Keith Windschuttle and Robert Edgerton: a comparison of texts

In November 2002 Keith Windschuttle published The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, volume one: Van Diemen's Land: 1803-1847. The publication was instantly greeted as a major cultural event almost entirely because of the accusation raised by Windschuttle that the most important contemporary historians of the destruction of Tasmanian Aboriginal society-Lyndall Ryan, Henry Reynolds and Lloyd Robson-were deliberate falsifiers. In The Sydney Morning Herald of November 22 Andrew Stevenson wrote: "Today sees the publication of the first volume of Keith Windschuttle's alternative history of the frontier, in which he accuses four contemporary historians including Henry Reynolds of deception and mistruth." In The Australian of December 9 2002, Windschuttle claimed that he had exposed "some of the most hair-raising breaches of historical practice ever recorded." On December 14 in The Courier Mail, Michael Duffy argued that "allegations of scholarly fraud on this scale are virtually unknown."

At this time I wrote a regular column for The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. As I had an interest in, and had already written about, Windschuttle's revisionist version of the destruction of Aboriginal society, which he had begun with three long articles published in 2000 in Quadrant, a magazine I had edited between 1990 and 1997, I decided to read his book carefully and to make it the subject of my next column, due on December 16. Fabrication argues that the Tasmanian Aborigines were treated admirably by the British settlers but that, because they were common criminals and because of the dysfunctional nature of their society, they deserved their fate. The book appalled me when I read it first. It still does.

On page 382 of Fabrication Windschuttle made it clear that he was indebted to the American anthropologist, Robert Edgerton, for the idea that the Tasmanian Aborigines were a "profoundly maladapted society". Once I finished reading Windschuttle I borrowed Edgerton's Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony from my university's library. I discovered that Edgerton had devoted only six pages to the Tasmanians. As I read these pages I had the curious feeling that I had already read them, a feeling not of déjà vu but of déjà lu. I went back to Windschuttle and discovered a large number of similarities between what Edgerton had written between pages 47 and 52 of Sick Societies and what Windschuttle had written on pages 377 and 378 of Fabrication.

Windschuttle had set about destroying the reputations of a series of historians largely through an attack on their supposedly faulty scholarly practice. He had even provided a sermon in Fabrication on the proper use of footnotes. I decided I would briefly discuss Windschuttle's own scholarly shortcoming in my column. I knew that I needed to let the opinion editor at The Age know of my intention. He asked me to show him the evidence. I arranged for parallel columns of the passages to be typed up quickly and sent on to him.

In my column what I wrote was this: "The most unpleasant passage [in Fabrication] is the one where [Windschuttle] describes Aboriginal society as dysfunctional and misogynistic, and where he accuses Aborigines of being ‘active agents in their own demise'. For this argument he relies upon Robert Edgerton's Sick Societies. When I read the relevant section I discovered several occasions where Windschuttle, without attribution, seems to have copied Edgerton's words almost verbatim or provided slightly altered paraphrases. In this instance he has comprehensively fallen short of the standards he requires others to meet. An old remark about the goose and the gander comes to mind."

Both the Age and The Sydney Morning Herald thought that there was a case for Windschuttle to answer, just as they had earlier tackled Henry Reynolds and Lyndall Ryan over Windschuttle's accusations. On the day my column appeared in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, the story of Windschuttle's borrowings from Edgerton appeared in the news pages.

When Windschuttle was told of my claim by journalists he denied it entirely and threatened to sue. Robert Edgerton was contacted by Andrew Stevenson of The Sydney Morning Herald and by Bernard Lane of The Australian. To Stevenson he emailed: "It is true that Windschuttle several times paraphrases me in what could be seen as soft plagiarism. But it is also true that Rhys Jones said some of this same sort of things[sic], as I cited in my book. Also, Windschuttle did quote me in one instance." To Bernard Lane he "said" something slightly different: "It is true that [Windschuttle] often paraphrases me without citation, but in both cases we are paraphrasing Rhys Jones...I have seen worse, and do not take any umbrage in the way Windschuttle has used my book." Eventually, possibly because of his political sympathies, Edgerton sided with Windschuttle and claimed that Stevenson had misquoted him. As Stevenson had faithfully reproduced an email response (which even required a sic), how Edgerton could have been misquoted is very far from clear.

Wndschuttle's opponents never took the issue up, as far as I am aware. His supporters, however, did. On many occasions I was harshly criticized by Windschuttle's supporters-by Miranda Devine, Roger Sandall, Ron Brunton, the editorial team at The Australian et al-simply for having raised the issue. In his wild ad hominem attack on me in The Electronic Whorehouse, Paul Sheehan even devoted several pages to the Edgerton matter.

