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What are the White Hat guides?

The White Hat Guides are a series of guides of varying size that examine numbers of topics. Each White Hat Guide has been researched in a professional manner which means examining the primary sources where available, using major library resources and archival material and not simply relying on the (copious, unreliable and often strangely limited) information available on the internet. If you refer to a White Hat Guide you can be assured that the facts have been researched. This doesn't mean there will be no mistakes of fact - no information is perfect - but that they are not a simple unquestioning recycling of existing books and websites. In the spirit of White Hat, the White Hat Guides aspire to be Informed, Intelligent, Independent (and sometimes) Irreverent. The White Hat Guides which appear on this website are usually shorter versions of larger original documents. A number of these original documents which contain full reference and citation lists are available for purchase

There are several forms of White Hat Guide:

• Web pages on this site freely accessible and bearing the title 'the White Hat Guide'
• Some White Hat Guides are only available as part of tours, training courses and other services provided by White Hat
• Some White Hat Guides are only available for purchase and download

Who use the White Hat Guides?

The White Hat Guides are often referred to in education curricula because the teachers and lecturers concerned know that, while they may not agree with the opinions expressed, the factual information will have been well researched and reliable if it bears 'The White Hat Guide' label. They also know that White Hat does not knowingly promote sexually explicit material, gambling or other sites deemed inappropriate for student use. Thus guides such as The White Hat Guide to Australian Inventions and Innovation have become a standard reference tool.

The origin of the White Hat Guides

The White Hat Guides started life as internal documents for the training of our own staff. A number of people joining us were well qualified but came from an Australian education system which ignored or undervalued certain things and gave a strangely skewed view on others. For instance, some history graduates when asked to name significant Australians could name many people from the arts along with their significance but practically none from the sciences. Some qualified tour guides could point out the impressive court buildings around Melbourne but had no idea of what cases went to which court and why. (See for instance our Melbourne Quiz Question on this subject from a previous newsletter.) Some had come from the education system accepting as self evident the socio-political spin promoted by a certain style of teaching and lecturing that has little understanding or experience of life outside the public sector. We looked for documents to fill the gaps but found little that was satisfactory so ended up creating our own.

In other areas we had clients arriving from overseas whose view and knowledge of Australia had come from publications such as popular tourist guide books or sanitised 'official' or government-funded materials which often only presented part of the story. As many of these guides were written by people with the same limited world view that we were encountering in our training courses we found that we had to write our own guides for pre-reading on certain subjects just so that we could start from a balanced and reasonably informed starting point.

Over time, people found these resources so useful that they asked if we would publish them. We have made a small start by placing some of the smaller White Hat Guides on this website. As time allows we will add more.

In the meantime we attempt to keep the White Hat Guides as factually correct and up-to-date as possible, so if you find factual information that is incorrect we would love to hear from you through corrections@whitehat.com.au. And if you find opinions that you don't agree with then you are not alone, and experiencing a different point of view is not necessarily a bad thing. We neither seek nor receive government funding so our views are independent rather than 'official'.

We don't claim the White Hat Guides to be 'great' or 'the best' - simply to fill a gap out there. We hope you find them useful.