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''''Keith Windschuttle''' (born 1942) is an Australian writer, [[history|historian]], and [[Australian Broadcasting Corporation|ABC]] board member, who has authored several books from the 1970s onwards. These include ''Unemployment'', (1979), which analysed the economic causes and social consequences of unemployment in Australia and advocated a [[socialist]] response; ''The Media: a New Analysis of the Press, Television, Radio and Advertising in Australia'', (1984), on the political economy and content of the news and entertainment [[mass media|media]]; ''The Killing of History'', (1994), a critique of [[postmodernism]] in [[history]]; ''The Fabrication of Aboriginal History: Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847'', (2002), which accuses a number of Australian historians of falsifying and inventing the degree of [[violence]] in the past; and ''The White Australia Policy'', (2004), a history of that policy which argues that academic historians have exaggerated the degree of [[racism]] in Australian history. He was appointed editor of [[Quadrant (magazine)|Quadrant]] magazine from the end of 2007.<ref>[http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/windschuttle-to-edit-quadrant/2007/10/24/1192941074501.html Windschuttle to edit Quadrant, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 October 2007]</ref> He is the [[publisher]] of [[Macleay Press]]. ==Biography== After education at [[Canterbury Boys' High School]] (where he was a contemporary of former [[Liberal Party of Australia|Liberal]] [[Prime Minister of Australia|Australian prime minister]] [[John Howard]]), Windschuttle was a journalist on newspapers and magazines in Sydney. He completed a BA (first class honours in history) at the [[University of Sydney]] in 1969, and an MA (honours in politics) at [[Macquarie University]] in 1978. He enrolled in a PhD but did not complete it. In 1973, he became a [[tutor]] in Australian history at the [[University of New South Wales]] (UNSW). Between 1977 and 1981, Windschuttle was [[lecturer]] in Australian history and in [[journalism]] at the New South Wales Institute of Technology, now [[University of Technology, Sydney]] before returning to UNSW in 1983 as lecturer/senior lecturer in social policy. He resigned from UNSW in 1993 and since then he has been publisher of Macleay Press and a regular visiting and guest lecturer on history and [[historiography]] at American universities. In June 2006 he was appointed to the Board of the [[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] (ABC), Australia's non-commercial public broadcaster. ==Political evolution== An adherent of the [[New Left]] in the 1960s and 70s, Windschuttle later moved to the right. This process is first evident in his 1984 book ''The Media'', which was highly critical of the Marxist theories of [[Louis Althusser]] and [[Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|Stuart Hall]]. Windschuttle criticised these writers from the same empirical perspective as [[Marxist historiography|Marxist historian]] [[E. P. Thompson]] in Thompson's book 'The Poverty of Theory'. The first edition of 'The Media' attacked "the political program of the New Right" and set out a case favouring "government restrictions and regulation" and condemning "private enterprise and free markets".<ref>[http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/12/23/1040511005690.html The battle is not to be left behind - theage.com.au<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> However, the third edition in 1988 took a different view: "Overall, the major economic reforms of the last five years, the deregulation of the finance sector, and the imposition of wage restraint through the social contract of The Accord, have worked to expand employment and internationalize the Australian economy in more positive ways than I thought possible at the time." This political evolution has continued since the early 1990s. In ''The Killing of History'', Windschuttle defended the practices and methods of traditional [[empirical history]] against [[postmodernism]], and praised historians such as [[Henry Reynolds (historian)|Henry Reynolds]]. He currently argues that although at the time he believed that those historians he praised relied on traditional empirically-oriented approaches, he has subsequently discovered by checking their [[primary source]]s that some did not. In the ''The Killing of History'', Windschuttle argued that historians on the left and right of the political spectrum have misrepresented and distorted history to support various political causes or ideological positions. In ''The Fabrication of Aboriginal History'' and other recent writings on [[Indigenous Australians|Australian Aboriginal]] history, Windschuttle has exclusively criticised left-wing historians who, he claims, have extensively misrepresented and fabricated historical evidence to support a political agenda. He argues that Aboriginal rights, including land rights and the need for reparations for past abuses of Aboriginal people, has been adopted as a left-wing 'cause' and that left-wing historians have manipulated the historical evidence to increase support for that cause. Windschuttle claims that the task of the historian is to attempt to provide the reader with an empirical history as near to the [[Objectivity (philosophy)|objective truth]] as possible, based on an analysis of documentary, or preferably eye-witness, evidence. Windschuttle questions the value of oral history. His "view is that Aboriginal oral history, when uncorroborated by original documents, is completely unreliable, just like the oral history of white people."