too off-track from the Frontier Wars - you can read more about it here in this clear and comprehensive explanation from the Australian Museum.
• The 'pygmy people' story becomes a form of misinformation if the person or outlet spreading the information is unaware that the existence of the pygmy people has been widely discredited by historical experts. They may be sharing the story because they want to prove something or influence someone's beliefs but they are likely to be genuine when they say that they believe the story themselves. If the story-spreader is familiar with the historical method, is open-minded, or is particularly sensitive to public scrutiny (because they value their own credibility), then it may be possible to counter such misinformation with the provision of evidence to the contrary. 
• The 'pygmy people' story becomes disinformation if the story-spreader is aware that it's untrue or has little care for whether it's supported by evidence or not. In this situation they are definitely sharing the story to further a particular agenda and they evidently do not value the historical method. There is little that can realistically be done to convince an agent of disinformation to stop. The best approach in these cases is fact-checking - to counter the pseudohistorical claims by publicly sharing rational evidence that disproves it, and thus allowing the story-spreader's audience to see the untruths for what they are. This will at least slow down the spread of such disinformation and prevent it from being picked up by legitimate figures/news outlets who may not know better. 

The Frontier Wars

The last few decades and the wider cultural shift within Australian society in light of the Bringing Them Home report, Reconciliation, and other political changes, has meant that there is now an increased acknowledgement of the Frontier Wars in the nation's historical record. There are difficulties in recovering a complete record of events that have, for all intents and purposes, been suppressed for the best part of a hundred years. Nonetheless, the silence of the past is not so insurmountable that we cannot get a pretty clear picture of the tragic violence and warfare that gripped this country for the best part of the 19th century. 

'Bulla' - an illustration by William Hodgkinson, 1861

Below you will find a range of sources that provide information on the conflicts. These aren't exhaustive but they're a good start:

Colonial Frontier Massacres Map. Overseen by Lyndell Ryan.

An ongoing project from the University of Newcastle that draws upon the latest research to construct an interactive database of all of the massacres experienced by the Aboriginal peoples from 1788 to 1930.

Land is Life: From Bush to Town by Richard Baker.

A localised account of the life of the Yanyuwa Aboriginal people in Far North Australia. Much of this text relates to culture and the relationship that the Yanyuwa maintained with the Macassan Asians prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Of interest to a study of the Frontier Wars, the book provides some valuable Aboriginal oral history accounts of the brutal conflict between the Yanyuwa and freshly-arrived Europeans in the 19th century.

A History of Bathurst, Volume 1 by Theo Barker

A large chapter (about 20% of the book) is dedicated to "The Period of Conflict 1820-1832", and details the Governor's declaration of martial law as the early British colony faced an organised and prolonged Wiradjuri resistance. The book has some difficulties with using the phrase 'Frontier War', instead opting to use words like 'attacks' and 'violence', however, there's a lot of primary evidence called upon here that could suggest little else.   

Hawkesbury Settlement Revealed 1793-1802 by Jan Barkley-Jack.

This weighty volume is wholly focused on the creation and development of the Hawkesbury region under British settlement. As such, only a relatively small portion is given over to the Aboriginal history of the area. The author adheres quite closely to the historical method, constructing a narrative based on a range of primary sources. This means that, even though the central thesis is one of settlement and pastoral growth, Barkley-Jack still does not avoid mentioning the protracted conflict between the British and the Aboriginal peoples in the area. That said, there is some effort here to restrict the violence to "just a handful of settlers in a specific location over a five-year period" and the author is not able to attribute the deaths of 30 Aboriginal people in this time to a 'Frontier War'. 

The Black War by Nicholas Clements.

I've read a handful of accounts of the Tasmanian Frontier War and this one is easily the best due to the extensive use of irrefutable primary sources. A highly detailed and heavily-researched account of the most infamous of Australia's Frontier Wars.

Dancing with Strangers by Inga Clendinnen.

A must-read for any history teacher or person interested in Australia's story, Clendinnen weaves a highly engaging narrative around the first days of the Sydney colony, depicting a relatively peaceful first contact between peoples and then portraying the moments that led to the birth of the Frontier Wars. 

Windradyne: A Wiradjuri Koorie by Mary Coe.

An Aboriginal perspective of an Aboriginal war hero of the 19th century. This book provides a compelling narrative of the events of the Bathurst War from the point of view of the Wiradjuri resistance.

The Australian Frontier Wars 1788-1838 by John Connor.

Of all the books on this list, Connor's is unique in being the only military history book (a distinct subgenre of history writing). One of the more essential texts on this list, Connor provides maps, statistics, and campaign evidence on every known frontier conflict from the nominated time period.

The Future Eaters by Tim Flannery.

Flannery's historical scope is much larger than others on this list due to his background as a naturalist. The Future Eaters is a fascinating piece of research that explores the coexistence of the earliest Aboriginal peoples with Australia's now extinct megafauna, and this segues into a more devastating account of the Aboriginal struggle for survival after the arrival of the Europeans. Flannery's book blends scientific perspective with historical research, utilising sourcework to demonstrate cause and effect between European arrival and Frontier conflict. He also unflinchingly examines the role of the Native Police, one of the more disturbing impacts of British arrival upon the Aboriginal peoples.    

Talking to My Country by Stan Grant.

Grant's memoir is highly personal but also focused in particular on his Aboriginal identity. This includes an exploration of the way he sees the Frontier Wars, demonstrating the ongoing reverberations of this history and why it needs to be better addressed.

The Tiwi of North Australia by C.W.M. Hart and Arnold R. Pilling.

Having been written by European anthropologists in the 1950s, there is a lot in this book that is quite outdated and also downright offensive. That said, it's powerful to see that even in 1959 there was an awareness amongst researchers that first contact between Europeans and the Tiwi Aboriginal people was initially quite hostile. This includes a frank account of the failed attempt to turn the Tiwi Islands into 'Fort Dundas', Australia's early 19th century answer to the bustling Asian port of Singapore. Hart and Pilling's assertion that the British and the Tiwi "did not make friends" is an understatement (to say the least) and, after describing the drawn-out four year conflict that led to the abandonment of Fort Dundas in 1829, the authors admit that "Tiwi treatment of outsiders prior to 1900 had been to rob them, spear them, kill them" due to justified fears of blackbirding.

The Forgotten War by Henry Reynolds.

