Australian History
Book Details

A History for a Nation

Ernest Scott and the Making of Australian History

Stuart Macintyre

Scott laid the foundations of a historical profession in this country and trained Australians to understand their colonial past as a guide to nationhood.

Awards

Highly commended in the Ernest Scott History Prize 1997

Opinion

‘shows that historians have a contribution to make to the debate about how Australia might develop as a post-colonial society.’
Frank Bongiorno, The Age

About this Title

There is a common belief that Australia acquired history only when it grew up and threw off its colonial origins after the Second World War. Yet earlier generations of Australians created their own histories to express their sense of who they were and what they might be. This book reveals that the quest for an Australian past found its way into our universities and schools from the early years of the Commonwealth.

Ernest Scott was the most prolific teacher and writer of history in inter-war Australia. A self-taught, degreeless professor, he laid the foundations of a historical profession in this country and wrote the textbook that taught generations of schoolchildren the meaning of Australian history. An Englishman and an imperialist active in public affairs, he trained Australians to understand their colonial past as a guide to nationhood.

At the time when Australians debate their nationhood, Asianisation and the republic, A History for a Nation recalls a lost culture of urgent contemporary significance.

About the Author

Stuart Macintyre is Ernest Scott Professor of History at the University of Melbourne. His previous works include A Proletarian Science, Winners and Losers: The Pursuit of Social Justice in Australian history, volume 4 of the Oxford History of Australia and A Colonial Liberalism.

Book Preview

978-0-522-84568-6