Truth Telling, Historiographical Agonism, and the Colonial Past in Germany and Australia

Via an examination of the current state of German attempts to come to terms with the country's genocidal Nazi past, this article underscores the utility of an approach to historical scholarship and 'truth telling' that might be called historiographical agonism. It articulates how historiographical agonism deals with the difficulties of assimilating and reconciling problematic national pasts such as the Holocaust and the radical violence and dispossession that characterises Australia's settler colonial history. It also demonstrates historiographical agonism's capacity to adapt to changing social and political contexts.