Reynolds explores the idea that a full and complete acknowledgement of the Frontier Wars is needed before true reconciliation can be achieved. The historian parallels the reconciliation movement with accounts of the Frontier Wars, providing evidence to suggest that Aboriginal resistance not only occurred but was widespread and highly strategic. This is a great historiographical study of the way in which Australian society has dealt with the Frontier Wars over time, including an examination of the political commentary throughout the '80s and '90s that sought to reject the history or call attention to it. Of most shocking note is the provision of firsthand testimony from Edward Curr, an 1820s Australian politician who estimated that 15-25% of the Aboriginal population died as a result of the early days of the frontier conflict. Reynolds also assesses the available evidence and written primary sources against the United Nations conditions for classifying something as genocide and... the result isn't good. 

The Whispering in Our Hearts by Henry Reynolds. 

Essentially an account of early settler guilt, this book uncovers the histories of white protesters who agitated for better treatment of the Aboriginal peoples throughout the 19th century. This is juxtaposed throughout the text with primary sources that refer to frontier conflicts and government policy connected to such hostilities.  

Black War by Clive Turnbull.

This 1948 history book isn't particularly reliable in terms of presenting an objective account of the war between Aboriginal Tasmanians and the British. I include this here simply to demonstrate that historians were quite comfortable talking about Frontier Wars some 75 years ago and that there's evidently some continuity in acknowledging its existence over time. 

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A lot of the above is quite grim reading but also incredibly useful to anyone interested in the Frontier Wars. The more I read about these conflicts the more I realise there is still a lot to learn. I'll leave this blog with one final note regarding the ongoing historiography of the Frontier Wars - as of February, 2023, the new chair of the War Memorial, former politician Kim Beazley, has indicated that he plans to dedicate some of the institution's $500 million expansion to a "proper recognition" of the Frontier Wars. 

Tiananmen Square: Ideology and Evaluation

Picking apart the myriad reasons for what happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989 can be quite a big ask, especially in light of the conflicting information in the historical record. At the time of writing it has now been nearly 30 years since the incident occurred, however, the establishment of a national history in keeping with China's ongoing political ideology means that some degree of historiographical analysis will be required from students looking to get an overall picture of this multidimensional event. 

In other words: the official and the unofficial histories of the Tiananmen Square incident are quite different from one another. 

Before engaging with the opinions of a wide range of historians, students should examine the various causes of the event itself. 

This can be looked at in three main ways:

1. The reasons for Deng Xiaoping's opposition to the protests.
2. The reasons for the protestors' opposition to Deng Xiaoping.
3. The reasons for why the protests could ultimately be interpreted as a failure.  

Here's a sheet with 14 causes that can be sorted into the three above categories. Students can colour-code, cut-and-paste, or copy into a table. Click the link below to download.

Resource: Clash of Ideologies

Following this, students can then begin looking at a variety of evaluations regarding the incident, and consider how each historian has grappled with the above three categories of reasoning. These have been gleamed from various books about 20th Century Chinese history, all of which I would recommend. They are as follows:

Alexander V. Pantsov, author of Deng Xiaoping, 2016

Despite numerous pleas to return home, the rebellious youths did not want to abandon their protests, so the leaders of the nation had to choose between employing force and making concessions. And they made their choice, turning the streets leading to Tiananmen red with blood.

Deng Xiaoping retained his firm conviction about the necessity for dictatorship in the form of the unchallengable rule of the Chinese Communist Party. When confronted by a vision of democracy, he could only see the spectre of chaos. He dug in his heels and would go no further.

Many in the Party saw the market forces of economic reforms to blame, that the modernisation of the economy had opened China up to the 'rotten West' and that this was how bourgeois liberalisation contaminated the minds of the youth. The CCP, now with a new upcoming leader in Jiang, now condemned Deng's planned reforms of the future.

Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, author of China Without Mao, 1990

Elders who enjoyed privileges in the Party wanted to hold onto these privileges at all costs, and felt the need to defend the socialist order that had made their elitism possible. Killing protestors was not a concern as they were 'anti-party counterrevolutionaries' who deserved to be eliminated. Loss of tourism and credit was of small concern compared to the survival of the Communist leadership. Deng declared that he did not fear foreign opinion for this reason.

Accurate figures of the massacre are impossible - Western sources estimated 3000 dead and 10 000 wounded. One report from the New York Times said 400-800. A Chinese government spokesman told an NBC anchorman that there were no casualties - certainly no bloodbath. The Chinese government later admitted to 23 students dying accidentally, and that 150 brave soldiers had died, with a further 5000 wounded.

 Frank Dikotter, author of The Cultural Revolution, 2016

The leaders lived in fear of their own people, constantly having to suppress their political aspirations. Deng personally ordered a military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing, as tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square. The massacre was a display of brutal force and steely resolve, designed to send a signal that still pulsates to this day: do not query the monopoly of the one-party state.

Ezra F. Vogel, author of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, 2011

It's estimated that 100 000 protestors were in Tiananmen Square when the army moved in around midnight. Only several thousand were left waiting at 2 AM when the army reached the square. It's estimated that 300-2600 demonstrators were killed. Figures from Beijing hospitals show at least 478 dead and 920 wounded. Nearly 600 vehicles, including PLA trucks and armoured carriers, were damaged.

Maurice Meisner, author of Mao's China and After, 1999

Deng Xiaoping congratulated the police and the army who had crushed the 'counterrevolutionary rebellion'. And he offered condolences to the families of government soldiers who had died. He labelled the civilians as 'the dregs of society'. The government later released a figure of 300 civilian deaths which was mocked by eyewitnesses. It is estimated that 2000-7000 civilian deaths occurred. A nationwide wave of arrests occurred after the event, resulting in the incarceration of at least 1000, and the executions of 100s.

Resource: Assessment of the Tiananmen Square incident by Historians

Getting to Grips with the Cultural Revolution

If I'm honest, History really only comes alive for me when it's challenging. The teaching of History should be a subject area that forces the student (and teacher) to take a long hard look at the 'facts' and question the accepted version of events. If you take a look at the new Stage 6 Modern History NSW Syllabus you'll see that the outcomes are very much geared towards facilitating this kind of historical thinking - the curriculum wants us to analyse sources so that we can better ascertain the nature of bias, the curriculum wants us to contest the 'official' narrative and engage with competing versions of events so that we can make our judgements, the curriculum wants us to gather up as much information as we can so that we can offer individualistic evaluations in response to essay questions.

Modern History isn't dry, it's something that should be passionately argued with.

The Cultural Revolution is one of two key focal points for the Change in the Modern World China option (Option B) and, as such, it's perfect fodder in regards to the aforementioned mutable nature of the syllabus outcomes. The Cultural Revolution is a notoriously tricky area of historical debate and therefore forces the student (and teacher) to create their own historical narrative in response to the available (and unavailable) information.

