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Introduction.

Article Excerpt
The articles presented in JAS 91 were chosen because they stimulate a rethinking of Australian history, the interpretation of which so often legitimises the present by adopting a particular reading of the past. This interpretation creates an optimistic image of Australian history and identity as the inevitable and preferred outcome of what went before. Moreover, the image focuses on achievements and events that have been interpreted (or constructed) as key defining moments: Australian identity as the result of, and defined by, progressive historical experiences and achievements.

The optimistic interpretation of Australian history has much in common with the philosophy of many nineteenth-century historians who believed in the natural progress of Western societies, culminating in parliamentary democracy, constitutional government and, in more modern terms, less state control. Inevitably, the optimistic interpretation has largely ignored negative historical events and conflicting dual narratives. It is hardly surprising, then, that much of the current rethinking of Australia's history centres on the consideration of multiple accounts of the past. In the first paper of this issue, Helen McDonald suggests that...

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