The combatants in the so-called ‘History Wars’ have been denouncing each other for about a decade. The main issue is the handling of black–white relations in histories of Australia. There are tangential disputes about the policies of the National Museum and the worth of the historian Manning Clark and his writings, but these are not germane to this article. On the left, television historians, journalists and politicians are concerned to levy blame for terrible acts of European greed and brutality and to bestow praise for acts of Aboriginal resistance; while rightists emphasise the white settlers’ and authorities’ normally good intentions and the small amount of blood shed by comparison with the histories of North and South America, and of Africa. The leading protagonists in both camps have generally been formed by Marxism and retain that absolutist faith that nothing happens by accident, thereby permitting simple assignments of good and evil.

The History Wars have occurred in a context of wide-spread European and Aboriginal disillusionment with the movements towards reconciliation and Aboriginal betterment. Significantly, neither major party pressed these causes in the 2004 federal election, presumably because there were no votes in them. I think Australia is not alone in this development, but I cannot pursue that here; except to observe that a generational shift from expressive to instrumental politics may be occurring. Meanwhile, there is evidence of widespread unobtrusive settlement of persons claiming Aboriginal descent into the urban European–Asian community, a process that all sides choose to ignore.