True Girt (The Unauthorised History of Australia #2) by David Hunt

True Girt (The Unauthorised History of Australia #2) Reviews

• 
  David Hunt

  I am sad that I'm not the first person to review my book. I always wanted to be first at something.... This book has been a labour of love and I hope that others enjoy it. Stay absurd, Australia.
• 
  Trevor

  An odd thing happened right at the end of this and my brain did one of those little twist things that never feels all that ‘comfortable’. You see, he’d warned me at the start of his first book that he wanted to be a bit like Bill Bryson – and that’s a perfectly fine and noble ambition, more strength to his elbow, if he can sustain a stiff-upper-lip crossed with a mid-Atlantic accent, well, you’ve got to have a go to get a go, or whatever it is our PM says. But I think when I read these two books, I focused more on his humorous quips. You see, I knew it was Australian history, and I knew it is meant to be funny – but I had basically put more weight on the ‘funny’ than the ‘history’.
  
  It’s not that I thought what he was saying was inaccurate. It’s more that I assumed a big part of the reason this is such a ‘people’ based history is that, well, people are funny (in all senses), and so, if you are going to write a funny history, well, it makes sense to zoom in on the people.
  
  ‘Histories’ aren’t nearly as much ‘biographies’ of ‘great men’ as they once where – but this book is. You know, we are given the lives of governors, politicians, explorers, bushrangers – and even when these great men are women, well, they are still ‘great’ – Girt isn’t short for Gertrude, the no-name Australian housewife speading the vegemite onto the toast for breakfast so her sons can go off and build the Harbour Bridge. This book is a series of stories about blokes, and a couple of sheilas, as if telling their story was the same as telling the story of Australia.
  
  Now, I was quite happy with it being that when I was reading it as a sort of Bryon book, meant to make me laugh as much as help me learn stuff. It’s a lot easier to laugh at the daft things people did back then, than it is to get a good joke out of generalised groups of people, ‘squatters’ or ‘convicts’ say. It’s a lot harder to get a belly laugh out of the extermination of the Tasmanian Aboriginals than it is to find something amusing to say about Truganini. So, I’d gone with the flow with this one. But, I had assumed the focus on people was a function of the need to make people laugh.
  
  Then, right at the end when he was thanking his missus and his publisher and his pets, he said:
  
  “True Girt is first and foremost a history, although I attempt to use humour to both engage and inform. The line between comedy and tragedy is a fine one, and sometimes it’s not there at all. I found writing parts of the book, particularly some sections dealing with Indigenous people, both difficult and distressing. Yet there is always light in the darkness and humour can be a candle for truth.”
  
  And don’t get me wrong – I’ve already said more strength to his elbow, etc – but this got me thinking about how much this is ‘first and foremost’ history. My problem is similar to what C. Wright Mills says social science is about – trying to figure out how much of our lives are down to ‘history’ and how much down to our personal ‘biography’ – how much of the world do we make by our own actions and how much are we made by the world.
  
  I can’t help feeling that if virtually all of the history you tell is about people, then your readers are likely to come away thinking history is pretty much all about the decisions and choices people make – but really, history can also be a series of forced choices that is, no choice at all. I don’t want to say we are just puppets of social forces – any more than to say history is purely at our whim. But if history lies somewhere on that spectrum, this book is right up the far end of the ‘history as whim’ end, where I would probably put history much more up the ‘history as forced choices’ end.
  
  I really liked this book, and the first one too. I think it is important, especially in Australia, for people to start paying attention to our history. There have been a lot of not-very-nice things that have happened and that still impact the daily lives of far too many people in this country. Our general ignorance about that past and how it plays out on people’s present day lives stands in the way of any hope of a meaningful healing process. Making our history accessible, funny and fun truly is on the side of the angels. So, it makes me feel a bit like a wowser to be complaining about this. All the same, when history becomes biography it means far too few average and normal people get included. It is as if they had no role in their nation’s history at all. And that stops being funny.
  