The first port of call is 'building the field', where students increase their knowledge of the historical period through increased engagement with appropriate vocabulary and, also, gathering an impression of the causes that could be attributed to the Cultural Revolution. Potential causes could be best summarised as the following:

• The Sino-Soviet split: a clash of ideologies leading to China's increasing independence.
• Tensions arising from Party Politics: Party members removing all references to Maoism from constitution in order to diminish Mao Zedong's power. Mao's role as 'honorary' Chairman led to ambiguity over leadership.
• The Great Leap Forward: failure of this attempt to modernise China in one quick go had disastrous consequences for Chinese society, leading to widespread death, famine and corruption.
• Permanent Revolution: the ongoing nature of class struggle in a Marxist society meant that elitism and revisionism needed to be prevented.
• Mao's Personality: Mao sought to maintain the Cult of Personality that kept him in power, and would often test the loyalty of his comrades. Different factions arose in the Party in response to desires to be identified as Mao's potential successor.
• Educational Reform: Mao saw the importance in harnessing the next generation as the future of Chinese communism, and aimed to control this through education and ideology.

The next step in teaching the Cultural Revolution is in getting students to dive headfirst into the narrative of events. This is incredibly difficult with the Cultural Revolution for a number of reasons:

1. It's near impossible to know exactly why Mao started the Revolution.
2. The Cultural Revolution happened on a huge scale, with millions of students ('Red Guards') spearheading the revolution in hundreds of independent movements that did not co-ordinate with one another.
3. The Party fractured in ways that are hard to understand - those who feared ideological attack from Mao sought to influence the Red Guards to act in a certain way, deflecting blame towards their enemies. This resulted in civil disputes between different groups of Red Guards acting under the influence of different Party members.
4. Mao remained largely aloof from the Revolution - once he had set the chain of events in motion he stepped back from direct involvement. It could be argued that he was keeping his own hands clean of any wrongdoing, however, the very nature of socialist revolution also demanded action from the proletariat (the students and workers) so it would not have made sense for Mao to have directly led them as this ran contrary to Marxist ideology.
5. In the simplest of terms, China was plunged into chaos between 1966 and 1976.

It is therefore best to have students shape their own understanding by gathering information through independent research. The depth and breadth of information on the Cultural Revolution is so multitudinous, so contradictory, and so endlessly fascinating, that it would be a great disservice to prescribe a single narrative for students to follow.

The solution is to set students up with scaffolded research. Here is a guide that will assist students with assembling some key information alongside their own research.

Resource: Research Scaffold - The Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution

Just for your awareness, here are some things that may come up in student research (or key words that you may find useful in directing them):

Bian Zhongyun: The first death of the Cultural Revolution. Bian was a vice principal of a school where the Red Guards rose up. Her mouth was filled with soil and her face splashed with black ink, and she was paraded around while wearing a dunce's cap before being beaten to death with nail-spiked clubs, and dumped into a garbage cart.

Other Teachers: Many authority figures in schools were the first targets for the new revolutionaries. The principal at the Third Girls Middle School was beaten to death, and the Dean there hung herself before she could face a similar fate. A Biology teacher at Beijing Teacher's School was dragged along the ground until she died, and then other teachers were forced to beat her dead body if they did not want to face a similar fate. Party member Liu Shaoqi set a quota (of 1%) for Red Guards in their targeting of teachers, which equated to 300 000 victims.

The Little Red Book: The level of fanaticism amongst the Red Guards was so intense that Mao's quotations (originally published in the Liberation Army Daily) were assembled as a little red book for all citizens to carry.

Massacres: In regional areas such as Daxing, local leaders (those that Mao had initially intended to target) murdered all the landlords and their families. 300 in total were killed in a co-ordinated night-time attack that utilised methods of stabbing, strangling, and electrocution to prevent what the leaders claimed was a chance of 'bourgeois uprising'. Even the children were included to ensure that no revenge could be taken in the future.

Rallies: There were huge gatherings in Tiananmen Square where Red Guards could catch a glimpse of Chairman Mao. The last of these took place in November 1966, and saw two and a half million teenagers gather in one day to see their great helmsman.

Destruction of the Four Olds: Many graveyards and temples were defaced and destroyed, especially in regional areas such as Tibet. Bodies of dead women were dug up in Confucian cemeteries and hung from trees, and over 10 000 graves in Shanghai alone were desecrated. In Zhengdang, ancient monuments were destroyed. Entire libraries, such as one in Zikawai, were also burned down as symbols of bourgeois culture, leading to the loss of thousands of 19th century books.

Shanghai: As one of China's most modern cities, Shanghai saw the eruption of some strange displays of Maoist outrage. At least 30 flower shops were destroyed as flowers were considered a waste of farmland. Cats were also targeted as they were considered symbols of Western decadence. Furthermore, many Red Guards saw the Revolution as an opportunity for looting, and some 30 000 'bad families' were forced to hand over property deeds - leaving nearly half a million people homeless. 704 people in Shanghai committed suicide in September 1966 alone.

The Vietnam War: The in-fighting between separate factions of Red Guards got so bad that weapons China meant to send to the Viet Cong were seized by various Chinese groups. The People's Liberation Army had to be mobilised away from the Chinese-Vietnamese border in order to help restore order in some provinces of China.

Guangxi Province: Rival Party members Lin Biao and Zhou Enlai waged war against each other in Guangxi in 1968 through the use of proxy forces of Red Guards. At least 80 000 were killed in several massacres.

Cannibalism: Rebels in Wuxuan began to practice cannibalism as a strange fusion of ritual and Marxist ideology, with at least 70 'capitalist' landlords publicly butchered and eaten alive. Mao ordered an end to this practice once he got word of it but, instead of punishing the cannibals, he sent a new statue of himself as a congratulatory present for those who had assisted with the Cultural Revolution.

Impact on the Arts: Intellectuals were the most badly scarred by the Cultural Revolution. Mao disliked intellectualism and saw it as useless in contrast to the practicality of his own view of socialism, which meant that artists and philosophers and the like were targeted by Red Guards. 1966-1976 became 'ten lost years' with no art, no music, no painting, no writing, no academic or scientific journals in China. It was a huge waste of an entire decade's worth of talent.

