Private Life Public History is an attempt to marry history with what 'ordinary people' think about history, the way they engage with the past and how they situate themselves within public narratives. This sort of things are usually investigated within the frameworks of social history, which is a branch of sociology. History is the science that investigates historical facts, explains variety of their interpretations and find the most trustworthy among them. There is always a competition for the title of the most trustworthy explanation there. On the other hand, Sociology is focused on investigation of social phenomenons, and the way Mr. Everybody consumes public meta stories and connects his own life with it is a social phenomenon. There might be several or quite a number of different patterns of engagement with the history and all of them will be correct. This introduction of sociology into the historyIt is quite a new trend illustrating that history is getting more open to the incorporating polyphonic views.




Another interesting feature about this book is the way it is written. The author tries to avoid dryness of scientific books through introducing herself and her own life stories, memories and feelings. It is quite unique for the books that are written on the base of research findings. Personality is commonly suppressed in favour of objectivity. It is usually done to make readers to think that anybody who will do the same research will end up with the same results. However, author's personal stories do not minimise the objectivity in this case. They add flavour to the book, make it memorable and eventually readable for wider audience. Reading is getting much easier when you can visualise an author and share his/hers feelings and worries, or at least understand the nature of them. The author thinks that inability to engage readers is one of the biggest issues of the history and historical books, so her book is an attempt to make history related topics engaging and captivating. I think that Anna Clark's narrative style is unusual, and I am not quite sure if it will be that captivating if every researcher will start to build in personal stories into research manuscripts, but in case of this book it doesn't contradicts with the research subject.

Anna Clark applies the same trick when she writes about such extremely sensitive issue as commemoration. Anzac day is the biggest event in Australian national collective memory calendar. It can be compared with Russian's Victory Day on May 9 or commemoration of A-bombing of Hiroshima on August 8 in Japan. Attempts to rethink historical events of those days or the way they are commemorated bring outbursts of indignation. Anna mentions Mark McKenna who ponders 'the growing centrality of the Anzac myth in Australian public life' and agues about it as follows:

 

'Australians appear to have lost the ability (or inclination) to debate the Anzac Day'. 'It has become an article of national faith and communion, a sacred parable we dare not question, yet another indication of narrowing of political debate in Australia.'

HIs article and the attempt to rethink the position of Anzac Day in national mythology outraged Australian public, so Anna herself starts from her personal encounters with Anzac Day and her feelings when she sees the veterans, which are 'can't choke back tears'. "Choking back tears' is an appropriate reaction for the occasion for majority of Australians. Anna's reaction meets expectations and gives comforting feeling to the majority of Australians. This makes it easier for her to move to the discussion of the dark sides of the 'commemoration festivals'. I personally think that this courtesy towards the feelings of those who have personal connection to the day, is a very smart move which is quite often neglected by researches. 


An attempt of the author to answer the question how it happens that people start to connect their personal stories with national meta-narratives and think of them as a 'part of oneself' is the most exciting part of this book. Anna thinks that it is related to building individual identity and quest for belonging. It is agued that 'the desire to make a sense of ourselves includes the need to place ourselves into a narratives - of our own lives, our family histories and cultural identities.' In other words the need of past comes from our need of building our individual life-stories, which gain their depth from larger historical narratives.

Revealing that common people have an awareness of contrasting historical readings and accounts as well as capacity to accept history's contestation is another fascinating founding of this research. Seeing history as an inherently contested subject is considered to be common among historians, while laymen are thought not to be able to embrace and accept the history with it's multiple facets. Besides, politicians are quite often simplify the stories and use the discussions for stirring up controversy. Ordinary public was viewed as easy target for politicians manipulations, however Anna's interview showed quite different tendency. I wonder if it is phenomenon that is typical for Australian society (or any other democratic society) or similar picture could be traced in other countries as well? Or may be there is an insufficiency in targeted group, or the way the research was conducted and it is the reason that the views of the adherents of contradictory historical narratives were not included into the investigation?