<ref>http://www.sydneyline.com/National%20Museum%20Frontier%20Conflict.htm</ref> The political implications of an objective, empirical history are not the empirical historian's responsibility. A historian may have his or her own political beliefs but this should never lead them to falsify historical evidence. However, critics, such as the contributors to ''Whitewash'', have argued that Windschuttle does not follow his own criteria as, in their view, his work invariably produces findings consistent with his political views. The contributors to ''Whitewash'' include historians whom Windschuttle has directly criticised for "fabricating" history. The key issue is whether the historical evidence, viewed objectively, supports the historical arguments made by Windschuttle or those of the historians he has criticised. A frequent contributor to conservative magazines ''[[Quadrant (magazine)|Quadrant]]'' and ''[[The New Criterion]]'', Windschuttle's recent research disputes whether the [[Colonialism|colonial]] settlers of Australia committed widespread [[genocide]] against the [[Indigenous Australians]] and denies the claims by some [[left-wing]] historians that there was a campaign of [[guerrilla warfare]] against British settlement. Extensive debate on his claims has come to be called the [[History Wars]]. He argues against assertions, which he imputes to the current generation of academic historians, that there was any resemblance between racial attitudes in Australia and those of South Africa under [[apartheid]] and Germany under the [[Nazism|Nazis]]. ==''The Fabrication of Aboriginal History''== {{see also|History Wars}} In ''The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847'', Windschuttle reviews academic published research on the history of violence between indigenous Australians and white colonists. The book focuses primarily on [[Tasmania]]n history and the [[Wiktionary:massacre|massacres]] and violence reported there. Windschuttle denies many of the claims made by historians such as Reynolds and [[Lyndall Ryan]]. In reviewing the citations made by historians, he claims that many are inaccurate, misleading, falsified and sometimes invented. In a number of cases, the primary sources [[footnote]]d do not support the claims made in the text. He argues that the colonial settlers of Australia did not commit widespread [[List of massacres of indigenous Australians|massacres]] against [[Indigenous Australians]], and that there was not a campaign of [[guerrilla warfare]] against British settlement. His review focuses in large part on the [[Black War]] against the [[Tasmanian Aborigine|Aborigines of Tasmania]]. Windschuttle argues that instead of a widespread campaign of resistance against European settlement, in what was known as the [[Black War]], Tasmanian Aboriginal people engaged in repeated acts of theft and violence motivated by their desire for 'exotic' consumer goods like flour, tea, sugar and blankets. He suggests that settlers were often killed in these raids because the culture of Tasmanian Aborigines “had no sanctions against the murder of anyone outside their immediate clan” and the killing of outsiders was therefore part of their culture. The forced removal of Aborigines from the Tasmanian mainland to Flinders Island, after previous attempts at 'conciliation' failed, was the Colonial Administration's chosen means of ensuring peace for hard-pressed settlers as well as being an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the extinction of the full-blooded Tasmanian Aborigines. The decline in the Aboriginal population after the British colonisation was the product of the interaction of a number of factors including introduced diseases causing death and infertility, continued internecine warfare, deaths through conflict with settlers and the loss of a significant number of women of childbearing age from the full-blooded aboriginal gene pool to white sealers and settlers through abduction, ‘trade’ and by voluntary association. Windschuttle's claims and research have been the subject of a series of [[rebuttal]]s and counter-rebuttals. The best known is ''Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History'', an anthology edited and introduced by [[Robert Manne]], professor of politics at [[La Trobe University]], with contributions from other Australian historians. Another book, ''Washout: On the academic response to The Fabrication of Aboriginal History'' by Melbourne freelance writer John Dawson, argues that ''Whitewash'' leaves Windschuttle's claims and research unrefuted. At the time of the publication of Volume One it was announced that a second volume, to be published in 2003, would cover claims of frontier violence in New South Wales and Queensland, and a third, in 2004, would cover Western Australia.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982065.html |title=Our history, not rewritten but put right - smh.com.au |accessdate=2008-03-06 |format= |work=}}</ref> On 20 January 2006, Windschuttle was reported as saying that the second volume would be published "within twelve months".<ref name="titleThe Australian: If Australias history brings shame, then let it be uttered [ 20jan06 ]">{{cite web |url=http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/resources/history/aust20jan06.html |title=The Australian: If Australia's history brings shame, then let it be uttered [ 20jan06 ] |accessdate=2008-02-27 |format= |work=}}</ref> On 9 February 2008, however, it was announced that the second volume, to be published later in 2008. would be entitled ''The Fabrication of Australian History, Volume 2: The "Stolen Generations"'' and would address the issue of the removal of Aboriginal children (the "[[stolen generation]]") from their families in the 20th century.<ref>[http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23183633-5013404,00.html Imre Salusinszky, Aboriginal 'genocide' claim denied, ''The Australian'', 9 February, 2008]</ref> No recent reference has been made to the previously projected second and third volumes. ==Hoax== In January 2009, Windschuttle was hoaxed into publishing an article in ''Quadrant''. The stated aim of the hoax was to expose Windschuttle's alleged right wing bias by proving he would publish an inaccurate article and not check its footnotes or authenticity if it met his preconceptions. An author using the pseudonym "biotechnologist Dr Sharon Gould" submitted an article claiming that [[Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation|CSIRO]] had planned to produce food crops engineered with human genes. However, "Gould" revealed that s/he had regarded the article as an [[Alan Sokal]] style hoax. Based on the reporter's intimate knowledge of the hoax and what he described as her "triumphant" tone when disclosing the hoax to him, Windschuttle accused the online publication [[Crikey]] of being involved in the hoax, a claim Crikey denied.