A Dirk Moses

For the past twenty years, Bain Attwood has been trying to de-provincialise what he sees as an insular historiography of Aboriginal Australia by imploring colleagues to embrace the latest intellectual trends from France, America and New Zealand. In Telling the Truth about Aboriginal History, he expands on his many press articles on the ‘history wars’ and combines them with methodological reflection on postmodernism and post-colonialism. What advice does he have for his colleagues in the face of doubts cast on their work by newspaper columnists and other ‘history warriors’?

Is ‘genocide’ a useful concept for understanding colonialism and, in particular, the destruction of Aboriginal communities during the settlement of Australia? Dirk Moses, the editor of this stimulating collection of essays on Genocide and Settler Society, thinks so, but with qualifications. Many of his contributors agree, but tend to be more comfortable using the concept in its adjectival form: there were genocidal ‘moments’, ‘plans’, ‘processes’, ‘relationships’, ‘tendencies’ and ‘thoughts’ in Australian history, but ‘genocide’ – the crime of deliberately exterminating a people – is another matter. The charge of ‘genocide’ tout court gives historians pause, for it is essential to prove intent and state sanction on the part of the perpetrators.