Reconciling the Past in Australia

Greg Melleuish is an associate professor at the University of Wollongong, where he teaches political theory, world history and Australian politics. He has an MA from the University of Sydney and a PhD from Macquarie University and previously taught at the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland. He has published widely, primarily in the areas of Australian political thought and intellectual history. His books include Cultural Liberalism in Australia (Cambridge University Press, 1995), The Packaging of Australia (UNSW Press, 1998), and The Power of Ideas (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2009). He has also published in other areas, including a recent coauthored article on pseudo-history published in History Compass. In 2006 he wrote a paper entitled “The Teaching of Australian History in Australian Schools: A Normative View” for the Australian History Summit. He has commented widely on issues relating to the proposed national history curriculum in Australia and on more general issues pertaining to history in Australia in journals that include Quadrant and Policy, as well as the Australian newspaper.