Ethnic Minorities: Also amongst the most persecuted were those who did not ethnically conform with the socialist Chinese majority. 800 000 Mongolians in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia were tortured - there was widespread sexual abuse of women, removal of tongues and teeth, and many burned alive. Only 10% of the population in Inner Mongolia were actually Mongol, yet 75% of those persecuted in the area were of this ethnicity, which made it look like genocide. Mao ordered a stop to this persecution but did not punish those responsible.

The End of the Red Guard: Unable to manage the independent actions of the Red Guard groups who had radically changed China's urban society, Mao ordered for all those who had driven the Cultural Revolution to be sent to the countryside for re-education through labour. Between 1969 and 1972 some 17 million of these youths were sent to live in villages, leading to mass suicide, poverty, and depression.

Stalin's Purges: Making Connections

French Cartoon from the 1930s, caption reads: "Visit the Pyramid of Russia"

Teaching the National Study in HSC Modern History, no matter which option it is, can be a daunting task. In my mind this is predominantly due to the sheer endlessness of historical thinking. In other words, the more I look into something the more there is to see. You could read about Soviet Russia forever, delving into records of the past to construct a simulacrum of increasing depth. The past itself, however, can never be brought back to life. All we can do is try to replicate an impression of it using the available details. 

I don't know about you but I find that hard.

When I'm programming for History I'm always grateful for the information provided in the syllabus but, even with this seemingly finite guide, I'll start mining sources and won't know when to stop. And that's because there is no 'when' to stop - this is history we're talking about. It's not possible to collect all the information because we can't go there and see it for ourselves. We can't ever get to a point and say, "Well, that's it. I've finished finding all the facts". The facts are legion, and I haven't even mentioned the impact of postmodernism.

So what's the lesson here?

Do I try to teach my students everything? How can I when it's not possible due to the nature of history itself?

Do I just give students a list of facts and get them to research everything? Well, that doesn't work for every student.

I don't have the answer. At least, not definitively. What I do know is that my teaching and learning cycle allows me to continue refining what I've taught. In the case of teaching the Russia and the Soviet Union study multiple times I've been able to observe how different sets of students react with different sorts of material and task requirements. Despite what some might say, this teaching lark is not a science. Getting a unit together and teaching it to one class will not be the same as teaching that very same unit to a second class. The conditions can not be replicated because every individual is unique, and every combination of individuals produces a unique class room. We can refine our materials in these conditions over and over again, getting closer and closer to something that really works quite well, but perfection just won't ever be achieved. It's impossible. 

There are other problems to consider too; Modern History isn't Advanced English, it's a subject that attracts students with a range of abilities. A while back there was a course called Modern History (People and Events) which offered more scope for differentiated learning across the Senior History curriculum; from what I can gather it was to Modern History as English Studies is to Standard English. This course was phased out, meaning that any Modern History class can now have students with particular literacy needs not necessarily primed for essay writing and higher order source analysis.

My point is that in tackling something as challenging to study as Stalin's Soviet Russia we need to find 'ways in' for a diverse range of students. Ways that don't come across as too prescriptive or finite whilst also allowing students to come up with their own clear answers. It's deceptively difficult to straddle the balance between these things.

The resource I've included here deals with the Purges enacted by Stalin between 1934 and the outbreak of WWII. I wanted something that provides a seemingly simple overview but also forced all of my students to move beyond rote learning.

• The PPT gives an overview of the Purges, with each slide containing an image. The teacher takes the students through the slides while the students work through a separate resource, a document broken into a box per slide. 
• Each slide contains the image from the slide but rather than simply getting the students to copy or summarise information from the PowerPoint, the goal is that the students make connections between each image and the information from the slide. 
• By synthesising a more personal response in this fashion, students are drawing a cause and effect relationship between visual materials and the history that produced them.

Resources:
The Purges - PowerPoint Presentation
The Purges - Student sheet

History and Archaeology at Pompeii and Herculaneum

Dr Joanne Berry's book on Pompeii

The discovery of historical artefacts isn't something that happens in a vacuum. That's the main thing I took away from a fantastic set of lectures on Pompeii and Herculaneum by Doctor Joanne Berry and Professor Nigel Pollard, who visited Australia from Swansea University in the UK thanks to the HTA. Said lectures were held at Glenmore Park High School, which was very nice for those of us based in Western Sydney and/or the Blue Mountains.

I can't say that I'm very knowledgeable about Pompeii as I'm more of a Modern History enthusiast than an Ancient History one, but from an Extension History standpoint both Berry and Pollard provided more than enough grist for the historiographical mill for anyone with even a passing interest in the past. Dr Berry, an archaeologist who has been working at Pompeii and Herculaneum for over 25 years, stressed the importance of context in relation to archaeological material, whilst Professor Pollard honed in on the status of Pompeii during WWII as a fascinating case study that would be very useful for Extension History. I'll write on Professor Pollard's talk in a future post as today I want to concentrate on what Berry spoke about.

In exploration of context, Berry described the initial conditions in which Pompeii emerged as an archaeological site in the mid-18th Century. King Charles VII, the Spanish monarch who controlled Naples at this time, was consolidating a new kingdom alongside already established royalty in neighbouring states. For a rube like me,  who has never taught the mandatory Pompeii study, it was fascinating to hear about the context of Charles VII, the Spanish monarch who controlled Naples in mid-18th century - a new kingdom desperate to gain acceptance from surrounding royal families. Charles VII brought in poets, composers, artists, etc. in an effort to turn Naples into a cultural centre in Europe. He bought up the area where the Pompeii excavations took place, and the above portrait shows the artefacts around him - signifying the importance of these antiquities as conferring status onto the monarch.

Two years later, Horace Walpole arrived and recorded the discoveries made at Herculaneum. This was the birth of archaeology - seeing the arrival of military engineers, soldiers, and forced labour overseen by a military engineer. Walpole criticised the overseer for excavating artefacts at the expense of the ancient Roman city that was being uncovered, raising issues regarding the need to preserve the past. The things found at Herculaneum were selected, recorded and preserved only on the basis of what the engineers thought the King would be interested in - everything else was discarded, or destroyed. It was more like mining than discovery. It was only through recognition from foreigners like Walpole that people began to realise that an opportunity for learning was being lost.

This Peter Fabris painting from the time shows the excavation of the Temple of Isis - here the excavators were starting to become aware of impressing their financiers/benefactors, so that when they realised they had found something significant they would stop and then wait until a prestigious visitor arrived and then 'stage' the excavation. This led to important visitors (such as Maria Carolina) coming along and 'instructing' the excavators on what to do, believing that they themselves were directing the excavation. The benefit for the real excavators was that these important visitors would then also give money to them. Thus, the birth of archaeology as a practice supported by patronage.

