Decolonising the dictionary: reclaiming history for the forgotten | Paul Daley

An upgrade of the Australian Dictionary of Biography is long overdue – it’s time to include the many women and Indigenous leaders time forgot

You’re a student writing an essay or a journalist traversing uncertain historical terrain and you want to know a little, for example, about colonial leader Lachlan Macquarie, pioneering “settler” John Batman or former governor general William Slim.

So you search their respective names and “biography”. Your top hit, in each case, is likely to be their entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, this country’s pre-eminent resource about noteworthy deceased citizens.

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