Even though the issue seemed to have done Windschuttle no obvious harm, he could not let it drop. On his website Sydneyline.com he completely denied the accusation-even Edgerton's version that Windschuttle had often paraphrased him without citation-and claimed that in every single instance of apparent overlap he and Edgerton had paraphrased separately from a common source, usually from the anthropologist, Rhys Jones and occasionally from the late nineteenth century racial Darwinist, Ling Roth. On his website, Windschuttle reproduced these supposed sources. As a friend remarked, he seemed to be unaware that what his parallel columns revealed was precisely what I had claimed in my column of December 16.

In late 2007, in their wisdom, the Quadrant Management Committee appointed Windschuttle as editor. As was predictable, he decided to use his editorship to exact his revenge with a ludicrous and scurrilous (and comical) accusation that I had been guilty of "plagiarism" in a newspaper article on pornography I had written in 1993, initially for The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. The complaint was that I had not footnoted a newspaper article or spent months ensuring that the hundreds of studies summarized in the dozen or more books I had read had all been entirely accurately outlined. What was novel about the accusation was that it was made by an anonymous informant who obviously did not want anyone to know his or her name. This was not necessary for legal reasons. Quadrant could have offered full legal indemnity. Shortly after he received a lawyer's letter, Windschuttle agreed to publish my reply in full. Although it was 2500 words it appeared in the letters pages of the June issue. Readers can now make a judgment on this matter for themselves by reading the original article in the May Quadrant and my reply [15]. In the course of his article, Windschuttle returned once more to the Edgerton matter, more or less thereby making it clear why he had published his obviously defamatory piece.

I have never published an article showing why, in mid-December 2002, I was convinced that Windschuttle had used Edgerton improperly and in a way that self-evidently would have required a re-write if it had occurred in a postgraduate thesis or even in an undergraduate essay. No one would argue that the issue is of first rate importance. But given that neither he nor his political friends will let the matter drop I have no alternative but, finally, to outline my case.

What follows is Windschuttle's supposed source or sources; Edgerton's paraphrase of the sources; the relevant sentence or sentences in Windschuttle; and my own commentary. Readers can decide for themselves whether my initial description-"Windschuttle, without attribution, seems to have copied Edgerton's words almost verbatim or provided slightly altered paraphrases"-is true or false.

Commentary:

Windschuttle's implicit claim here is that both he and Edgerton took from Rhys Jones the idea about the simplicity of the Tasmanian technology and, independently and by accident, placed it within the framework of a general statement about the time the Europeans made contact with the Tasmanians. In addition, he implicitly claims that independently and by accident they used a near-identical sentence structure not found in Rhys Jones: "When Europeans first made contact with them in the eighteenth century, the approximately 4000Tasmanians...(E)". "When first contacted in the eighteenth century, the Tasmanians...(W)". Neither claim is plausible.

Commentary:

Readers will notice that Edgerton's and Windschuttle's sentences more closely resemble each other than they resemble Rhys Jones'. In addition three words or phrases Edgerton uses in his paraphrase of Rhys Jones, namely "wooden spears", "wooden clubs" and "stones" are not found in Rhys Jones, who refers to "spears", "a club" and "small spherical pebbles". In each case Windschuttle uses words and phrases used by Edgerton but not by Rhys Jones. The idea that Windschuttle on three occasions in the space of 13 words independently and by accident chose the same words or phrases as Edgerton for his summary of Rhys Jones when Rhys Jones had not used these words or phrases is not plausible.

Commentary:

In his paraphrase of Rhys Jones, Edgerton combined in a single sentence two different female food gathering activities-collecting root vegetables and prying or prising shell fish from rocks. In neither of Windschuttle's supposed sources, Ling Roth and Rhys Jones, are these different activities discussed in the same sentence or even same passage. The first half of Edgerton's sentence is a paraphrase either of Ling Roth or Rhys Jones' "Why Did The Tasmanians Stop Eating Fish?". The second half is a paraphrase of Rhys Jones' "The Tasmanian Paradox". Windschuttle's sentence is not only closer to Edgerton than any of Edgerton's sources. Apparently, Windschuttle wishes us to believe that, independently and by accident, he and Edgerton decided to combine into a single sentence two descriptions of food gathering which appear separately, either in Ling Roth and Rhys Jones or in two different pieces by Rhys Jones. To put it politely, this is entirely implausible.

Commentary:

Edgerton's passage appears to have been based on two separate descriptions in Ling Roth (p.143 and p.145). Windschuttle has simply repeated Edgerton's words verbatim but without a comma--"grass ropes to climb trees and woven grass bags" (W); "grass ropes to climb trees, and woven grass bags...(E) " This long phrase is not found in Ling Roth, Windschuttle's supposed source. What Windschuttle is implicitly arguing here is that, independently and by accident, he and Edgerton combined in a single extended phrase a description of the possessions of Tasmanian women, which appear in two separate passages in Ling Roth and then, by further accident and again independently, put their description in a long identical phrase, a phrase not found in their common source, Ling Roth. This is implausible.

Commentary:

Edgerton is very close in phraseology to Rhys Jones. Windschuttle is very close in phraseology to both Rhys Jones and Edgerton. It is, however, likely that Windschuttle's source is Edgerton not Rhys Jones, as Windschuttle claims. No phrase appears in both Rhys Jones and Windschuttle that does not also appear in Edgerton. On the other hand, one phrase appears in both Edgerton and Windschuttle that does not appear in Rhys Jones, ie "manufactured goods". Moreover, Windschuttle's sentence structure resembles Edgerton not Rhys Jones. "[T]he entire Tasmanian inventory of manufactured goods came to no more than two dozen items. (E)" "Their entire catalogue of manufactured goods comprised about two dozen articles. (W)" It is likely therefore that Edgerton not Rhys Jones is once more Windschuttle's source.

Commentary:

Windschuttle's list of the Tasmanian tool kit--"They once used bone tools, barbed spears and weaving needles made of fish bone. They also had wooden boomerangs, hafted stone tools, edge ground stone axes and tools fashioned from volcanic glass..."is very close to Edgerton's list-"They had bone tools, wooden boomerangs, barbed spears, hafted stone tools, and edge-ground axes"-although Windschuttle has added two items. Although both lists are close to Rhys Jones' description, Windschuttle's list is closer to Edgerton's than to Rhys Jones'. There is, moreover, one line where Windschuttle follows Edgerton more or less verbatim. Edgerton concludes his list with these words: "[B]ut these were long gone before the Europeans arrived." Windschuttle concludes his own list like this: "However they had long been abandoned by the time the Europeans arrived." Rhys Jones makes the same point but in quite different words: "...none were found in the Tasmanian tool kit of AD 1800." Once more, it seems most likely here that, although Windschuttle added two items to Edgerton's list of the Tasmanian tool kit based on other reading, he relied on Edgerton for his list of the Tasmanian tool kit rather than on Edgerton's own source, Rhys Jones.

Commentary:

The evidence here goes in both directions. Both Edgerton and Windschuttle use the term "firebrand". Neither Ling Roth nor Rhys Jones do. On the other hand, Windschuttle does add a detail to Edgerton, about relying on others if the flame went out, which is found in Rhys Jones but not in Edgerton.

Commentary:

Once again, it seems obvious that Windschuttle's source is Edgerton and not Rhys Jones, as claimed. Rhys Jones dates the disappearance of fish eating to "some time between 3800 and 3500 BP" or "about three or four thousand years ago". Edgerton paraphrases this (rather imprecisely) as "approximately four thousand years ago". Windschuttle uses the same dating: "about 4000 years ago". He has replicated here Edgerton's imprecision. In his paraphrase of Rhys Jones, Edgerton writes about the disappearance of fish from "the archaeological record". Windschuttle also uses the phrase "archaeological record." Windschuttle's supposed source, Rhys Jones, does not. In this short passage, Edgerton writes about the non-existence, at the time of the arrival of the Europeans of "fishhooks, fish spears or nets...". Windschuttle also writes about the end of the manufacture of "fish hooks and fish spears..." In the passage of Rhys Jones that Windschuttle claims as his source, Rhys Jones mentions neither fish hooks nor fish spears. What Windschuttle is asking us to believe here is that in two passages of fewer than forty words, both Edgerton and Windschuttle have, independently and by accident, misrepresented in identical fashion Rhys Jones' date for the disappearance of fish from the Tasmanian diet; used an identical phrase-"archaeological record"-not found in Windschuttle's supposed source; and discussed the disappearance of fish hooks and fish nets, a discussion not found in the passage of Rhys Jones Windschuttle claims to have relied upon for his thirty words. This is implausible.

Commentary:

This case is slightly more ambiguous. Windschuttle and Rhys Jones use the word "amazed" or "amazement" concerning attitudes of others to the absence of fish from the diet. Edgerton uses the term "incredulous". On the other hand, both Edgerton and Windschuttle write here of the "Tasmanians" while Rhys Jones does not. More significantly, while Edgerton writes about "a staple of their diet" and Windschuttle writes of "dietary staple", in Rhys Jones no such phrase occurs. On balance, it is more likely than not that Edgerton not Rhys Jones is once more Windschuttle's source.