The visiting of the Pope made it necessary to remove stepping stones in the Pompeii streets so that his cart could travel through, and often these stones were not put back. Our record of this now (and its delivery in Joanne Berry's lecture) shows the way history interacts with itself to create its own narrative - the early modern age interacting with the ancient world, as reflected through our contemporary perspective. In other words, the ancient streets of Pompeii were disturbed and restructured by the arrival of visitors such as the Pope in the 18th/19th Century, and now - in the modern day - we must contend with these restructurings of the site if we are to reach a better understanding of what it really looked like.

The Unification of Italy in 1860 politically required examples of Italy's past greatness as justification for nationalism, so Pompeii became emblematic of the new Italy, and this drew increased funding. Suddenly, anyone could visit the excavation (not just the rich and powerful), and an archaeological school was set up to train future excavators so that more glory could be uncovered. Fast forward to the 1930s-1940s, and the Italian fascists also poured incredible funds into Pompeii (in particular the excavations overseen by Amedeo Maiuri) with the expectation that he will find important things and will publish them under the aegis of the fascists. 

Berry says that what we know about Pompeii/Herculaneum depends on when it was excavated and who was doing the excavating, and that these things are affected by political context. There's also the influence of romanticism and the desire to impress, things that have affected the archaeological approach to Pompeii in all periods. Berry describes this a 'circular' process, the coming and goings of various regimes keen to use Pompeii for their own political and cultural advantage.

Palmyra: Past, Present and Future

An aerial photo of Palmyra, taken prior to its destruction at the hands of ISIS

Thematically relevant to the study of Pompeii and its conservation is the recent development of socio-political fragility in Syria, and the impact this has on the UNESCO World Heritage site of Palmyra. Students looking to develop research projects in Elective, Ancient and Extension History may want to look into Palmyra's importance, the events unfolding around it, and the way this interacts with History as a discipline.

Alternatively, Professor Nigel Pollard's studies on Palmyra (on which this post is based) also provide fertile ground for non-syllabus specific historical discussion. 

Palmyra is a significant site for a number of reasons. Founded in 2000 BCE, it grew into a vibrant centre of pre-Islamic culture in the Middle East, and has been envisioned by historians as a key site on the 'Silk Road'. Palmyra's existence as a multi-cultural trading hub between Eastern and European classical cultures provides evidence for an ancient global economy (Big History scholars will find much of interest in this), and it has also been viewed, alongside the excavation of Pompeii, from a historiographical standpoint as somewhat instrumental in the West's rediscovery of the ancient world.

In reference to the earlier parts of its history, Palmyra's political status has been seen by historians as somewhat hyphenated. Sitting at the base of mountain ranges in the unforgivably desolate Syrian Desert, Palmyra occupied a geopolitical point between the West (Rome) and East (Persia) as a marginalised part of the Roman Empire. The oasis created by the wadi (valley) that sits between the two halves of the Palmyrene mountain range provided the conditions that made this a perfect exchange network between the Mediterranean and Asia.

In the 3rd Century, Palmyra broke from the Roman Empire and asserted its own authority as an independent city state, with it's own ruler; the regent Zenobia who ruled in place of her adolescent son. The city grew into the relatively shortlived Palmyrene Empire with the conquest of Egypt and Galatia, which predictably ended with the destruction of the Empire at the hands of the Romans (resulting in significant destruction of the city and its people).

Professor Nigel Pollard talking about the rise of the Palmyrene Empire at Glenmore Park High School, Western Sydney

Much more recently, WWI and the Syrian Civil War have both seen further threat to the survival of Palmyra as an archaeological treasure. In the Syrian conflict, the movement of troops and displaced peoples has had a tremendous impact on historical sites like Palmyra and - in much more sinister fashion - the intentional targeting of Syria's heritage by ISIS (for ideological reasons) has resulted in significant damage as well. Indeed, the status of Palmyra as a heritage site has actually made it a target for ISIS, who have blown up the Temple of Bel and other major parts of the ancient city. UNESCO's denomination of Palmyra as historically and cultural significant has also made it a focus for what Professor Pollard calls 'soft' power, with both Russia and the Syrian regime very keen to claim its capture and protection as a legitimisation of their rule over the region.

Crimes against cultural property are essentially crimes against people, as these sites are emblematic of a people's heritage - Pollard asserts that there is often a correlation between those who would commit genocide with those who destroy sites of historical significance. It's a case of erasing the signs that a culture ever existed, and examples of this are unfortunately all too common in recent history - in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. - and almost always coincide with ethnic cleansing and similarly abhorrent crimes against identity.

For more information on the destruction of Palmyra, visit the following links:
Reuters - Palmyra Before and After ISIS
Guardian Article about the Destruction of Palmyra
'The Battle Over History' - Foreign Policy Blog on Palmyra
The Ancient City of Palmyra

Allied Occupation of Japan: The War Crimes Tribunal

MacArthur and Hirohito: unlikely post-war allies

The Allied occupation of Japan at the close of WWII is incredibly fertile ground for historiographical interpretation and debate. This period of 1945 to 1951 is a time that calls into question issues relating to the status of Emperor Hirohito (orchestrator, puppet or something else entirely?) and America's emerging need for a strong ally in Asia at the dawn of the Cold War. It's also a case study that forms the fourth and final set of dot points in the Conflict in the Pacific syllabus for HSC Modern History, and relates to the following past HSC questions:

• Evaluate the view that the aims of the Allied powers were achieved successfully in the occupation of Japan in the period up to 1951.
• Discuss the impact of the Allied occupation on Japan in the period 1945-1951.
• Evaluate the view that maintaining the status of the Emperor was responsible for the success of the Allied occupation of Japan to 1951.
• How successful was the Allied occupation of Japan in achieving its aims to 1951?

The part that I want to focus on today is the War Crimes Tribunal. At the end of the war, General MacArthur (nicknamed the 'Gaijin Shogun' by the Japanese, quite literally the 'foreign general'), announced the formation of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. This tribunal was intended to formally bring to justice the Japanese leaders who had implemented and enforced the Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere during WWII, and it was a tribunal that was - unsurprisingly - controversial and not without its complications.

Lesson: Part 1 - Understanding What Happened

There are two sheets here that I've attached at the bottom of this blog post. The first sheet is a 1-page reading that gives an overview of the tribunal, who was put on trial, some associated statistics, the outcome, and the impact and controversies that have been noted by historians. Students read through this sheet and use the second sheet, a graphic organiser, to gather and re-structure information in a way that shows their understanding.

