There is only one history that matters. It is the history of the common man.

What was the culture at the time which led my father to have different values and perspective to my own? What was the culture at the time which led his father to have different values and perspective to what my father had?

I wonder if Howard's History includes this man.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/awaye/stories/2007/2049732.htm

It is the tying of funding to a prescripted version of our past which bemuses me.

I AGREE!...History is not boring either! There is humour in it sometimes. Great sadness too.But I AM GOING TO ENJOY THIS ELECTION! MOST NURSERY RHYMES have their origins in HISTORICAL EVENTS AND PEOPLE.John Howard is such an excellent subject for new ones.And a
lot of VOTERS this time are closer to PLAY SCHOOL than OLD JOHNNIE! FOR EXAMPLE: EENEY MEENEY MINEY MO,POOR OLD JOHNNIE HAD TO GO, TELLING FIBS AND THROWING MUD MADE US VOTERS GO FOR RUDD!

"A comprehensive history of Australia mustn’t be taught as a single entity, but as settler colony of an empire, part of the decolonised world, of the English-speaking world, of the Asia-pacific, of the globe, and so on."

It is simply not possible to understand the history of Australia without some knowledge of not only Australia's British heritage, but also our nation's place as an outpost of the Occident. The enduring legacy of Western civilisation should thus be taught as an integral part of a comprehensive history of Australia, alongside the other above-mentioned strands. Sadly though, the systematic study of Western civilisation in both Australian high schools and universities is sorely lacking.

I wonder if Bonsai Howard's alleged history of this continent will include:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Portuguese_discovery_of_Australia

Or will we continue the canonisation of James Cook and Banks? Banks who had a copy of the Portuguese map on board the Endevour!

This nation's military history must also be seen as a joke too. The Australian War Memorial has a "mob" of ex Generals and politicians called the War Memorial council.

http://www.awm.gov.au/corporate/council.asp

Over the decades since WWI they have overseen the "official" version of the pain and suffering of our armed forces from the top of the pyramid. The "baggy arsed" bottom has had little input to the story. For example, the story of Jimmy Riddle and the 2nd D&E Platoon in Vietnam as a special strike force has officially been whitewashed from the books. Even to the extent of confining (exiling) of Jim riddle in the UK for 36 years so that he was unable to tell his story of deceit and valour.

http://www.albyschultz.com.au/news/default.asp?action=article&ID=509

This is not to mention the Victoria Cross citation to WO2 Kevin Conway at the Battle of Nam Dong which has never reached fruition, but swindlers and cheats have been awarded the "Order of Australia." Which by the by, is made in Singapore.

Forgive the cynicism, but history is such a massaged and mismanaged subject in Australia that good scholarship is yet to bubble to the top of the scum.

Critical thinking through philosophy might be a way to expand this argument. It is inclusive of history but adds relevance to the content.

Learning to translate the ideas behind the history of human thought helps us understand what motivated the events of history particularly if changing the re-productive patterns of war - poverty and terror COUNTS?

There are no hero's in war as far as I am concerned. There is courage YES but a lot of ill-faithed blood lost because of idealic worship of leaders who were motivated by issues other than their own citizenship.

I adore learning but feel history itself lacks the depth of content we need to understand the development of humanity. I believe we make the same mistakes, repeating the history... mindless of the socio-economic strategies and other indices that might otherwise identify better the surrounding circumstance.

http://www.miacat.com
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Actually I think history is very much about dates and places.

For example, one recurring theme in Australian public debate today is how the Iraq war has made all the Islamo-fascists hate us. Yet very often those speaking in public trip up on the historical fact that the BALI bombing which killed 88 aussies plus 3 of our residents happened BEFORE the March 2003 Invasion of IRAQ. In fact, many of the debaters seem NOT to have memorised this fact of history. This error places a quite different complexion on the war against terror in our region regardless of whether you support it or not (i.e. what you feel about it).

Read Abu Bakr Bashir's comments to his mosque audience only 6 days after the mass homicide and see whether Iraq has anything at all to do with his long-held belief that, as he said, "there will be forever a ravine of hate between us".

Historians and citizens alike must not succumb to "themes" of history only. And I think the selection of certain "themes" for study usually says much more about our modern biases then it does of the past itself.

