Front matter and Introduction - Journal of the Sydney Society for Scottish History, Volume 3 (1995)

Authors

The continued success of our society has led me to ponder on why we

get hooked on history. My own experience may not be atypical. At school I

was generally put off by history: Australian history tended to be explorers,

early settlers and aboriginals and British history tended to be reform bills and

com laws. But there were occasional flashes of excitement to be found for a

young boy. Ancient history was filled with great battles, assassinations,

adulterous wives and every human vice and triumph. The British in India was

pure excitement: tremendous heroism, evil mass murders, rebellions, holy

men, women throwing themselves on funeral pyres and endless colourful

maharajas. So my interest in history survived the best efforts of my school to

stamp

it out. At university I found the fascination of nineteenth-century

Europe - politics and international intrigue - something that fitted in with

my then love of politics, and although philosophy took most of my time and

enthusiasm, an enjoyment of history became well ingrained.