A History For A Nation: Ernest Scott and the Making of Australian History

(Paperback)

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

Author Bio

Stuart Macintyre is the Ernest Scott Professor of History at the University of Melbourne. His recent books include (with Anna Clark), The History Wars (Melbourne University Press, 2004), and (with Joe Isaac) The New Province for Law and Order- 100 Years of Australian Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration.