‘Australian History in 7 Questions’ by John Hirst

As an Australian schoolboy in the 1950s, John Hirst was taught “British history, geography and poetry” and sang ‘God Save the Queen’ at assembly. “I never heard of Curtin,” he reminisces, “[but] I did hear of Churchill.” Six decades on, the eminent historian has ditched the trappings of empire loyalty for republicanism, but admiration for British “statecraft” – the rule of law, progressive legislation and parliamentary democracy – has remained an abiding theme in his work. Long before Robert Hughes condemned convict Australia as a “Gulag”, Hirst had shown how it was also a successful laboratory of economic, social and political reform.

Only a historian such as Hirst (this is his 14th book) would have the audacity to reduce Australian history to seven questions: “Why did Aborigines not become farmers?”, “How did a penal colony change peacefully to a democracy?”, “Why was...