I like graphic organisers because they're helpful in getting students to focus on specific parts of a text, and they allow for the relationship between ideas to become visible through the use of flowcharts, arrows, separation of facts, and so on. They also aren't particularly demanding in terms of thinking, which means that every student should be able to engage with it. Just be ready to direct your students on how to fill in the first couple of boxes and most will be able to do the rest. 

Lesson: Part 2 - Evaluating What Happened

The important thing is to then have the students compose a paragraph response that puts into action what they've just learned. Ask them; To what extent was the War Crimes Tribunal a fair process? or alternatively, Whose interests did the War Crimes Tribunal primarily serve? The resulting paragraph doesn't have to include all the information that's been gathered in the graphic organiser. Tell your students to pick two or three pieces of evidence to support their idea and to reconstitute this into a response.

What they end up with should be adaptable as a body paragraph for any of the past HSC questions listed at the top of this post.

Resources

War Crimes Tribunal - reading 

War Crimes Tribunal - graphic organiser

An Objective History of the Conflict in the Pacific

In response to the title of this blog, according to history teacher/maestro Dr Bruce Dennett, there is no objective history of conflict in the Pacific. 

In teaching the International Studies in Peace and Conflict portion of the Modern History HSC syllabus, the task of diving into the Conflict in the Pacific (Option D) seems deceptively simple. Look at it on the immediate level:

• It's a linear study of WWII, something that some Modern History students will be craving after all their studies of WWI and 1930s European politics. 
• It involves Australia, and is part of Australia's national identity. 
• It features two big keystones that appeal to many budding historians: the bombing of Pearl Harbour and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Listening to Bruce Dennett at the HTA Senior History HSC Study Day, it quickly becomes very clear that the conflict in the Pacific is an incredibly complex area of historical study that rewards sophisticated historical thinking. I know this, and you know this, but to hear him pull apart the history to destroy any semblance of objectivity is something else entirely. 

Incidentally, if you ever get a chance to see Dennett speak at one of these HTA days, you should jump right onto it. He's exceptionally well-read and very clever in his insights into well-trodden areas of history but, most importantly for any students in the audience, he's also very entertaining and engaging and a key architect of the Modern History HSC syllabus.  

In his lecture on the Conflict in the Pacific, Dennett asserts that Modern History students need to engage with the historiography in order to construct, in the words of the HSC rubric, a sophisticated response. Rather than trying to befuddle our students' minds with the mechanics of historiography or expecting them to memorise a plethora of relevant historians, it instead becomes useful to present contradictory truths about the war and ask students to build their own sustained arguments that touch on both sides of such debates. 

So, as Dennett says, the war was not inevitable, the Allied victory was not inevitable. The only tactic available to MacArthur was not his island-hopping campaign. There are multiple sets of arguments that can be supported. There are a multiplicity of valid historical truths. There is no such thing as an objective history of conflict in the Pacific. And, what the Japanese learn about WWII is, unsurprisingly, very different to what Australians or Americans learn about.

Here are some examples of debates that students can get stuck into:

The Atomic Bombs: There are arguments to be made for the atomic bomb being completely unnecessary, just as there are arguments that can be made about the atomic bombs saving lives in both Japan and elsewhere.

Hirohito and the Reasons for War: In one version of events, Hirohito was an aggressor hellbent on imperial domination of Asia, and completely unjustified in expanding across the Pacific - guilty of countless atrocities and invasions. In another version of events, Hirohito did not want war but was forced into it by 'ABCD' encirclement (Americans, British, Chinese, Dutch). When the Japanese started their war against China it felt justified as, in living memory, they had faced subjugation by the Chinese Empire. Japan also remembered when Commodore Perry (an American) forced them to open trade with the West through thinly-veiled threats of naval attack in the 19th century.

Beliefs about Defeating the Enemy: Were both sides essentially working off the same strategy? The Japanese believed that if they destroyed 10 American warships then this would cripple the U.S. fleet beyond repair. The American strategy, Plan Orange, led to a transition from a major naval confrontation to 'island hopping', and debates amongst Americans over which was more effective - naval or air power.

Growth of Pacific Tensions: How much knowledge did President Roosevelt have of the incoming Japanese attacks that would prompt U.S. involvement in the war? Were American blockades of the Japanese in the 1930s designed to weaken the Japanese so that they were unable to fight a war? Were both America and the Japanese trying to out-manoeuvre each other before any active war broke out?

The War Crimes Tribunal: How badly should Japan have been punished? Were the War Crimes Trials about punishment of the Japanese at the hands of the Allies? Or was it a process of rehabilitation for America to build a new Cold War ally?

MacArthur: Was he a legend? Or was it only in his own mind? Arguments can be made (to the contrary of the usual interpretation) that he should have been court-martialed for his role in leaving the Philippines woefully unprepared in 1941, and that he only had any real personal success after the American occupation of Japan had begun.

So, as said, multiple truths!

What is History?

Australian War Memorial

In the same vein as the blog I put together on Dr Philip SA Cummins' lecture for the HTA HSC Senior Study Day, here are my notes from Dr Paul Kiem's session on approaching the What is History? section of the Extension History syllabus, also from the same day.

Dr Kiem puts an emphasis on students adopting an 'overview understanding' of history, something that essentially encompasses the following areas:

• Prehistory/oral tradition
• The emergence of the organised narrative via early historians (Herodotus, Thucydides, Bede).
• The Enlightenment and the birth of rationality (Gibbon)
• Academia and the question of whether history can seen as a science (Ranke)
• The crises of WWI and WWII and how this led to postmodernism in historical thought (Carr, Jenkins, Evans)
• A broader view of history that engages with the discipline's continuing development

Dr Kiem has a relatable and easy-to-follow method for approaching Question 1 of the Extension History HSC, in which students are encouraged to look at the debates and themes of historiography as 'building blocks', and this is demonstrated in a great resource here, on Youtube:

A student's success in Question 1 is directly related to their ability to call into play various arguments that historians have battled it out over in the past or continue to contest today. Better yet, a great Extension History student will be able to draw comparisons between the same arguments made in two different eras in order to show a sense of perspective and (hopefully) their own personal position in relation to said arguments.

