Past Programs
History - 2006
Wartime internment
04/11/2006
A little known part of Australia's wartime history was the internment of thousands of people who were suspected, based on their ethnicity or cultural origins, of being a potential threat to the war effort.
According to author and researcher Ilma O'Brien, for many, the case against them was flimsy at best.
Simply having German, Italian or Japanese ancestry was enough to put you behind bars.
In her essay Wartime internment of enemy aliens, she outlines the experiences of some of those who were interned and examines the policies that put them there.
Australian history - what ought to be taught
12/08/2006
What ought Australian students be taught about history? Should a national approach be taken to introduce Australian history to our kids and can it be done?
In 2000, the federal government commissioned a report into the state of Australian history teaching in our schools and found that the subject was gradually disappearing as a discipline in the classrooms across Australia.
In 2006 the teaching of Australian history was identified by the Prime Minister as a subject that needed to be renewed and rethought in our schools in terms of what he described as 'the numbers learning and the way it is taught'.
In August 2006, leading historians and educational leaders in the study of history meet in Canberra to discuss ways of making history an important subject at schools, as part of the federal government's Australian History Summit.
Currently, NSW is the only state that has mandated hours for history at secondary school level...
What will the outcome of the summit be, and will historians and educational leaders be able to reach an agreement as to what ought to be taught at schools—and can these ideas be applied at ground level?
Serbia and Montenegro Read Transcript
17/06/2006
The last vestiges of former Yugoslavia were erased a few weeks ago, after the people of Montenegro voted to secede from their union with Serbia in the referendum on May 21.
The tiny new nation, with a population fewer than 700,000, had a turn-out of 86.3 per cent on polling day and voted 55.4 per cent, just above the 55 per cent required for victory.
The feelings were mixed, for the people of Montenegro and Serbia and especially for those who lived and grew up under the former Yugoslavia.
Earthly Powers Read Transcript
03/06/2006
Michael Burleigh's history of religion and politics in Europe explores politics in religion, and religion in politics. It also takes a critical look at humanism, which he says has fostered the rise of all-encompassing ideologies such as communism and fascism.
Luddites
14/01/2006
If you've hit or sworn at your computer you're not the only one, and there's even a term to describe the rocky relationship humans have with technology: CRAP - Computer Rage, Anxiety and Phobia. Now everyone's heard the term Luddite. These days it's usually used to insult someone who isn't smart enough to embrace the latest technological development, and who's stuck in the past. But Nicols Fox has looked closely at the motivations and practices of Luddites over the last 200 years and written a very comprehensive book called Against the Machine.
