Hiroshima and the Historians: History as Relative Truth

As is clear from the historiography of the US decision to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the judgments of historians are relative to the time, place, and perspective from which they are writing. There are four major schools of historical interpretation of the decision. First is the orthodox view that was offered by the participants in the decision. Second is the revisionist view of historians writing during the era of the Vietnam war who adopted a much more critical interpretation. Third is an interpretive school that gives weight to the Japanese role and responsibility. Finally, the author's view is found in a more long-range perspective that finds the momentum created by President Roosevelt's unconditional surrender policy as the decisive factor. This policy provoked unconditional resistance in the Japanese military. By 1945 the legacy of Roosevelt's policy was firmly embedded in American public opinion. Historians have reached no consensus among these different interpretive schools.     

Indonesia and the West: an Ambivalent,Misunderstood Engagement*

The relationship between Indonesia and the West has always been deeply ambivalent. On the one hand, Indonesia, since it began its search for modernity a century or so ago, has always felt a deep attraction for things Western, which promised technological mastery and economic success which might overcome the humiliation of colonial subjection. On the other hand, Indonesians were wary that any engagement that ran too deep and uncritically might prejudice their own specific sense of identity. That ambivalence was deepened and consolidated by Indonesia's own failure to develop and deepen the legitimacy, both domestic and international, of the state that its leaders had created as the vehicle of becoming modern. As a result, Indonesia's engagement with the West remained uncertain in style and often characterised by the unhelpful stridency that issues from insecurity.     

Guild Socialism and the Historians

Historians have often marginalised or dismissed Guild Socialism, and biographers have underplayed the Guild Socialist commitment of some of its most prominent adherents. This article details the historiographical neglect of Guild Socialism and argues that it has been due not only to the antipathy of historians steeped in the state socialist traditions, but also to the impossibility of placing Guild Socialism within the dominant historiographical paradigms developed by those traditions. The collapse of state socialism in all its forms affords an opportunity to re-examine Guild Socialism, which may yield a fuller historical understanding of the progressive politics of the period, and suggest possible avenues for the development of radical politics in the future.     

"Real Solemn History" and its Discontents: Australian Political History and the Challenge of Social History

The relationship between Australian political and social history has received little historiographical attention. Political history has been lauded or, more often, dismissed as traditional historical practice, while from the 1960s social history took its place as a catch-all phrase for various "new" histories concerned with everyday life. This article examines the place of political and social history in the nascent Australian academic historical profession of the 1950s to the early 1970s, and then explores the impact of the new social history on academic political history. It will suggest that while there was only limited exchange before the late 1980s, in the last twenty years social history has contributed modestly to a reconstituted understanding of political history as part of lived experience.
"[…] I can read poetry and plays, and things of that sort, and do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?"
"Yes, I am fond of history."
"I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all — it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention […]". ¹     

Moving the Genocide Debate Beyond the History Wars*

The “History Wars” have paralysed the scholarly discussion on genocide in Australian history, because genocide is regarded as a politicized concept that distorts historical understanding. Both the public sphere and much historiography continue to regard genocide as a synonym for the Holocaust, framing public discussion of genocide in Australia as well as discouraging historians from engaging with the international comparative literature on colonial genocides. This article aims to stimulate reflection on these issues by explaining the origin and meaning of the term in intellectual and legal history. It suggests that thinking of genocide as a form of extreme counter‐insurgency helps us comprehend how colonial violence unfolds. Finally, it highlights some potential limitations of the concept in understanding the Indigenous experience of colonial genocide, before suggesting how historians can deploy it in the service of scholarship rather than “History Wars”.