| Review of: | The Europeans in Australia: A History Volume Two: Democracy by Alan Atkinson |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Marion Stell |
| Reviewed in: | Australian Journal of Politics and History |
| Date accepted online: | 14/01/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 53, Issue 03, Pages 465-504 |
Book Reviews
"Among the ancient inhabitants of Australia are its ants" and with his opening words to volume two of this three-volume undertaking Alan Atkinson emerges as the Gil Grissom of Australian history. Atkinson the forensic entomologist sets about systematically and methodically prodding the ant nest that is Australia in the nineteenth century. By the book's end he states: "The two ant-nests, old and new, might be taken to stand for the two generations that are described in this volume - the generation that coloured life around about the 1830s and that of the goldrush years and after."
While ants are the book's leitmotif (even the explorer Mitchell is described as travelling "ant-like" over the back of the country), Atkinson cannot resist expanding his natural world to include reference to spiders, termites, flying ants and bees, and ascribing their characteristics to colonial Europeans. Indeed each of the three parts of the book is introduced by scientific quotations from "Naturae Amator" writing in the
Never resorting to dull statistics, Atkinson constructs a story of an era that witnesses the widening of Australian life both in terms of number of people and of places settled. It becomes a much bigger story, and it is in portraying the scope of the story that Atkinson reveals a capable hand. The familiar is covered off in terms of people and places - Wentworth, Macquarie, Chisholm, Fawkner, Batman, Myall Creek; and topics - transportation, gold, responsible government, race relations, the overland telegraph. But the familiar story is "unpicked" and created anew. It is Atkinson's stated aim of pursuing broad themes by turning the story "inside out" and telling "stories from within" that contributes to the book's strength and success. It is underpinned by a tone of empathy and compassion and words and concepts such as unpredictability, hope, possibilities, abundance and cheerfulness enliven the text throughout. Amidst an emphasis on the importance of literacy, newspapers and even postage, engaging new themes emerge - laughter, curiosity, noise, anger, revenge, happiness, and pain.
Atkinson constructs a clever thematic framework that is roughly chronological and is balanced and supported by constant cross-referencing within the volume. His sound-bite approach to history is readable and entertaining and his segues are intriguing and lively. In the chapter "Railway Dreaming" (a term borrowed from Dickens) he leaps from railway to derailed to deranged (lunacy) to Queensland: "In some sense Queensland was itself a kind of hallucination, a mixture of waking and dreaming." In another he moves from drama to the drama of water supply. Only occasionally is his approach stretched, such as when he includes the establishment of Launceston and Melbourne within the chapter "Men and women".
Atkinson knows his subject well, this volume builds on the intense research he and Marian Aveling (now Quartly) oversaw for the 1838 volume of the bicentennial history, and we benefit from his close reading of complex and far-reaching sources and his unraveling of obscure literary allusions. He acknowledges that his passion to explore this history is "caught up with the flesh and memory it describes" as the book is indeed written by an "heir". Perhaps, like Grissom, Atkinson is compelled "because the dead can't speak for themselves".