John Hirst: Quotes about people

John Hirst was Australian historian. Explore interesting quotes on people.
John Hirst: 30   quotes 0   likes

“… if rights are to be protected there must be a community to which people are warmly attached so that they will care about each other's rights.”

John Hirst

The Australians: Insiders and Outsiders on the National Character since 1770 (2007)

People , Communication

“The expansion of Europe was a phenomenon of such magnitude with such a profound and irreversible effect on humankind that it might be thought that our moralising tendency would be silenced in the face of it. But as we saw on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage in 1992, there are those who think that its disastrous consequences for indigenous people make it quite definitely a bad thing which should not have happened. Unprovoked invasion of the territory of another society is immoral by our standards and breaches current international law, but if these be the standards we apply to history there will be no end to our condemning.”

John Hirst

Sense and Nonsense in Australian History (2005)

People , Law , History , Thinking

“Before the Europeans arrived, there were 500 to 600 tribes in the continent speaking different languages. They did not have a common name or share an identity; they regarded each other as enemies. The Aborigines as we know them today, a national group with a common identity, did not exist before European contact; they are a product of the European invasion which destroyed traditional culture, brought people of different tribes together and gave them a common experience of oppression and marginalisation. They are not an ancient people, but a very modern one. Only in the lands which Europeans did not want or settled very sparsely did traditional groups and something like traditional culture survive.”

John Hirst

Sense and Nonsense in Australian History (2005)

People

“Australians, like other peoples, tend to think they are highly distinctive, but the characteristics they value may be an extension or an exaggeration of what they brought from the mother country. In some respects they may be more like the peoples of other new lands settled by the British than they are willing to acknowledge. Australian soldiers and Australian nurses of World War I felt themselves to be very different from their English counterparts but the English were inclined to see all the colonials - New Zealanders, Canadians and Australians - as similar and different from themselves.”

John Hirst

The Australians: Insiders and Outsiders on the National Character since 1770 (2007)

War , People , World , Thinking