Preface

Summary

Each generation rewrites its history. A reaction against familiar ways of understanding our past is a common historiography phenomenon. It reflects the task of historians to pursue the ‘truth’ through the continuous critical reassessment of established interpretations. The result is revisionist history. By overturning traditional views, revisionist history offers new and radically different ways of understanding the past. The success of revisionist history depends on the new and different questions asked, and the methodology and new data sources employed to answer those questions. By asking new questions, collecting new data and relying on a different methodology, this book offers a radical reinterpretation of our convict past.

The book is a collaborative work. Although individual chapters carry attributions to specific authors, we all read each other's chapters and during early 1987 held weekly seminars to discuss the general interpretations in our drafts. While each author remains responsible for her or his own chapter, each chapter emerged stronger after the criticisms of other members of the group. The result is a single book, with each chapter contributing to a consistent story about different aspects of the convict system.

At the beginning of 1987 Peter Shergold was seconded to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet as Director of Multicultural Affairs and was not available for the seminar discussions. He was to have been co-editor of the book and I missed his insights, energy and enthusiasm on a day-to-day basis.