Following on from their previous book, The Great Mistakes of Australian History, Crotty and Roberts once again assemble notable Australian historians and thinkers to dissect key events in our past. The essays in this new collection examine moments-some iconic, some lesser known-from pre-European times to Tampa, with a view to interrogating the very notion of a ‘turning point’. Can, say, the Gallipoli landings be seen as a turning point in the development of Australian nationhood and national identity, or does this perception, so powerfully enshrined in popular mythology, contain more rhetoric than truth? By posing such questions, Turning Points strives to illuminate the complex and multifaceted nature of history. As the editors argue in their introduction, if the dominant approach to the teaching and popular understanding of history centres on a ‘narrative structure that privileges particular dates and historical moments’, the treatment of those events must be informed and critical. The essays, written by the likes of Frank Bongiorno, Melissa Harper and Robert Manne, are rigorous in their application of this principle. Turning Points sits at the more academic end of the spectrum, but will appeal to the general reader seeking thoughtful, challenging analyses of Australian history and historiography.

David Cohen is a writer and former bookseller

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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