Backbencher

The book A Short History of Australia by Manning Clark is the not-so-short history of the Aborigine peoples of Australia and their later encounters with the English and the history of their settlement together.

Manning Clark tells the story of the land of Australia, a land originally colonized by the Aborigine people from Indochina by following trade routes of the Chinese. Later, in the 1700’s, European explorers also colonized Australia and attempted to trade with the natives. Eventually the different cultures caused the Europeans to label the Aborigine people as pagans, and attempt to convert them to Christianity which led to many years of hostilities, which the British were not able to accept, as they wished to establish as a prison colony at Botany Bay. Eventually, settlers came to Australia wishing to explore farming and other trades, which proved difficult as the land of Australia is quite different from that of Europe or other lands they had already colonized. This led to a shortage of food for both the settlers and prisoners alike, causing more hostilities between the English and Aborigines, as they were forced to take more land in attempt to grow new crops.

This all changed in the early 1800’s, when Lacklon Macquarie was appointed Captain-General and Commander-In-Chief of the New South Wales colony. He was known for beginning programs which brought an end to the problems of lawlessness, poverty, and starvation in Australia. His programs of self-dependence led to new exports, which allowed Australia to begin a new era on her own.

As time progressed, Australia went through the traditional programs of prison reform and philosophical enlightenment of other countries. The English legislature granted Australia the powers to elect a local government, to prevent the problems England had suffered with the American Revolution. This is where Manning Clark makes a stand, he poises the history of Australia along with the history of the United States. This was rather difficult for me, as I believe that every country has its own history, and their story should be told in its own way. Whether his intent is to make it easier to the American reader to understand is anybody’s guess, however I believe it is the best idea to leave Australian history to the Australians.

Clark continues on to tell the story of Australia’s political maturing, in that they chose liberal and democratic parties to lead the different thoughts of the people. This created some problems for labor movements, which led people to think rather poorly of their own government. An age of Optimism began after this, in that Christian forces began a new age of positive and righteous thinking which persisted in Australia up to World War I. From being caught in World War I through the Cold war, Australia believed that they were just a model of the United States, and that they had no other boundaries through with which to guide themselves. It appears that being squeezed between two wars and the philosophies of Communism and Democracy have allowed Australia to explore two sides of completely different philosophies and discover themselves.

The reason that Manning Clark began the history of Australia similarly to the history of the United States was that Australia did not have much of a national identity, and it turned out that this was indeed true. Clark describes the difference of Australia beginning in the late 19th century, and it was not until then that Australia truly learned who she is.