Some examples of the big ideas historians have debated:

• What impact has postmodernism had on history?
• What does Australian history tell us about history?
• Can there be a universal history that applies to everyone?
• Is history a science or a form of literature?
• Is history possible or desirable? That is, can we ever truthfully represent the past?
• To what extent is history a reflection of today's politics?
• Will Hollywood take over if historians abandon the field? And, if so, what would be the impact of this?
• To what extent do the stories need to be told by those who see the difference between the past, the memory and history?
• What is the influence of metanarratives (such as national identities) on history?
• Who should take precedence in the academic vs. public history debate on the different purposes of history?
• Who does history belong to? The academics or the public? Or the government? Amateurs? 
• What role does the digital revolution play? Think: source preservation, 'culture of abundance', digitisation as a tool for the democratisation of history, history becoming more dynamic and collaborative, archives also moving our understanding beyond narrative histories. 

Dr Kiem also highlights the importance of students demonstrating an understanding of history now. Things like the commemoration of ANZAC and the national ongoing debates in Australia over its purpose, value, and contestability. Remember Scott McIntyre? (follow this link for his controversial tweets about ANZAC Day).

Or what about the digital revolution and the how this is impacting on the way history is written now? Check out this recent story about an American high school student using the internet to prove a History professor wrong (follow this link).

And what of the future of history? There's the Big History project, which combines hard science with history to tell a narrative that emphases the prevalence of patterns rather than people in the ebbs and flows of historical change. And there's Francis Fukuyama, who posits a new concept of history in light of the way the end of the Cold War threw our idea of everything into doubt.

The possibilities are endless. Students need to look at a range of these debates and familiarise themselves with the ones that they understand best, and be able to use these historical arguments in relation to a range of questions.

Post-Post-Modernism

Dr Philip SA Cummins, author of Clio's Scroll, gave a great talk about post-modernism at this year's HTA Senior History HSC Study Day, essentially encapsulating the What is History? module of the Extension Course within his own philosophy in the space of just an hour.

The title of the session 'Post-post-modernism' sounds intimidating but - mercifully - the lecture was only partially focused on this, and instead students were given an overview of historiography in the broader sense. Dr Cummins made it clear from the outset that Extension History is less about 'doing' history and more about being an historian - which is to say that, as Extension History teachers, we require fresh thinking from our students about history.

One of the big questions that often comes up with Extension History is; Is there such a thing as absolute truth? The historian EH Carr summarised history as being about things that happened in the past, and our attempts to record those events. It's a process rather than an absolute truth. We can work towards this truth, but getting there is perhaps irrelevant due to its impossibility.

Dr Cummins goes a little further in specifying that historians more or less ask questions about three things:

1. Agency - how things happen and who does them?
2. Causation - why things happen and to what effect?
3. Relative merit (significance) - how important are things in determining agency and causation?

And in order to get there, historians explore the following:

• Can we escape our contexts?
• Can we capture the past accurately?
• Can we express an individual truth or interpretation?
• Can we find ourselves in the past?
• Can we exist free of our past and present?
• Can we express our own views?
• Can we impose an individual mark on history?
• Can we discover our heroes in the past?
• Can our heroes help us to be heroes?
• Can we be heroes ourselves?
• Can we capture the truth about past events?
• Can we determine any meaning from these events?
• Can we tell the story of the past in order to communicate this meaning?  

So using this as his jumping-off point, Dr Cummins segmented his story of history into four broad areas, and I've used his lecture and framework to discuss his ideas in my own words below (mainly for my own Extension History students - hi guys!).

1. The Enlightenment - the Empirical and Liberal traditions

The Enlightenment period began in the latter half of the 18th Century. In most understandings of the term, it's considered to be a Western/European tradition (although there are dissenting voices who make strong arguments for the emergence of the Enlightenment in other parts of the world, such as Japan) and for the intents and purposes of high school Extension History it's best to consider it in tandem with all the Eurocentric -isms that we tackle in Modern History. Meaning that the Enlightenment is easiest understood within the context of the rise of the West as the pre-eminent power of the modern world - emerging alongside (or just prior to) industrialisation, liberalism, nationalism, Eurocentrism, and imperialism.  

In terms of History, the Enlightenment prompted the 'celebration, categorisation and recording of orthodoxies'. It was a movement of intellectuals who came to prominence in the context of the same environment that produced the French Revolution; challenging the old feudal Church-run order in which information remained clandestine and elitist, and bringing education to the masses by applying structures to knowledge in previously-unparalleled detail. As part of this vanguard, historians such as Edward Gibbon brought to bear a more rigorous kind of inquiry to retell the past in narrative form for everyday people.

This is what is known as the empirical tradition - a primary source-based approach that dominates historical method from the 18th Century onwards. History was seen a truthful depiction of the past, and this led to the famous 19th Century historian Leopold Von Ranke and his assertion that history is a science - one in which the historian utilises a scientific methodology to locate and use primary sources to tell history 'as it essentially was'. That is, Ranke believed that it was entirely possible to present history objectively.

French Revolution

During this time, empiricism became the 'gold standard' for historical work. Historians adopted Ranke's model and attitude in elevating primary sources to centre-stage and asking the following generic questions to bring the past to the present: What do primary sources say? What happened? When did it happen? How did it happen? Why was it done?

2. Modernism - the Relativist Challenge

The rise of modernism as an intellectual movement is sometimes misunderstood and misinterpreted as something that exists only in relation to what came after it; post-modernism. It is, nonetheless, worth examining on its own terms as a set of ideas that developed across the turn of the 20th Century within the framework of the Fin de siecle, a period characterised by the relative peace and optimism that prompted European growth between the 1890s and the breakout of war in 1914.

This was a time of social progression and celebration, and although WWI interrupted it in a rather brutal fashion, the revisionist and anti-traditionalist ideas that influenced the art and literature and historiography of the period continued unabated into the 1920s and 1930s. This can be seen in concepts as diverse as psychology, art deco, fascism and early feminism. There was a new focus on subjectivity (IE. The self). Intellectuals asked, what are the real structures of our society once we do away with notions of imperialism and Western superiority? If each person is a product of their social, economic and cultural upbringing, then how can an objective vision of the past be presented?

The relativists of the modern age, represented so memorably by the anti-empiricist journalist and historian EH Carr, said that the past only exists in one form or another because it's what we agree happened. What we know is relative, and is not the same as what someone else knows. Therefore, facts exists because we want them to exist. Facts are subjective because they have been selected by the historian.

EH Carr

We can see the edge of post-modernism here. For those of us with the hindsight of 21st Century historical thinking, it's not much of a leap of thought to say that facts are selected not just by historians but by those in power.

In his lecture, Dr Cummins presented this quote by Carr, "When we attempt to answer the question 'what is history?' our answer, consciously or unconsciously, reflects our own position in time, and forms part of our answer to the broader question of what view we take of the society in which we live". This drives home the idea that caused so many to break from Ranke's view of history as a science - history can only be understood in relation to ourselves.

