Books by "Mark Guy Pearse"
12 books found
The earnest evangelist and successful class leader: memoir of W. Thompson
by Mark Guy Pearse (sen.)
1881
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 fresh debates and 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 an urgent essay about 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
'There is an Australian dream that is collective. It goes to the roots of what it means to be Australian, since it's imprinted in Australia's history, the collective acts of its peoples, their attitudes, their gestures, what and how they eat, how they spend their leisure time, and the way such things reflect upon and derive from who they are.' In The Land of Plenty, Mark Davis argues that this dream has been forsaken. Over the past few decades Australians have felt the ground shift beneath their feet. Many people are asking why Australia is no longer the egalitarian place it once was. While the airwaves sing and newspaper front pages burst with news of how prosperous Australians are, many people wonder why they are working harder and longer, for so little, while important social agendas have fallen by the wayside. The Land of Plenty is at once a devastating record of the changes that have taken place in Australian society since the 1980s, and a goldmine of ideas for change. Insightful, provocative and thoroughly original, The Land of Plenty is a manifesto for our times.