• 
  K.

  4.5 stars.
  
  David Hunt's first book, Girt, covers Australian history in New South Wales from prehistory to the end of the Lachlan Macquarie era in the 1820s. This second volume backtracks to the settlement of Van Diemen's Land in 1803, and goes on to cover the convict era, the gold rushes, the settlement of Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland, exploration, and bushranging before ending with the death of Ned Kelly in 1880.
  
  It's a lot of ground to cover, but every step of the way, Hunt manages to find ridiculous titbits and colourful characters, all supported by sarcastic footnotes of wonderfulness.
  
  So if you have any interest in Australian history and you like your history with a side of sarcasm? Pick this up immediately.
  
  (Personally, I found reading this as an ebook a rather frustrating experience, because the amount of footnotes made it feel like I was jumping back and forth constantly. But that may be partly a product of me reading freakishly fast. Still, I'd recommend the physical book over the ebook if you can swing it.)
• 
  Eve Dangerfield

  I really enjoyed this book. So much so it's difficult to put into words. It was funny (my sister and I have been exchanging lines all week) touching and in many places depressing as all hell. Why? Well history kind of sucks. Humanity is a shitty beast and it did/is still doing, some seriously shitty things to poor people, black people, women and members of the LGBTQI community.
  It's hard to hear about the convicts and supporters of liberal values who rose to power and turned against the very causes they once championed. It's hard to hear about the systemic genocide of Indigenous Australians or how Victoria was the first Australian state that allowed women to vote by accidentally putting 'persons' instead of 'male persons' in the rulebook. But this is the truth of our past and there is a lot to learn about the mania and hypocrisy that helped form the nation I inadvertently became a part of when my mother gave birth on its soil (not literally). I enjoyed this witty exploration of Australian history and I hope a lot of Aussies, hell ALL Aussies read it.
• 
  Ryan B.

  Another wonderful compendium of corrections to the shiny Australian history I learned at school. Hunt calls a spade a spade, and is understandably even more direct toward the Irish, Tasmanians, & early hipsters. It's nice to see a rich context of Australia's foundation presented in such an entertaining way. It's clear from my positive review, I'm not from South Australia.
• 
  B.J. Swann

  A worthy sequel to the brilliant GIRT. I can only hope for a third installment. What shall it be called? I vote for GIRTY DEEDS.
• 
  Calzean

  This series is able to put some new light into Australian history by looking at the foibles and idiosyncrasies of notable (and not so notable) officials, bushrangers, convicts, explorers, settlers and the poor Aboriginals. It is a humorous history so it makes easy reading.
  However, I found the constant footnotes to be distracting and inconsistent. I would have preferred the humour to be in the text and the footnotes to add more on facts or related info; but that is just me. Some of the footnotes were also a bit tasteless - such as the reference to the Port Arthur massacre.
  Still I like the information provided in this book that makes the people in Australian history appear as real people and not just as heroes.
• 
  Loki

  Even better than its predecessor, True Girt is a humourous and heartfelt stroll through the highways and byways of the first century or so of the European colonisation of Australia. It's firmly in what historians like Keith Windschuttle would call the 'black armband' view of Australian history, (i.e. the accurate one), and all the better for it. Treating its various subjects with both sympathy and detached humour, it's a dense read but a worthwhile one.
  
  There are deeper dives into the various corners of Australian history (many of which are helpfully listed in the afterword), but few so rich in amusing anecdote.
• 
  Stacy

  Loved the second part of this series on Australian history. So many things I never knew about. Definitely a lot more grim than the first book but sadly, those are the stories that we need to know about the colonisation of Australia.
• 
  Richard

  Simultaneously immensely serious and immensely funny: an unusual, but enthralling, take on Australian history.
• 
  Colin

  “True Girt” is Hunt’s follow up to “Girt”, the first volume in his “Unauthorised History Of Australia”. I’d not read the first instalment, but started this and just kept going. I was ready for a readable and interesting and entertaining treatment of history, and Hunt certainly delivered. He dragged me through the 400 pages with ease!
  