History is not entertainment and didn't occur only to be manipulated by scriptwriters and SFX staff. It had chronology and historians are the continuity department on which we depend for our individual interpretations.

Learning history helps us understand who we are, who we were and we must learn the facts as well as "themes". It's more vital that our students understand exactly WHEN something happened than dictate to them through invented themes what they must 'feel' about it.

Here's another recent example of date confusion. The Wall Street Journal gets it right, the NY Times as usual has history theme monkeys without a memory on its staff.

Don't Know Much About History
From the New York Times:

..."It was President Bush who, a year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, rewrote America's national security strategy to warn any nation that might be thinking of trying to develop atomic weapons that it could find itself the target of a pre-emptive military strike. . . .

This time it was the Israelis who invoked Mr. Bush's doctrine, determining that what they believed was a nascent Syrian effort to build a nuclear reactor could not be tolerated."

[WSJ] Perhaps the Times has forgotten that in 1981, when Bush was just a Texas oil man, the Israelis bombed a nuclear reactor in Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein's regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon. To say that Jerusalem is following "Bush's doctrine" is like saying the Jews have embraced the Christian concept of monotheism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/washington/15assess.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Dresdener: "...our nation's place as an outpost of the Occident"

How quaint. No wonder you see yourself besieged by those insidious non-Westerners. And there I was thinking that events like the Boxer Rebellion and the Black Hole of Calcutta were history (that I learned at school 40 or so years ago, now that I think of it).

Actually, I agree with you when you say that "the systematic study of Western civilisation in both Australian high schools and universities is sorely lacking". Certainly, such a study would include a history of the development of democracy in Europe, the rise of mercantilism, colonialism and capitalism, their connections with the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and all those factors that helped create the phenomenal mess the world's in now.

Such an education might assist in the inevitable understanding that Australia's status as "an outpost of the Occident" was an historically temporary phase in the ever-changing geopolitical histories of our region and planet. Certainly, many correspondents to this forum (including Dresdener) would benefit from such an education in history.

In your mind, History is what you have been allowed to read, muddled with numerous counterfeit conditional thought processes, you will believe what you think you know...

Actually history teaches us that no country or control of that country ever remains forever in the hands of one ethnic group at least not without some savage bloodshed and massive purging (ethnic cleansing) by one group against another at some point in the countrys history. The real truth of history is too scary for us so we invent a new history for ourselves.

We teach that our history will be different. That we are all somehow changed from our previous human form and now we are all sweetness and love and tolerance

I include ethnic cleansing by armies who invade a country from the outside in my above post as well. History spells it out very clearly. The poster who said you need dates in recording historical events is spot on. Just find an encylopedia and list all the dates of all the invasions(wars), civil wars,and ethnic cleansing massacres. When its all listed there in front of you, you wont have to interpret it, blind Freddy could see that the history of the past will overwhelmingly be the history of the future

History seems to be changing as the years go by.

As more information becomes available and communication improves, I find that many of the things I was taught in school have turned out to be one-sided propaganda or just plain wrong.

Even now I'm amazed at how short our memories are. Many political events only 10 years old are largely forgotten or reinterpreted to suit current arguments, with selective quotes without context.

I wonder how our time will be interpreted in another 100 years?

CJ Morgan said: "Certainly, such a study would include a history of the development of democracy in Europe, the rise of mercantilism, colonialism and capitalism, their connections with the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and all those factors that helped create the phenomenal mess the world's in now."

So, the West is responsible for the "phenomenal mess" the world's currently in? Gee, I bet the Islamic or East Asian Sinic civilisations would have done things much better, right?

CJ seems to object to Australia's identification with Western Civilisation. Truly bizarre, but typical of ol' CJ. S/He suffers from a most virulent form of the anti-Western pathology, a brain-disabling condition that inhibits rational thinking. It's all a bit absurd really, not to mention hypocritical. After all, such Westernophobes don't seem to want to live in anything but an advanced Western nation.

Dresdener: "So, the West is responsible for the "phenomenal mess" the world's currently in? Gee, I bet the Islamic or East Asian Sinic civilisations would have done things much better, right?"

I see that our Teutonic defender of all things Western is up again in the middle of the night, stressing about the decline of her/his antipodean "Outpost of the Occident".

