A History of Australia by Mark Peel, Christina Twomey (review)

The great achievement of a concise history like this one, which spans the life of the continent and nation in 271 pages, is in the careful selection of case studies and detail, the capacity to identify overarching themes and patterns and to present these so that one example or argument propels the reader to the next, without causing pause to question the sequence or choice of analytic or descriptive focus. It is like looking at a series of photographs, each crowded with detail, each making more sense of the last and anticipating the next, foregrounding a crystal clear scene while giving some sense of the background that is out of focus but not a mystery. The detail that has been drawn from the rich body of secondary literature and some fresh evidence, and the calibre of the writing that is at once witty, compassionate and evocative, are central to the success of this text. It offers much both to the novice Australianist and to practising historians of Australia’s pre-colonial, colonial and national pasts.

The History of Australia begins with a synthesis of interdisciplinary scholarship pertaining to the dynamics of Indigenous societies prior to European contact, their relationships with the environment, including a fascinating account of megafauna, and with each other. It also surveys assessments of the living standards and adaptability of these populations whose life expectancy roughly equalled Europeans’ and who “were probably among the most successful of the billion or so humans who lived on earth in 1770” (9). Peel and Twomey then offer a particularly engaging account of the Endeavour and the ambivalent findings of James Cook and Joseph Banks—their early enthusiasms that were soon followed by a dawning, more pragmatic sense of the limitations for European occupation of the land and people they encountered.

The insightful analysis of character and power that is found throughout the book is striking in the colourful story of the founding pastoralist and entrepreneur, John MacArthur, and his relationships with the early governors of New South Wales. The drawing of their characters is reminiscent of Manning Clark’s attention to the human passions and weaknesses of these key figures and their impact on the society they had a strong hand in shaping. Alongside these accounts of colonial celebrities, Peel and Twomey urge us to remember and understand the complexity of misfortune—its causes and texture, and its frequent intractability. In the account of convicts, which highlights the resourcefulness and opportunism that underwrote the lives of those who were ultimately successful, the authors write, “if we remember the men and women… who gained freedoms and benefits from transportation they would never have enjoyed in Britain, we need also to remember those who did not, as well as the drifters, the inebriates and the loners who never could mend what had been torn” (33). That attention to suffering should be a feature of the text is not surprising. Both authors have produced an impressive body of work on the histories of gender and poverty, Peel with an emphasis on masculinity and urban communities, Twomey on wife desertion, motherhood and prisoners of war; and both on state policies that have shaped and alleviated the harshness of being overlooked by good fortune.

Frontier conflict is rendered here with complexity that reminds the reader of the dynamics illustrated in the first chapter. As countless varieties of violence were visited upon Indigenous men, women and children by land-hungry Europeans, the authors note that “the pressure also heightened conflicts between different Aboriginal clans and dialect groups” (57). While European attacks were often premised on local events seen as justifying a reprisal, however disproportionate, the violence was overlaid with a discourse of racial difference that was central to the broader justification of colonisation (and later, border protection) and which shifted its interpretations and emphasis with changing intellectual fashions. These fashions had their very local expressions but also flagged the broader context.

Indeed this global context never fades out of sight in Peel and Twomey’s history...