What If?: Australian History as It Might Have Been

by Sean Scalmer, Sean Scalmer (Editor), Jim Davidson

What if key episodes in Australia's past had turned out differently?

If France had colonised part of Australia in the eighteenth century?

If the ANZACS had played only a minor role in the Gallipoli landing in World War I?

If Gough Whitlam's Labor government had been re-elected after its dismissal in 1975?

If Aborigines had been granted citizenship much earlier?

What new paths might our national history have followed? In this fascinating volume, leading Australian historians search for answers. Together, they reimagine Australia's environment, race relations, art, political life and national identity, providing a play on actual and possible, action and result, result and consequence that is as rigorous as it is creative.

What If? asks how our history has been written, what our nation has become, and what it might yet be.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Alternate History, Australia

293 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[D J Rout · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because this book has been written by professional historians, and not writers, it can be seen as a living example of Larry Niven's opinion that to write an alternate history story, you don't need a mind, just a good history text.

However, it does cover Australia with its 'counterfactuals'—a term that can be used to describe these historical ruminations when they are opposed to good stories told about alternate history—and Australia is an overlooked nation and geographical area when it comes to alternate histories. When you're looking for a good alternate history story, Australia's history is not dramatic enough to have events you can hang a story on, and so many historical essays and alternate historical essays become polemics about whatever the author is aggrieved about happening in our time line.

There is some of that in this book, notably Ann Curthoys' "What if a men’s movement had triumphed in the 1970s?" which plays around with the titles adn authors of feminist works of the 60's and 70's to produce a kind of lead-in to The Handmaid's Tale, but is at least humorous enough to not seem like a polemic.

There are two interesting departures from the alteration of historical events in "What if there had been a school of figure painting in colonial Sydney" by Virginia Spate which postulates an alternative art movement, and "What if the northern rivers had been turned inland?" by Tom Griffiths and Tim Sherratt, whch proposes a plan to bring water to central Queensland, although their conclusions about changes to the environment brought on by that aren't very convincing.

Most of the articles are well-researched and an attempt has been made to maintain plausiblity, one of the four components of good counterfactuals according to both the auhtors' introduciton here and Niall Ferguson's Virtual History: Alternatives And Counterfactuals, which is much cited, by using as many real historical documents as the authorrs can. Thus, you end up with history very similar to our time line's, since the historical figures act and speak much the same way as they did in real history.

Finally, I will add that the articles, with the exception of the Griffiths and Sherratt, are very focussed on NSW, which is a trend in fiction and non-fiction that is the scourge of academic and mainstream publishing and reading in our time line, too.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twelve counter-factuals, each by a different author. Counter-factuals are usually alternative military histories but this book has a wide variety of counter-factuals which covers topics such as social movements, art movements, treatment of aboriginals, and environmental schemes. Most interesting.

[Loki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wildly uneven, and serving as little more in many cases than an excuse for authors to ride their pet hobbyhorses, few of the counterfactuals in this collection are terribly thought provoking, largely because they fail to illuminate the differences and what they mean well enough. There are exceptions, and interestingly, the exceptions are mostly the pieces that most experiment with the form (one uses a parallel narrative of actual and counterfactual history to great effect, another is framed as a series of documents illuminating different points of view in the counterfactual).

The sheer obscurity of some of the change points is part of the problem, making it hard to really grasp what's at stake in the pieces (it's notable that one of the strongest pieces in the book tackles the Dismissal), and some of the overlooked points at which our history could have gone another way are conspicuous by their absence (no what if Harold Holt lives or West Australia had not joined Federation here).

Indeed, the book as it stands poses a range of counterfactuals, most obviously, "what if this had been a better book?"

[Nocheevo · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting (and for the most part fun) thought experiment on how Australian History may have played out if an event turned out different (e.g France colonises TAsmania, Whitlam avoids the dismissal, The northern rivers are directed to LAke Eyre basin). The scenarios swing from fascination to bland academic studies but overall I enjoyed it. Thumbs up to the What if......there had been a school of figure painting in colonial Sydney. No background in art history but I found it a thought provoking scenario. Never considered Australia cultural history in that way.