Commentary:

Edgerton and Windschuttle are both indebted to Rhys Jones' argument about "the slow strangulation of the mind". Obviously, Windschuttle has gone to the original for the full quotation from Rhys Jones, which Edgerton abbreviated and footnoted.

Commentary:

In this case, both Edgerton and Windschuttle are reliant on the view of Ling Roth for the description of the "indolence" of the Tasmanian male. Once more, Windshuttle has gone to the original which is footnoted in Edgerton. Windschuttle has read Ling Roth. As James Boyce has pointed out, even though he lists the two volume work of the French explorers who visited Van Diemen's Land, Francois Peron and Louis Freycinet in his bibliography, the only time he uses their work he relies on Ling Roth.

Commentary:

Here Windschuttle repeats Edgerton's description. "They[the women] alone collected shellfish, the dietary staple, by diving deep into coastal waters...(E)". "The women alone collected shellfish and crayfish, diving deep into coastal waters...(W)" but substitutes "crayfish" for "the dietary staple". Apart from that, Windschuttle has copied out Edgerton almost word for word. The words of Ling Roth, Windschuttle's supposed source, are quite different. The word "alone" appears in both Edgerton and Windschuttle but not in Ling Roth. The word "collected" appears both in Edgerton and Windschuttle but not in Ling Roth. The phrase "diving deep into coastal waters" appears in both Edgerton and Windschuttle but not in Ling Roth. Windschuttle wants us to believe that, independently and by accident, both have arrived at identical words and phrases. Windschuttle has argued that his addition of the word "crayfish" proves he has not borrowed from Edgerton in this passage. It does no such thing.

Commentary:

In this passage Edgerton has combined two different passages from Rhys Jones. The first sentence is a paraphrase from "The Tasmanian Paradox". The second sentence is a paraphrase from "Why Did the Tasmanians Stop Eating Fish?" Windschuttle wishes us to believe that, independently and by accident, he has combined precisely the same passages, in his case into a single sentence. This is implausible. It is true that he adds "mutton birds" to Edgerton's paraphrase of Rhys Jones. But it is also true that in this case he omitted to include, in his self-defence, the crucial second sentence of Edgerton. In my rushed piece prepared for the Age I inadvertently left it out. Windschuttle here tried to benefit from my omission. By this omission, Windschuttle tried to suggest that only he and Rhys Jones, but not Edgerton, had combined a discussion of how possums were collected with a discussion of women's harvesting of seals. In the context, this omission was misleading.

[The parallel columns have been adapted from Keith Windschuttle's website sydneyline.com. The sources listed are, of course, those Windschuttle himself claimed.]

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Windschuttle initially claimed that I had raised this issue as a diversion. As I decided to edit a book examining Fabrication in detail, mainly because of the importance it instantly assumed in the Culture Wars being fought by the Howard government, the right-wing commentariat and the Murdoch press, the argument about Edgerton-as-diversion quickly made no sense. In July 2003, Windschuttle discovered that my edited collection on Fabrication was soon to be published. He spoke to The Australian's gossip columnist, D.D. McNicoll, about how he intended to respond. "In Tasmania recently Windschuttle was shown the proofs of the new book Robert Manne is editing, Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Manne's collection includes essays by historians Henry Reynolds and Lyndall Ryan-Windschuttle's two leading critics and the custodians of the orthodox history of murderous conflict in the Apple Isle. Not over-impressed by their arguments, Windschuttle has nonetheless decided to write and publish a slim volume rebutting his critics before finishing volume two of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History."

He never has. I am still waiting.

Instead of answering his critics directly and honestly, Windschuttle commissioned an altogether inconsequential book by a non-historian, John Dawson's Washout, to do his work for him. He also wrote an unsatisfactory piece in Quadrant, which failed to answer most of the central criticisms of his work raised by the authors assembled in Whitewash.

In response to this Quadrant piece, the talented younger historian, James Boyce, the author of the acclaimed new history, Van Diemen's Land, wrote a detailed and devastating critique of Windschuttle for Quadrant. PP McGuinness not only refused to publish Boyce. He didn't even bother to provide reasons. In the body of the article, Boyce reiterated but in a new way the case he had made in Whitewash. In one of his footnotes (no.xxx), Boyce summarized brilliantly but briefly some of the basic weaknesses in Windschuttle uncovered by other Whitewash authors. The article and the footnotes can be found here [16].

In my view, Windschuttle has no alternative but to respond to this James Boyce piece. And he also has no alternative but to respond in detail, as he promised five years ago, to the central findings which question his understanding of Tasmanian anthropology and history of the other Whitewash chapters summarized in Boyce's footnote.

If he does not, it must be assumed that he cannot.