On “good” history and “tough” problems.’ [Introduction to ‘Manuscript XLIV: Inaugural Lecture: History, Lies and Mythology – the Historian and the Community.’]

Alan Ward (1935–2014) delivered his inaugural professorial address at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, on 23 March 1988. Following his 1987 promotion to Professor, a position he held until his retirement in 1996, the lecture marked a milestone in his career, which to that point had included not only his influential study, A Show of Justice: Racial ‘Amalgamation’ in Nineteenth Century New Zealand (1974), but also important work on land reform in Papua New Guinea, the New Hebrides/Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. Some 35 years after its delivery and ten years after Ward’s death, the Journal of Pacific History now publishes the lecture (as retrieved from his papers and transcribed by his daughter, Ingrid Ward) in its entirety. This introduction highlights key themes from the lecture in the context of Ward’s career and subsequent publications that expanded on the issues raised in the speech.