Is history good medicine

Abstract

Australian historians tend to assume that history is good medicine for the wider community, offering beneficial results for the social well-being of a nation, if not the globe. This article calls for this claim to be tested. It examines the pain of history lessons for Indigenous Australians, and, looking beyond the National Apology of 2008, it considers the role that historians might play in developing collaborative approaches to address the crisis of Aboriginal health and social well-being.