Frank WelshWoodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 2006.
720 pages ~ $37.50/Hardcover
Nearly every history of Australia begins with some reference to Terra Australis Nondum Cognita - the unknown southern land. The cliché would be tiresome if it were not such a fitting description. Long the subject of European myth and speculation, Australia has stubbornly persisted as a stereotype in many minds since the first English settlement in 1788. Consider that the continent has one of the most highly urbanized populations in the world, but continues to be defined in the pop cultural imagination as a rural backwater full of beer, khaki, and unlikely fauna. Most Americans are more familiar with Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin than they are with Lachlan Macquarie or John Howard (Macquarie was an energetic governor from the early 19th century who lent his name to numerous landmarks, Howard is the current Prime Minister). Frank Welsh does an admirable job of clearing away the myths and stereotypes to trace the history of the continent from the first European explorations to the present, focusing on the interplay of geography and culture to create a unique Australian identity. As he puts it, it is “an attempt to explain to the rest of the world how this remarkable society has evolved, a continental nation.” (p. xxxviii)
Welsh’s history is emphatically not a study in geographic determinism; at no point does he allow the landscape to become more important than the people in his narrative. Rather, he skillfully acknowledges the unique role that location has in the Australian consciousness while recognizing that this consciousness is the expression of individuals sharing a common identity. Being careful not to paint with too broad a brush, Australia’s situation can be described as roughly analogous both to England’s as an island nation or to the United States’ possession of a vast frontier. The importance of location can be seen in two ways; the first is the primacy of specific places in the Australian national myth. For example, Botany Bay remained the infamous emblem of the penal colony for years, immortalized in ballads and plays, even though the actual first settlement was some miles to the north at Sydney. Similarly, in the United States the Jamestown colony is often overshadowed by Plymouth Bay, although there the geographic distance is much larger. Symbolically, the religious significance of the Plymouth Bay colony is much more potent in American thought. Australians see Sydney as a world-class city - Botany Bay conjures up images of men in chains, even if none actually toiled there. Likewise, the Eureka stockade has evolved into an almost mythic symbol of Australian values, much like the Alamo. The death of a digger (miner) in a hotel brawl in 1854 led to riots and a standoff at the Eureka stockade. The incident “is perhaps the most dramatic event in Australian domestic history, the country’s only battle – if one omits the periodic clashes with Aborigines as too one-sided to be so dignified – and has been well over-dramatized.” (p. 209)
Welsh demythologizes the fight and explains how it has been appropriated and interpreted by various interests for their own ends, but the importance of Eureka is inseparable from Australian identity…it’s influence can be seen in the vaunted “digger spirit” of the ANZACs (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) in the first World War. Indeed, it is the First World War that provides the most obvious location in the formation of Australian identity – Gallipoli. A strategic fiasco (an attempt to capture Istanbul via the Dardanelles that left the landing forces bogged down on the beaches for months), the bloody campaign is a touchstone for later generations of Australians. It is hard to overstate the battle’s importance to Australians as a piece of their national character; “…the first large-scale action in which Australians participated shocked the country into a new consciousness of nationality, one which was unique, precious and distinct from being a distant Dominion of the British Empire.” (p. 368) April 25, ANZAC Day, is observed across the country, a solemn remembrance of the young nation’s first major sacrifice and overseas adventure. The Australian idea of “mateship” (more below) owes a lot to these places; the harsh realities of frontier life in the Australian bush had encouraged a set of values (dogged perseverance, self reliance, and comradeship, to name a few) that were given fuller expression at Eureka and Gallipoli and almost sanctified by the sacrifice of Aussie soldiers.
The subtler, and perhaps more important, role of location can be summed up in a simple phrase: “the Far East is our Near North.” (p. 407) Geography here makes its presence felt in the realm of international relations and domestic politics, not just national consciousness, myth, and identity. Welsh faithfully documents the role that Australia’s global location plays in its international status…the gradual drift of Australian interests from British ones, the primacy of Indonesia and New Guinea in Australian politics, the tensions over Asian (and generally “non-white”) immigration. Any discussion of Australian history and politics has to take its unique position as primarily Anglo-Irish culture on the edge of Asia into account. Culturally and ideologically, Australia is inextricably bound up with the United States and the UK, but when it comes to international relations it is dominated by South East Asian concerns. For example, the close and easy availability of cheap labor from Indonesia and China in the early 20th century directly stimulated the growth of a protectionist trade policy that can still be felt today. People on the other side of the Pacific might follow Indonesian politics with a detached interest, but Australians are directly impacted (most notably in 2002, when 88 Australians were killed by a terrorist bombing in Bali).