If Dresdener had the benefit of the kind of education to which I alluded, s/he might have a somewhat less triumphalist version of world history. For one thing, unlike those that developed in Europe, "the Islamic or Eas Asian Sinic civilisations" managed to engage and trade with much of the world for millennia without exploitatively colonising it and carving its territory up the way that Europeans did.

While there were and are very many positive aspects of 'Western' cultures, no other civilisations have ever come close in terms of directly bringing about social and environmental destruction on a global scale - and there is probably no better example of that than in Australia.

A true appreciation of history would assist anachronistic dreamers like Dresdener in understanding that, like every other civilisation that has ever existed, his beloved "Occident's" era of world domination is waning fast. This is neither a good nor a bad thing - it's just history.

The politically correct history the Howard Government is attempting to force upon Australian children must be seen in context of Howards Cultural Revolution. What is proposed is a pop history to de-Australianise Australians in Howards Americanisation of our culture. What Howards Cultural Revolution delivers is a history in line with Tv Game Shows, one word answers. As a result of the only connection to Australia the Howard Government has had with Australia is through commercial television which caters only to an Americanised audience.

On the other side of the Dividing range and the Howard Government has demonstrated they believe the world is flat and ends at the Dividing Range Indigenous History of tens of thousands of years are still evident , European History in the Great Australian Bight to the Gulf of Carpentaria go as far back as the early 1600's. Chinese and Mollacan History along the mid and western tropical coasts go back much further. Howards Cultural Revolution will not be mature enough to discuss the small Guerrilla wars between Europeans settlers around the Swan River, Kimberies, Flinders Ranges and Northern and Western Queensland. Nor will his Cultural Revolution discuss the competition between the colonies which began the imputus behind Federation, Tasmanians banned from landing in Victoria, the Eureka Stockade a Unionist rebellion, the Anzacs of WW1 inspired to join up by unions, Australia snubbing Britains concerns about Japanese expansionism and rejecting an offer to develop the Australian Navy as a protest against the cricket, the economic boom that was a result of the 8 hour day, inter-township violence and conflict because of railways and religion?

Australian social history must start at the coasts of the western Indian Ocean with all our shared ancestors and follow those earliest explorers who were the ancestors of Australia's Indigenous people, by year 12 Children should be up to Howard Governments disgraceful defeat at this years election and a matriculation question could be - On a scale of 1 to 10 how stupid was Howards Cultural Revolution?

Apologies for the pooly written text above, a product of editing back on the run.
When I said "Howards Cultural Revolution will not be mature enough to discuss the small Guerrilla wars between Europeans settlers around the Swan River...."
Obviously I meant to say Howards Cultural Revolution will not be mature enough to discuss the small Guerrilla wars between Europeans settlers and local Indigenous communities around the Swan River......." as I am sure any one with at least a basic awareness of Australian history will be quick to point out.

Additional to that, Howards Cultural revolution will most likely deny small Guerrilla warfare between land holders and squatters in NSW and Victoria or even autrocities commited by pirates, sealers and whalers based on offshore South Australian islands commited agains coastal indigenous people and amongst themselves. That there the first European settlers were Pirates, and not the lovable Johnny Depp or Errol Flynn type, but smelling like foxes and living like wild animals. That Australian society has always been heavily urbanised and industrialised and never truley the wild west of Hollywood standards. That most Australians are not decended from convicts but from business people, farmers and mechanics.

Where will Australia's art History fit into Howards Cultural Revolution? What about Feminism which has had a tradition here since the 1700's and is possibly the most profound movement in Austrlian society along side the industrial revolution? We are not the product of gallipoli we like to think ourselves as. We are afterall a society which seeks to build equity between the sexes and industrial relations. What has Captain Cook got to do with a female manager being paid less than her male counterpart? How did we get to that point? Children should be taught these things so they may understand the world in which they are to exist in. This is what history is for.

School kids need to be taught about our History, which includes how we fit in with the triumph of western civilisation over the rest of the world.

1. What features of our civilisation led us to develop such an inhospitable land as Australia, when the local natives barely could use fire;

2. The great advances that have been made since - introduction of agriculture, liberal democracy, technology, health, science, etc.

3. The risk of letting in too many backward people from those parts of the world that are still stuck in the Dark Ages and before such as Africa and the Middle East.