Moment of Truth

Mark McKenna is one of Australia's leading historians. His most recent book, An Eye for Eternity: The life of Manning Clark (MUP) won five national awards, including the 2012 Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History. He is also the author of Looking for Blackfellas' Point: An Australian History of Place (UNSW Press), which won the Book of the Year and the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction in the 2003 NSW Premier's Literary Awards. His essays, reviews and political commentary have appeared in The Monthly, Meanjin, ABR, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian.

Australia is on the brink of momentous change, but only if its citizens and politicians can come to new terms with the past.In this inspiring essay, Mark McKenna considers the role of history in making and unmaking the nation. From Captain Cook to the frontier wars, from Australia Day to the Uluru Statement, we are seeing passionate debates and fresh recognitions. McKenna argues that it is time to move beyond the history wars, and that truth-telling about the past will be liberating and healing. This is a superb account of a nation's moment of truth.
"The time for pitting white against black, shame against pride, and one people's history against another's, has had its day. After nearly fifty years of deeply divisive debates over the country's foundation and its legacy for Indigenous Australians, Australia stands at a crossroads - we either make the commonwealth stronger and more complete through an honest reckoning with the past, or we unmake the nation by clinging to triumphant narratives in which the violence inherent in the nation's foundation is trivialised." -Mark McKenna, Moment of Truth