The Essential Malady

I just learned today that Keith Windschuttle, the writer, historian and former editor of Australia’s Quadrant Magazine died early in April of this year. That I didn’t learn this until over a month later tells me that I don’t pay much attention to the media and also that the media didn’t pay much attention to his death. Were the latter wrong, I would have certainly learned of it before now if only by word of mouth. It was only when looking up a book I was recommended that I discovered he had died on Quadrant’s website. I have previously mentioned him twice on this blog which really understates how important he was to my intellectual formation during my university years.

When I was studying the obviously distorted and politicised version of what passes for Australian History in university, discovering his and related works was like a cold beer after a hard day’s labour on a hot summer’s day. To say it was refreshing is then something of an understatement. I have come to rethink a lot of my assumptions and beliefs over my adult life but the work he did on Australian history has for the most part, stood up and I still highly recommend it.

His now sadly unfinished Fabrication of Aboriginal History series was the most influential. I expect that the planned but unreleased Volume II was some way along and will be finished by someone else. The reason for them being unfinished seems totally down to other projects taking over including his The White Australia Policy, The Break-Up of Australia and most recently with his The Persecution of George Pell. Of all his works, it is perhaps more than a little ironic that the last should be the first to be vindicated in its very short publication history. The other two works could certainly be re-published within the unfinished series as they are relevant to his overall thesis.

I didn’t agree with everything he wrote (does one ever?) and I would probably take the most issue with The White Australia Policy but as I’ve not read it for twenty years, I will reserve judgement. And I wouldn’t expect Windschuttle would agree with a great deal of what I’ve written on this blog either. What is more important is he was one of very few figures in Australia that actually challenged the entrenched radicals in Australian government and academia. That this has only gotten worse is more down to spineless politicians and an apathetic population than any effort on Windschuttle’s part. 

I could write more but I couldn’t help but notice what appeared second after the link to Wikipedia when searching his name in my search engine which as of writing is also exactly where it is found on Google. I thought it might be more fitting to show the kind of people Windschuttle was dealing with as it really demonstrates how important his work was. Continue reading →