  Although his style is more slapstick than Peter Fitzsimons, both authors bear similarities. As Hunt points out in his acknowledgements, a “neutral” history is an impossibility, since historians and their sources are themselves a product of time and place. Perhaps history as I knew it as a youngster was a more transparent affair, with the historian at least obscured by the facts. Like Fitzsimons, Hunt makes no attempt to be either transparent or neutral. In fact, his schtick is what sets him apart. If Fitzsimons photobombs his narratives, Hunt draws a moustache and funny hat on them. And both have an air of progressive elevation as they look back - and generally down - on the events and figures of history (especially British history.)
  
  Despite Hunt’s stand-up tone, “True Girt” is clearly a thoroughly researched work. In his afterword, the author directs us to other - I’m assuming “straighter” - works from which he has gleaned his material. He’s clearly giving his content his own unique and wacky spin whilst seeking to remain in the realm of fact.
  
  Hunt’s tone places him very much in the now. His political spin is also born of the leftist progressive now and permeates the book. This observation is most likely to be made by a reader who doesn’t entirely share the author’s left-wing political convictions. I felt it had upsides and downsides.
  
  On the upside, Hunt demonstrates the injustice we all ought to be aware of. There isn’t much lily to guild when it comes to European treatment of the Indigenous Australians during the period covered by this book. Exploitation, brutality, extermination, marginisation, neglect, dispossession... It truly is a tale of woe and it’s right that Australians should think and act in a way that acknowledges the ills of the past and seeks to bring dignity and goodness to indigenous Australians.
  
  On the downside, I struggle to recall a decent European from the entire book. They are all presented as a mix of nutters, power-grabbers, deviates, incompetents, exploiters, perjurers, drunks and numbskulls. (The exception would be Caroline Chisholm, whose gender may have worked in her favour.)
  
  Somehow, out of this mess of colonial megalomania, we inherited Australia, a country of decency and freedom and prosperity and wealth and security and diversity and tolerance. Hunt stands in his elevated position and passes his judgement, but surely the elevation afforded him came from somewhere? We all trade in a positive legacy that came from somewhere.
  
  To be fair, in his acknowledgements, Hunt admits his history is political. So I guess I should just accept that the entertainment and information of his very readable book hasn’t taken place in a vacuum...I do feel that Hunt’s historical humour might have landed more completely had he not felt the need to wear his political heart on his sleeve.
  
  As a final reflection, Hunt mentions Bill Bryson along the way. I like that way Bryson’s politics are applied with more finesse. I don’t recall repeated rants and ridicules of Bryson’s political opponents - he’s cleverer than that. Perhaps there’s more ground to win by a less obvious frontal assault and letting the story tell the story.
  
  But I enjoyed “True Girt” and the distinctive window into Australian history crafted by a capable, creative and colourful writer.
  
  
• 
  Aristotle

  True Girt by David Hunt
  
  A book after my own heart. True Girt may very well be the best piece I’ve read this year. I think all reviewers carry personal biases and I’m about to show mine in full force. True Girt is everything it needs to be: It’s digestible, it’s funny and it’s Australian.
  
  First and foremost, True Girt understands where it sits tonally and with regards to it’s depth. It covers almost over a half a century of history with great detail while still remaining accessible to all readers every step of the way. I’m unaware if David Hunt is a historian or not, but True Girt is not written like a standard history book. It plays out like a grand story, full of highs and lows with plenty of smaller funny tales in-between.
  
  It’s paced quite fast, never really dwelling on a specific single topic for more than a few pages while still diverting enough attention to the fun stuff. Books are getting harder and harder to finish as life gets harder, but this 400 page title I was able to finish in about a week simply because I couldn’t wait to get to the next page.
  
