There has been a relative flood of general histories in the last few years, not necessarily prompted by the new millennium or the commemoration of federation. Mark Peel did it in a mere 10000 words in 1997 in A little history of Australia, while Graeme Davison, John Hirst and Stuart McIntyre took 716 pages to edit The Oxford Companion to Australian history in 1998. Michael Cathcart managed to abridge Manning Clark’s six volume history into one in 1997 while Stuart Mcinytre’s A concise history of Australia is currently sitting in shopping mall book shops beside Phillip Knightley’s Australia; a biography of a nation and the reprint of Manning Clark’s A Short History of Australia originally published in 1963. What is the motivation behind thei...