Geography and location are certainly crucial parts of the Australian narrative, but Welsh is careful not to let them play an over-large role in the story. For large parts of its early history Australia was essentially an autocracy, and so the personalities of the various royal governors and colonial secretaries form an important part of the nation’s history. Welsh balances his account of these “great” persons with descriptions of life for the average person, and that is his greatest strength. No single group or ethnicity is given primacy - Welsh is not writing a “people’s history” of Australia, or an aboriginal history, or a political history. If anything, he is writing a “cultural” history – his focus is on how Australians developed an idea of “Australia.” As much as possible, he simply tries to present an account of what has occurred, and he does not hesitate to upset prevailing cultural myths and errors whenever he encounters them. Dismissively, he devotes a grand total of one page to the notorious bushranger and folk hero Ned Kelly, giving Bill Bryson the last word on the man: “He was a murderous thug who deserved to be hanged and was…He killed several people, often in cold blood, sometimes for no very good reason.” (p. 312) By dismissing Kelly, he separates the man from the myth, thereby putting the focus not on the bandit, but rather on the qualities that have been attributed to him - the qualities that Australians like to see in themselves (independence, a dislike of authority, and (of course) mateship.
He goes on to condemn larrikinism as mere thuggery, completely devoid of romanticism, and challenges the cherished idea of “mateship” as a uniquely Australian value:
"Apart from its implied relegation of women to a somehow lower standard of consideration, it is at least questionable whether these characteristics are peculiar to Australia. Any dangerous activity, from soldiering to scuba-diving, imposes reliance on one’s fellows…In this sense, ‘mateship’ is by no means a peculiarly Australian concept. Nor is the exclusion of women from masculine society the preserve of Australians…Not, to most observers, a very attractive concept and one declining rapidly in Australian society as wine bars and family clubs replace bars and pubs, ‘mateship’ has nevertheless been elevated, with almost religious intensity, into a potential pillar of the Constitution." (p. 316)
At times Welsh almost delights in challenging the conventional narrative, and his tone borders on condescending, but his willingness to address sometimes zealously defended topics like these is especially welcome in the area of race. Australia’s history of race relations is no less disturbing and embarrassing than that of the United States, and no easier to write about. For Indigenous Australians, European settlement was a disaster that bordered on cultural genocide. As late as the 20th century, aboriginal children were forcibly separated from their families in order to be assimilated into the white community (the “Stolen Generation”). Welsh unflinchingly documents racism when he encounters it, but also condemns the practice of re-interring prehistoric aboriginal remains as obscuring knowledge for the sake of feelings. Knowing that he might step on some toes, he writes that “Since the process by which Aboriginal societies have been shattered, or absorbed, or survived, forms an important part of Australian history and remains a subject of often indignant dispute such sensibilities are here discounted.” (p. xxxiv)
If there is a stumbling block to Welsh’s narrative, it is Australian politics (although it could be argued that they have been a stumbling block to a great many things in the country’s history). Triennial elections, a contentious polity, and the nation’s evolving relationship with the Crown and the United Kingdom make for an almost impenetrable web of shifting coalitions and ministries. The whole mess is exacerbated, especially in the 19th century, by the practice of individuals gaining and shedding names as they become elevated to the peerage. Still, Welsh does a credible job sorting through it all. His use of pejorative terms, sometimes subjectively, is also a source for criticism. Several times he refers to rural, poorly educated Australians (especially Queenslanders) as “rednecks,” and while the term may be fitting, it is somewhat unsettlingly to see in a scholarly work.
Welsh manages a broad subject with superb skill. An Englishman living in Australia, he tackles the difficult issues of the country’s past with the objectivity of an outsider, but blends this with the intimacy and love of a native. No work is completely without bias, and he freely opines in his opening paragraph, “Australia is probably the most successful society in the world and the most agreeable to live in,” but his love for his subject never becomes a fault, and the result is a sober, reasoned, readable piece of history.
(All citations from the book under review.)
