Writer
Henry Reynolds
Henry Reynolds is an eminent Australian historian.
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Has the Cavalcade of Commemoration Finally Halted?
With Remembrance Day behind us we may finally have some relief from the relentless commemoration of conflict which began twenty years ago and climaxed with the centenary of the First World War. Historians of the future may well wonder where this obsession with war came from and why we spent more on the centenary than Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Mateship Multiplied.
I was idly trawling through the many programmes available on the hotel’s television and came upon the History Channel. To my surprise there was a feature about what was called Australia’s 100 years of mateship with the United States although the particular focus was on Australians who had worked in Hollywood. I later discovered that Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Henry Reynolds: Australia was founded on a hypocrisy that haunts us to this day.
US slave owners wrote and spoke about liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness. Similar hypocrisy, buried in the foundations of settler Australia, has escaped comparable scrutiny. Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Ethno-nationalism and Australia’s place in the world.
Ethno-nationalism is resurgent in many European countries, in the United States and in Israel. Hostility to immigration and to refugees is widespread. The Australian debate about the level of immigration is a mild symptom of the present malaise. Andrew Bolt’s more strident recent attack on immigrant communities attracted widespread and cogent criticism. But it raised Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. A HUNDRED YEARS OF MATESHIP.
The poster was launched by the Australian Embassy in Washington on July 4th, Independence Day. It attracted no attention at all locally which may have been a blessing. I only heard about it when reading the Australian edition of the Guardian online. It featured the faces of 15 men. It was a strange collection of Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Australia’s perpetual ‘war footing’. (Repost from 7/5/2018)
We should have paid more attention at the time. It was September 2013 and the Abbott government had just been sworn in. The new Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston, gave an interview to a Fairfax journalist which was reported on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The content was truly extraordinary. Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. The Fighting Retreat of the Anglo-Australians.
Australian budgets rarely make news in Britain. But the Sunday Times was moved to feature the Government’s decision to commit just under $50 million to mark the 250th anniversary of Cook’s arrival at Botany Bay in 1770. Two points were made. A new $26 million memorial was a token of Turnbull’s defiance of this year’s Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Australia’s perpetual ‘war footing’.
We should have paid more attention at the time. It was September 2013 and the Abbott government had just been sworn in. The new Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston, gave an interview to a Fairfax journalist which was reported on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The content was truly extraordinary. Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Remembrance Day in New York: Anzac Day in Tasmania.
I was in New York during May last year. At the end of the month, there was a public holiday. It was their Remembrance Day. Not that much happened in New York. There were no flags, no marches or processions. Apparently, it is a tradition for a naval ship to come into port for the Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Brendan Nelson and the War Memorial – what about the Frontier Wars?
On Friday the Director of the Australian War Memorial Brendan Nelson announced plans for a massive redevelopment of the institution which would cost up to $500 million.He hoped to receive the required funding in next year’s budget and he is likely to be given what- ever he asks for having already received strong support from Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Where Was The Governor-General?
Sir Peter Cosgrove was not in Canberra last week to swear in the new leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime-Minister. As far as I am aware there was no official explanation for his absence. But it turned out that he was on a ‘secret’ visit to Iraq to visit the 300 Australian troops Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. A hundred years of mateship?
I was astonished! An SBS news report about the Turnbull visit to Washington declared that the two countries were celebrating their hundred years of alliance. Where had this extraordinary snippet of history come from, I wondered? I then discovered that it was the Australian Embassy which had had been talking about 100 years of mateship. Continue reading »
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Australia: A Belligerent Nation
Much discussion has been generated by the recently released Defence White. There were several penetrating essays in Pearls and Irritations. But looking at the text as a historian it seemed that some of the most interesting observations passed without notice. I was drawn to the statement that there was no more than a remote prospect of Continue reading »
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Henry Reynolds. Militarisation marches on . A REPOST
The Australian military featured heavily again in our celebrations of Australia Day 2018. There were Army parades in Canberra and the Navy on show in Sydney Harbour. The militarisation of Australia and the language of war has become the new norm. Is that what Australia Day should be about? What about our civilian achievements? There Continue reading »
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Unnecessary wars – A Repost from October 26 2017
In a letter written in August 1855 to his colleague John Bright, the great free trade liberal, Richard Cobden, expressed his hostility to Britain’s involvement in the Crimean War. ‘And yet I doubt’, he observed, ‘if there be a more reprehensible human act than to lead a nation into an unnecessary war’. Cobden clearly had Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Memories and Massacres- A REPOST from July 10 2017
The release by Newcastle University’s Centre for 21st Century Humanities of a map of colonial frontier massacres has attracted a burst of media attention. It draws national interest back to those questions that were highlighted during the history wars of a decade and more ago. Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Beersheba and the Militarisation of Australian History.
The commemoration of the centenary of the battle for Beersheba illustrates many features of the progressive militarization of Australian history. No other aspect of our past attracts the lavish funding provided by the federal government. The cost of the commemoration must be considerable given the abundant travel grants and the funding of the new Light Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Thinking about memory and monuments.
The controversy about confederate monuments in the southern states erupted in May this year while I was in the United States. I was impressed by the extent and the vigour of the debate. In the back of my mind I wondered if a similar controversy would eventually emerge in Australia. It did and with a Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Citizenship and English proficiency and indigenous people.
So we have the anomalous situation of a projected citizenship test which large numbers of indigenous people could not pass. Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. That day again
Controversy about Australia Day intensifies. The ABC’s Triple J is consulting its listeners about moving the popular Hottest 100 Countdown from January 26th. Debate is taking place in council chambers across the country. Melbourne’s Yarra Council was savaged by Prime Minister Turnbull in parliament last week because the councillors had decided to cancel official ceremonies Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. January 26?
When we examine the violations of law when the British took possession of eastern Australia in 1788, it’s little wonder that a growing number of people are seeking a date other than January 26 to celebrate Australia Day. Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Unnecessary wars in service of other people’s empires.
Australia is engaged in a long cavalcade of military commemoration. It has been advancing since the 1990’s. Government largesse has speeded it on its way. War is now widely seen as the defining collective experience. The national spirit, the argument runs, emerged in battle far from our shores. A generation of school children have been Continue reading »
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Henry Reynolds. Militarisation marches on.
This article by Henry Reynolds was initially posted in September last year. John Menadue Australia is obsessed with war. For a generation, federal governments have funded an intense program highlighting the importance of our military history. It has reached into every part of the country. Books, films and research projects have been subsidised. Old monuments Continue reading »