is the very antithesis of multiculturalism." Blainey referred to the contrasting positive histories as the "three cheers" school. Critics of Blainey's article claimed that it was anti-Aboriginal. However, Blainey applauded the "many distinctive merits" of the traditional Aboriginal way of life. Moreover, Blainey's earlier book Triumph of the Nomads, was highly sympathetic to Aboriginal people, as the title indicates. It is still said to be the only narrative history of Aboriginal Australia before 1788, and a pioneering work. It was listed by the National Book Council in 1984 as one of the ten most significant Australian books of the previous 10 years. Blainey has been critical of Bruce Pascoe's work, Dark Emu, regarding Aboriginal life prior to 1788 stating that there existed "no evidence that there was ever a permanent town in pre-1788 Australia with 1000 inhabitants who gained most of their food by farming" as claimed by Pascoe. During the launch of his 2015 book The Story of Australia's People Volume 1: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia, Blainey predicted the History Wars would continue in the public arena for some time as "it is in the nature of history and of most intellectual activities, and the more so in a nation where the main strands of history — Aboriginal and European — are utterly different." In June 2020, Blainey was critical of iconoclast destructions of historical monuments and public statues following the George Floyd protests. Blainey viewed the destructions as rallying against Western civilization, calling for a tempered approach to acknowledging the West's "virtues", in addition to its shortcomings. Awards Geoffrey Blainey was made a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria in 1967. In 1975 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian literature. He was awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours list of 2000 for his service to academia, research and scholarship. The following year he was awarded a Centenary Medal for his services to the Centenary of Federation, of which he was Council chairman in 2001 and previously a member. At the United Nations in New York in 1988, he was one of five intellectuals, including the American economist John Kenneth Galbraith and the Mexican poet Octavio Paz, who were awarded gold medals for "excellence in the dissemination of knowledge for the benefit of mankind". Blainey's book The Causes