The big problem I always had with history is context. I find it so hard to listen to someone or read something written now about a fact about the past. I can't help but think "how do you know"? Worse, a lot of the things you learn change over time. So much of history is "this is what we think". I have a lot of trouble taking the time to take that sort of speculation in.

I think this is why I have a new fascination of old photos. So I've been buying old books with photos of Melbourne and Australia in.

As a nice bonus I've discovered that the best way to read about Australian history isn't to read a book written now, it's to read a book written then. A facts book.

I picked up a copy of "Australia: The Fifth Continent (Photographed by Ern McQuillan)" on a trip to Tyabb recently. As well as some great (if often mislabelled) photos of our capital cities from the air, it has many aerial photos of some of the inner towns like Ballarat and Mildura.

Amongst the photos are facts about Australia. Everything from how the government works to Qantas. It appears to have been written in early 1972, just before Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister.

Here's a great example of the kind of context I'm looking for in reading history (any errors are probably mine):

CONSCRIPTION, a compulsory military training and service, has always been a controversial subject in Australia. In World War I, the Australian forces serving overseas were entirely composed of volunteers, though a small force was conscripted for home service. In 1916 the people rejected a referendum for conscription for overseas service, though it was strongly supported by the Labor Prime Minister, William Morris Hughes. In World War II compulsory military training was introduced, but conscripts could server in the south-west Pacific. Today conscription operates under the National Service Act of 1951, and twenty-year-old males, resident in Australia regardless of nationality, must register for national service, to be chosen by ballot to complete full-time military training with possible overseas service.

The book also has an update pasted into the back:

CONSCRIPTION: One of the A.L.P.'s major party platforms, the abolition of conscription, was implemented on 2nd December 1972, when call-up for national service was suspended.

The text in the book is by "the staff of ANGUS & ROBERTSON".

You can view Ern's photographic work at the National Library of Australia website. It seems he was a big fan of sport and of jumping in a plane and taking photos of landmarks.