  The best part of True Girt is that it rides the line between comedy and tragedy perfectly. The sheer number of atrocities described in the book, while also being decked up against the funniest scenarios possible, gave me some real whiplash. The funny parts are actually funny too, that helps. There’s enough references to Australian popular culture to keep a wide range of readers satisfied as well. There’s nothing more Australian than recounting your history with a healthy dose of sarcasm, wit and self-deprecation.
  
  The book’s strong point was without a doubt is it’s retelling of the Kelly story, something that has captivated Australians for almost 140 years. I found it a perfect way to end the book. Often I give a book my highest regards half way through and then it mediates towards the end, but in this case True Girt captured my sentiments right at the end. How the hell did a comedic history book draw such emotion from me at the final page? Probably has something to do with being Australian.
  
  Yes I love this book, yes I’m biased. If you’re Australian, you need to read this (in my opinion of course). If you’re not Australian, you’ll still love it. At no point in this book did I stop and actually not enjoy an element. It’s because of this and what I described above that I’m giving this book a 10/10.
• 
  Martin

  If only David Hunt had been around when I studied Australian History
• 
  Kim

  A good bite size humorous recounting of Australian colonial history, after settlement, focusing mainly on settlement in Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia Very well narrated by the author.
• 
  Rachel England-Brassy

  Utterly excellent! Funny, uncomfortable, confronting and totally honest .
  Highly recommended.
• 
  Joano

  This review is for the audiobook and not the written version.
  
  Where to begin, let’s start with the positives
  
  You can tell there is extensive research done and I like a 21st century version of Australian history. It starts off from where the first book ended - the end of Lachlan Macquarie’s Governorship. The book began with colonising Tasmania and the treatment of Tasmanian aborigines. It then went into the colonisation of the rest of Australia and emergence of other states. The book ends at the Gold rush and the death of Ned Kelly. It was packed with interesting details and new insights into all the characters I studied about in Australian history in year 9. There was no glorifying of some of the well known Australians I learnt about at school.
  
  What I didn’t like.
  
  There were parts of the book, where I felt, it was making a mockery of the treatment of indigenous Australians. - Tasmanian aborigines, mainland aborigines. I didn’t find certain parts funny and I was confused by the overall tone of this book. It was read by the author and by the end of the section on Tasmania, I started to disengage. When I read Girt, I tend to skip the footnotes until the end of the chapter and go back and read the bit. In the audiobook, the footnotes were read with the narrative and it just disrupted the reading flow.
  
  This isn’t a bad book. If I had time, I might give this a second chance and read the actual book. As an audiobook it didn’t work for me.
• 
  Simon Robinson

  Once again David Hunt has single-handedly schooled me on Australian history, entertained me with laugh-out-loud moments and convicted me of the horror and evil of successive Australian regimes, all in the space of one book. This follow-up to Girt, while not as short, sharp and humourous as his first attempt, is still a page-turner. His reading of Aussie history through the lens of current pop-culture was incredibly clever - for example the John Batman/Batman link up, the modern hipster movement coterminus with the hirsute youth of early Melbourne...
  i also think i read more about indigenous history, and more truth about it, than in my entire education.
• 
  Travis

  This needs to be the standard history textbook taught at schools.
  
