The Historian’s Craft

Robert Murray

Making Sense of History
by Geoffrey Partington
Xlibris, 2013, 324 pages, $25.95

Making Sense of History is an old historian and history teacher’s meditations on the craft, often with a light touch. It starts with an analysis of how history—which is always more complicated than people expect—might be presented and goes on to some personal reminiscences and candid comments on public and intellectual figures, past and present.

Partington grew up in a mill town near Manchester, subsequently lived in various parts of England, and in 1976 came to live in South Australia, where he joined the education faculty at Flinders University. He now lives in Melbourne. Early in life he went from youthful Baptist lay preacher to conspicuous communist and teacher union official, but later saw a more conservative light. The varied background shows.

Once as a burly student he was in a party that “escorted” (but more accurately helped) Winston Churchill up the stone staircase at Bristol University. The ageing Tory leader, who was chancellor there, was tired and emotional after lunch. It was difficult to help him along without mishap. Partington was in a position to let the great man drop, but was especially careful for fear it would be perceived as plotting communist harm. He reflects that it could have been better if he had done so, as it might have prevented Churchill’s undistinguished last term as Prime Minister.

Decades later Partington was involved—on the sceptic side—in South Australia’s bizarre Hindmarsh Island (“secret women’s business”) affair. This is part of a chapter on “Fabrication of Myth”, examining the role of myth-making in history. He once wrote a book on the contrasting Aboriginal improvement policies of H.C. “Nugget” Coombs and Paul Hasluck. Another section looks at alleged Aboriginal “genocide”.

He examines questions like civilisation in the Australian and the indigenous context; whether we or anybody should be saying sorry to the Chinese; and the various classroom “revolutions” of his times. He often strays into British as well as Australian public and chattering-class life; or into the classics. The British colonists and officials, he says, tried—although not hard enough—“to share with the indigenous peoples what they thought was worth having in their own culture and traditions”.

There is a lot of space for women, the role of gender equality and feminine handling of power, from Eve through other Old Testament and historical beauties to Margaret Thatcher and Princess Di. Over-confidence brought the Iron Lady’s come-uppance, Partington suggests.

Hunter-gatherer society, like that of the Australian Aborigines, is one of several areas he suggests could be studied and understood much more. Others among many are the distinction between positive and negative freedom and the nature of progress. He calls a “dangerous lure” teleology (the compression of events into a narrow tunnel-like focus) in history, the search for “a sword that will cut through the Gordian knot” of complexity.

Some of today’s prominent historians and commentators on history are not exactly flattered here, in comments alongside extracts from their work. He seems to be saying that not only are they biased to the Left, with a special spin against colonialism and patriotism, but they are capable of being plain silly as well. And—how does one say this?—eminence notwithstanding, some are often just not much good. Nor is he just picking mouldy cherries out of a punnet; Quadrant readers will find the sentiments all too familiar.