<ref>http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2009/01/margaret-simons-and-an-apparent-hoax-on-quadrant</ref><ref>http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20090106-How-Quadrant-swallowed-a-giant-hoax-.html</ref><ref>http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24879566-5013871,00.html</ref> Two days later, Crikey revealed that "Gould" was in fact the writer, editor and activist [[Katherine Wilson]]. Wilson agreed to being named by Crikey, as her name had already appeared in online speculation and it seemed likely that her identity was about to be revealed by other journalists.<ref>http://www.crikey.com.au/Email/Preview/DailyEmailPreview.aspx?pid=8fb56bb5-5e0c-4b3e-81c3-e3b8abfbb0da</ref> Reporters Kelly Burke and Julie Robotham note that "… the projects cited by ‘Gould’ as having been dumped by the organisation [CSIRO] are not in themselves implausible, and similar technologies are in active development. Human vaccines against diseases including hepatitis B, respiratory syncytial virus and Norwalk virus have been genetically engineered into crops as diverse as lettuce, potato and corn, and shown to provoke an immune response in humans. Gould also suggests the CSIRO abandoned research into the creation of dairy cattle capable of producing non-allergenic milk for lactose-intolerant infants and a genetically engineered mosquito that could stimulate antibodies against malaria in humans who were bitten, mitigating against the spread of the disease. Both ideas are under serious scientific study by research groups around the world." <ref>http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/plausible-inventions-lie-alongside-the-facts/2009/01/06/1231004021057.html</ref> The hoax elements of the article published in Quadrant were that the CSIRO had planned such research, abandoned it because of perceived public moral or ethical objections and that evidence of this was "buried" in footnotes to an article in a scientific journal and in two annual reports of the CSIRO, the relevant report years being unspecified. The [[Alan Sokal]] hoax that the Quadrant hoax is allegedly styled after consisted of writings described as obvious scientific nonsense submitted to an academic journal. Windschuttle states: "A real hoax, like that of Alan Sokal and Ern Malley, is designed to expose editors who are pretentious, ignorant or at least over-enthusiastic about certain subjects. The technique is to submit obvious nonsense for publication in order to expose the editor’s ignorance of the topic. A real hoax defeats its purpose if it largely relies upon real issues, real people and real publications for its content. All of the latter is true of what ‘Sharon Gould’ wrote. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of the content of her article is both factually true and well-based on the sources she cites." <ref>http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2009/01/this-hoax-a-dud-cheque</ref> ==Major publications== * ''Unemployment: a Social and Political Analysis of the Economic Crisis in Australia'', Penguin, (1979) * ''Fixing the News'', Cassell, (1981) * ''The Media: a New Analysis of the Press, Television, Radio and Advertising in Australia'', Penguin, (1984, 3rd edn. 1988) * ''Working in the Arts'', University of Queensland Press, (1986) * ''Local Employment Initiatives: Integrating Social Labour Market and Economic Objectives for Innovative Job Creation'', Australian Government Publishing Service, (1987) * ''Writing, Researching Communicating'', McGraw-Hill, (1988, 3rd edn. 1999) * ''The Killing of History: How a Discipline is being Murdered by Literary Critics and Social Theorists'', Macleay Press, Sydney (1994); Macleay Press, Michigan (1996); Free Press, New York (1997); Encounter Books, San Francisco (2000) [http://www.questia.com/read/101567740?title=The%20Killing%20of%20History%3a%20How%20Literary%20Critics%20and%20Social%20Theorists%20are%20Murdering%20Our%20Past online edition] * ''The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847'', Macleay Press, (2002) * ''The White Australia Policy'', Macleay Press, (2004) ==References== {{reflist}} ==Bibliography== * ''[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6459/is_3_47/ai_n28990395/ Contra Windschuttle]'', S.G. Foster '''Quadrant''', March 2003, 47:3 * ''The Whole Truth...?'', P. Francis, '''The Journal of GEOS''', 2000 * ''Whitewash confirms the Fabrication of Aboriginal History'', Keith Windschuttle, '''Quadrant''', October 2003 [http://www.sydneyline.com/Manne%20debate%20Quadrant.htm] * ''The return of postmodernism in Aboriginal history'', Keith Windschuttle, '''Quadrant''', April 2006 [http://www.sydneyline.com/Return%20of%20Postmodernism.htm] ==External links== * [http://www.questia.com/library/history/historians/keith-windschuttle.jsp Bibliography of online sources at Questia] *[http://www.sydneyline.com/ SydneyLine website - recent articles and lectures by Sydney author and publisher, Keith Windschuttle], plus other works and links that pursue similar interests and are conceived within the same tradition **[http://www.sydneyline.com/Real%20Stuff%20of%20History.htm The Real Stuff of History] *[http://www.abc.net.au/corp/board/windschuttle.htm ABC Board bio] {{ABCBoard}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Windschuttle, Keith}} [[Category:1942 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Australian academics]] [[Category:People from Sydney]] [[Category:Old Cantabrians]] [[Category:University of Sydney alumni]] [[Category:History of Indigenous Australians]] [[Category:Australian historians]]'