  Brilliant take-down of Windshuttle.
• 
  John

  From Tasmanian aborigines to the death of Ned Kelly. Unlike Girt, True Girt is history first, but the underside of what we learning in school. Arthur was an obsessive control freak, yet he did have some sympathy for the Tasmanian aborigines, and later in New Zealand and Canada he was good to the first nations people. Governor Darling was an appalling governor, cruel rigid, and was recalled to great celebrations in Sydney. Wentworh (he of Baxland Lawson and) was originally a democrat but joined the squattocracy and helped created the Legislation Council but with massive land qualifications in order to vote. Basically he seemed all out for himself: later in life and softer in the head, he became extreme liberal (leftish). He was a womanizer and drunkard of massive proportions, after dinner he gave a lucid speech having drunk 6 bottles of wine (probably less alcoholic than our Barossa blockbusters). John McArthur was bipolar and got worse, paranoid and his sons got him committed. Batman was murderous syphilitic who dies badly of the disease falling out from his co-founder of Melbourne, Fawkner. The founding of Adelaide was a complete cockup saved by influx of solid hardworking Germans. The Burke and Wills fiasco was almost entirely due to Burke’s ignorance, ambition and stupidity. Catherine Chisholm emerges as an absolute saint saving orphan children. Perth is always regarded as the poor distant relation (pre 10th century). Apart from the eccentric individuals what struck me most were the absolute self-belief in the 19th century setters: English blood was superior to any other and Aboriginals regarded as close to the missing link, Chinese slightly better. These attitudes bred appalling cruelty, making absolute nonsense of Howard’s the present day right’s view of ‘the black armband view of history’. It was exactly that and t pretend we has a glorious past is sheer self-delusion. With all the gloom though, Hunt writes very wittily, a giggle if not a laugh on every page. This history should be taught in schools: it’s closer to reality than the Windschuttle whitewashing.
• 
  Ross Smith

  Wow - how to describe my experience with this book? Simply one of the best and most readable historical narratives of Australia almost ruined for me by the author’s continual need to audition as a stand up comedy writer.
  
  I’d enjoyed Girt and was impressed with the humorous approach to the subject and expected that to continue. I have a low tolerance for lazy stereotype-driven humour and the footnotes liberally sprinkled throughout the book are crammed with it, and they sometimes appear in the text itself. Or dad jokes. Or puns. Or swearing. But the Kindle almost hit the wall at the Michael Jackson/Neverland ‘joke’ that was not only completely inappropriate but was obviously shoe-horned in, probably on a bet. Chris Feik, the editor, was credited with showing remarkable restraint for allowing this “previously verboten reference”. Bad call Chris although it probably sounded good at the pub.
  
  David Hunt’s style has been correctly compared to Bill Bryson and is engaging, informative and highly readable. Pity he added a layer of cruel stereotyping of everyone from the Irish to Melbourne coffee drinkers for no added value. If you like this sort of humour watch a Ricky Gervais video - he does it well.
• 
  Al Bità

  This is part 2 of Hunt’s Unauthorised History of Australia — and he does so with no let-up in his satiric take on events. So lots more fun (for those who enjoy such ironic and cheeky irreverence) is at hand.
  
  The 1st part of Hunt’s history (Girt) basically ended with the establishment of the colony at Sydney by the end of the 18th-c. Part 2 concentrates on the major developments that took place as “Australia” came into being during the 19th-c, at the end of which the country was on the verge of uniting the six colonies into a Federation (1 January 1901). (The use of the word “uniting” should be taken as an important legislative/political step; in reality, the six colonies spent most of their time squabbling among themselves, not always with dignity — and ironically, today, in the 21st-c we still occasionally hear of “threats” of secession, particularly from northern Queensland, and from Western Australia!)
  
  Most of the “development” of Australia was established during the 19th-c — and reading of the often astonishing and often bizarre events that occurred then, one is reminded of how much the make-up of the Australian “character” was forged during this time. The cast of characters is quite large and expansive; decisions based on misunderstandings and mismanagement continue to be made, and their consequences become embedded in our mindset. It strikes me that the only true way to come to terms with it all is indeed achieved only through irony and satire… If you don’t laugh, you will need to cry.
  
  Hunt starts off with the story of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and some of the darkest parts of our history. It then proceeds with the development (if that’s the right word!) of the other colonies. Apart from the continued unabated exploitation (both use and abuse) of the original inhabitants, the country was gradually explored and opened out — many of these explorers present us with astonishing and remarkable narratives (apparently, being obsessive, misinformed, inept and even insane helped…).
  