Therefore, the modern relativist historians ask: Who is the author? What is the motive of the author? How reliable is the text? How do we relate to the text? How can we manage our understanding of the author's and our own biases to create a use for the text?

Dr Philip SA Cummins said that he uses this as an opportunity to remind history students that bias is not the 'bad' thing they've grown up thinking it is. In his words, and I paraphrase here, "Bias is good because it helps us identify the debates that fuel the approach to history an author has taken".

3. Post-modernism - Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction and the Voice of the 'Other'

Ah yes, post-modernism. To hyphenate or not to hyphenate? I'm going to drop the hyphen from this point on because, well, in the framework of postmodernism there's no right or wrong way to present it in terms of grammar.

See what I did there?

A goodly amount of students (and adults) become incredibly discombobulated at the mention of postmodernism and, I have to say, as much as I probably see myself as a postmodernist, it doesn't matter how many times I hear people define it - I always feel like it I would be quite happy to hear someone else talk about it. There's always more for me to learn about it. Or perhaps it's just that it's still yet to truly be defined, and never will be.

All that Extension History students need to know about postmodernism is that it was the wholesale rejection of truth and objectivity that followed the emergence of relativism. It is relativism taken to its extreme; an identification of the power relationships that gave birth to each version of history that we're presented with. And the recognition that history is always a version of events, and that there is no possibly truthful way to present the past.

Postmodernism exists as a criticism of the middle class/capitalist rule of the world, and as a celebration of 'the other' in the latter half of the 20th Century - the 'other' being those marginalised by the dichotomies of the Cold War, and those brought to the fore by the process of decolonisation that rapidly changed the political landscape of the undeveloped and developing worlds of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The postmodernist historian wants to deconstruct historical narratives to de-centre the powerful elites that these narratives reinforce. Postmodernist histories represent ethnic minorities, women, lower social classes, non-binary sexualities... all those who have been disadvantaged or discriminated against by the mainstream elements of Western society.  

Under this model, history is therefore seen as a political text, and a discourse of social construction and personal perspective, in response to which we should ask: cui bono, which translates as: for whose benefit was the text prepared? History is no longer a search for truth, it's a dismantling of lies. The postmodernist historian should therefore also ask: How does this deconstruction help us to understand the relationship of the historical text to the power structures that created and authorised it? To what extend are we bound to accept the perspective of the author? Is there a better way f looking at the past? Have we made sure that we have noticed the 'other'?

So if postmodernism makes it impossible for us to ascertain the truth of the past then what's the point of it? Well, Dr Cummins joyfully asserted that, whilst he is the first to concede that postmodernism is hard to read, it is still incredibly valuable as a tool within the context of analysing history and its historians. Things that Dr Cummins wants us to consider in regards to why postmodernism should be important to us:

• We can recognise the influence of "narrative, metanarrative and myth" - people want to write stories and usually these conform to conventional story structures and cultural icons, myths and legends.
• We can understand that these stories are often if not always framed around ideas and structures of power.
• We can acknowledge that histories are written for someone's benefit, and that this is usually the person who authorised and supported the production of the history, as opposed to the 'other'.
• We can recognise that a historian's method and training can inherently privilege one or more perspectives from within the cycle of these power relations.
• We can use tools of analysis to deconstruct the work of other historians, and;
• We are reminded of the voice of the 'other'.  

Jacob de Wit's 1754 painting depicts a naked Truth keeping a watchful eye over those who write history.

A way to separate these three approaches to history is to think of them in these terms:

1. Empirical - there is a truth. Fact plus opinion will equal a history, and a definitive history is entirely possible. "History is the servant of the past".
2. Modernism - there is a struggle between truth and the bias of the historian. "History is the servant of the present".  
3. Postmodernism - there is no truth. Ever. "History is the servant of an idea".

4. Post-Post-Postmodernism

And that brings us to a contemporary perspective. What comes after postmodernism? The answer isn't a movement but an opportunity; the 21st Century presents the historian with an opportunity to remove old ideologies and political theories and instead map out and claim a genuine historical methodology that is integrated with other disciplines and concepts. There are still critical arguments about whether a historian can achieve authenticity or determine the truthful nature of things. Are there any absolutes? Where role does the post-Cold War, post-9/11 rise of fundamentalism play? Is relativism morally bankrupt? Can pluralism (political and cultural diversity) replace the 20th century Eurocentric model of historical understanding?

Dr Cummins took the opportunity to highlight a whole range of debates and issues that have arisen in this new arena of "intense social and technological change":

• What is the impact of technology, social networking, complexty, ubiquity, globalisation, and supermodernity?
• What of the supposed 'end' of history and triumph of the West vs. the rise of China, Islam and global decolonisation? 
• Neo-conservatism vs. the 'third' way? (A reference to the ongoing search for a more socialist vision that doesn't go down the path that communism went down in the 20th Century)
• And what of the seemingly inescapable victory of democratic power structures and improvements in living conditions vs. the entrenched inequities of wealth, capital and international corporate power?
• Or the history wars that play out ongoing battles between orthodoxy, revisionism and counter-revisionism? 
• How do we embed the voice of 'the other' within traditional history?

The questions that post-post-modernists find themselves asking are: Can we tell an authentic and valid story about the past?What philosophies of history should inform our perspectives? How can we free ourselves from thinking politically and imposing ideology on history?Are there patterns or are historical contexts unique? Can we represent the authentic voice of history? How do we do it whilst entertaining and holding today's audience's attention?

The lecture finishes with Dr Cummins sharing some philosophies of post-postmodernist historians. Here are two that I found interesting:

1. Bernard Bailyn says that historians are just trying to get as close to an accurate representation of the past as possible. The result is less important than the process.
2. John Lewis Gaddis says (and I really love this) that history is like drawing a map. The most accurate map is a 1:1 map, but we need to shrink it down to make it practical. History is like this too - we have to be careful about selecting the features of it while we 'shrink it down' so that it looks the same as what it was.

Dr Philip SA Cummins, founded of CIRCLE

Dr Philip SA Cummins' Recommended Reading List

Marc Bloch, The Historian's Craft
EH Carr, What is History?
Richard J Evans, In Defence of History
Geoffrey Elton, The Practice of History
John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History
Berverly C Southgate, What is History For?
Barbara Tuchmann, Practicing History
John Vincent, An Intelligent Person's Guide to History
Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth
Mark Buchanan, Ubiquity
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel
Ian Morris, Why the West Rules... For Now