  The usual briberies, corruptions, and the development of a healthy/unhealthy distrust of authority which was undermined on a number of levels, were all nurtured and homogenised into a major Australian characteristic trait. Some great social progress was made by such intrepid characters as Caroline Chisholm and William Charles Wentworth and others; other not-so great contributions were introduced, often based on misguided good intentions (such as the belief that, since the Australian natives would soon become bred out, it was okay to take away their children from their families, and educate them to become household and farm servants for the European settlers). Evangelicals from several Christian denominations all had their input regarding morals/immorality and appropriate punishments for “sinners”, with varying success, but more often than not, masking blatant hypocrisy on their part (has anything changed?).
  
  The gold rushes brought in more multicultural people than ever before, and colourful fortune-hunters and adventurers from around the word, as Australia became wealthier and more self-sufficient. The weird mix of convicts, settlers, natives, etc. did nothing to prevent all sorts of racism from flourishing either openly, or just below the surface (the natives, Irish, Chinese, non-British, legal/illegal owners were particularly vulnerable). This was often combined with a blurring of social lines which abhorred blatant class distinctions, while simultaneously maintaining them conceptually. All these elements also contributed to a kind of multi-faceted sense of justice/injustice in different spheres of the developing society. Even here, for example, the infamous Eureka Stockade rebellion can be considered as a fiasco or as a success (or, perhaps, even both at the same time!).
  
  A parade of exotic and highly individualistic bushrangers towards the end of the century is also provided for our entertainment. Again, we find that curious love/hate relationship among Australians towards these characters and their gangs. They were often loved by the people, but hated by the police; they were often kind and polite to their victims; at least one was homosexual (Captain Moonlite); but they could also be dangerous (Mad Dog Morgan, for example, was definitely quite insane and seriously unpredictable).
  
  Hunt ends this part in 1880, with the death of Australia’s most beloved bushranger/criminal/hero/icon Ned Kelly — and the mixture of pride, sadness and hilarity that has been sustained throughout reaches a kind of apotheosis in that story.
  
  So: does one laugh? or cry? Yes.
• 
  David Allen

  A quirky shorthand Australian history. I found the first book shorter and better suited to the humour and style. This one perhaps tries to cover a bit much for the tongue in cheek style, where the jokes on occasion fell a little flat.
• 
  Zaher Alhaj

  "While the First Australians revered continuity, the colonists worshipped change. They would change the world, the continent on which they lived, and themselves. They would no longer be a bubble-and-squeak citizenry of six different British colonies, but a single people: Australians. They were just waiting for Henry Parkes to light the fuse of Federation."
• 
  Einzige

  Hunt brings the same brand of humour that made the first book so enjoyable and applies it to the period where Australia started becoming a new country rather than a glorified British prison colony. That said the increased growth and complexity of Australia means that while all the humour and interesting anecdotes are there the narrative aspect starts to suffer and become a bit chaotic.
  
  A book that not only covers what is good and impressive impressive but also doesn't shy away from the ugly, tragic and weird.
• 
  Rob

  Enjoyed it and appreciated the research. It's a curious mix of genuine historical research, modern polemic, and humour along the lines of Dave Barry's hilarious "Dave Barry Slept Here" and the much older "1066 and All That". One of the things I appreciated in this and the previous volume was Hunt's drawing attention to the contemporaneous nature of events and how people that our history teachers treated as almost discrete lumps of historical fact actually intermingled and influenced each other. Sometimes these are trivial - I had no idea Monash met Ned Kelly - and sometimes not, like the competition among explorers.
  It's pretty clear where Hunt's politics lie; I have no issue with that and in many cases agree. Intentionally or not, he also points out that most insidious influence on Australia's history, the boys club and the cult of the insider. If there hasn't already been a book written on that - "Games of Mates" comes to mind maybe - then some of Hunt's research could go toward it.
• 
  Jen Mactaggart

  Even better than the first one! Hilarious and cringeworthy all at once. Understanding this period of our history sheds light on how the character/identity of each state developed into what it is today. Great rebuttal of the myth of Truganini and the inclusion of other lesser known details to well-known stories adds a lot of colour. Looking forward to Totes True Girt.