(PDF) The Cambridge History of Australia, Volumes 1 and 2 PDF

Preview

Summary

Gode notater...

Description

10.6.2021

(PDF) The Cambridge History of Australia, Volumes 1 and 2 Download full-text PDF

Article

Read full-text

Download citation

Copy link

PDF Available

The Cambridge History of Australia, Volumes 1 and 2 September 2014 · Australian Historical Studies 45(3):452-454 DOI:10.1080/1031461X.2014.946550 Authors: Lyndall Ryan University of Newcastle

Discover the world's research 20+ million members 135+ million publications Join for free

700k+ research projects

Public Full-text

1

Content uploaded by Lyndall Ryan Author content Content may be subject to copyright.

This article was downloaded by: [University of Newcastle (Australia)] On: 20 October 2014, At: 00:47 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Australian Historical Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rahs20

The Cambridge History of Australia, Volumes 1 and 2 a

Lyndall Ryan a University of Newcastle Published online: 19 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: Australian Historical

nd 2, Next

To link to this articl

Let us know how we're doing! ℹ Help us improve your ResearchGate experience by taking this short survey.

PLEASE SCROLL D Taylor & Francis m “Content”) contain our agents, and ou h

Are you a registered member of ResearchGate?

Yes No

n (the ncis, r as to 6

10.6.2021

(PDF) The Cambridge History of Australia, Volumes 1 and 2 Download full-text PDF

Read full-text

Download citation

Copy link

should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions

REVIEWS

Downloaded by [University of Newcastle (Australia)] at 00:47 20 October 2014

Books

The Cambridge History of Australia, Volumes 1 and 2. Edited by Alison Bashford and Stuart Macintyre. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Vol. 1, pp. 636; Vol. 2, pp. 644. A$325.00 cloth.

and approach, the editors have divided each volume into two parts: the first comprises narrative chapters of each major historical period, from forty thousand years ago to 2010; and the second part consists of chapters which illuminate key themes in Australian history, such as religion, education, society and welfare, class, the economy, the environment, Indigenous people, population and health, government, law and regulation, science and technology, the media and art and literature. The contributors begin their chapters with a comprehensive review of historiographical debates relevant to their designated period or theme and then refer solely to published primary and secondary sources to articulate their argument. Thus the overall impact is not always a fresh interpretation of the past but rather an important overview of where key debates in Australian history stand today. On these grounds alone The Cambridge History of Australia will be eagerly read by students of Australian history in search of clear narratives and an understanding of how Australian history has been constructed. How then does each volume fulfil its task? I

The appearance of the first Cambridge History of Australia is a major event in Australian historiography. In 1933 Cambridge University Press considered Australian history as a small part of the imperial project and included it with New Zealand in Volume VII of the Cambridge History of the British Empire, and Ernest Scott, the volume’s editor, struggled to find a sufficient number of Australian historians to contribute key chapters. Since then the study of Australian history has come of age and The Cambridge History of Australia presents an important overview of where the discipline stands today. The editors, who enjoy major international reputations as Australian historians, found no difficulty in enlisting the ‘expertise of 67 historians, across generations and fields of knowledge, to present a fresh account of the nation’s past’ (xxvii). Volume 1, Indigenous a tralia’s histo ume 2, The the nation’s seven contr thirty-five a from the sol ℹ Help us improve your ResearchGate experience by taking this short in 1933. A survey. collaborative history in Are you a registered member of Yes chapters in ResearchGate? four chapter No could all t

Next

Let us know how we're doing!

historians. A gists, anothe

h

6

10.6.2021

(PDF) The Cambridge History of Australia, Volumes 1 and 2 Download full-text PDF

Read full-text

nation’s past? To ensure a consistent structure

Download citation

Copy link

thousand years to more than forty thousand 452

Downloaded by [University of Newcastle (Australia)] at 00:47 20 October 2014

Reviews: Books years, which in turn coincided with demands by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for self-determination and a growing non-Indigenous appreciation of Indigenous cultures. In chapter three, Emma Christopher and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart locate the penal colony at Sydney in 1788 within the history of convict transportation since 1615, completely overturning the long-held view that the convicts Britain transported to Australia were outcasts of empire. Rather they were an integral part of the imperial project. In the thematic chapter on law and regulation, Mark Finnane shows how colonial law and policing emerged from the long history of convict transportation and how it shifted and changed in the Australian colonies to meet new and diverse challenges such as frontier violence, goldmining and urbanisation. In similar vein David Goodman in his review of the gold rushes of the 1850s positions them within the mid-nineteenth-century movement of men and ideas associated with global capitalism. The young miners who came to the Victorian goldfields, he argues, were the first generation of educated young white men from Britain, Europe and North America, who considered the goldfields of the Anglo-Pacific Rim such as California, Australia and New Zealand as international sites of radical discourse in which new concepts of parliamentary democracy based on white race supremacy were hotly debated. Ann Curthoys and Jessie Mitchell further explore the concepts in their chapter on the campaigns for colonial self-government. Helen Irving also considers the federation campaign within global debates about representative democracy that would resonate with the republican convention in the 1990s. Combined with Melissa Bellanta’s stimulating chapter on the cultural debates of the 1890s, the reader could be forgiven for concluding that the major debates about shaping who we are as Australians were embedded in the nineteenth century. The optimism of Volume 1 is largely absent in Volume 2. Its purpose is to show how the fledgling nation of 3.8 million people in 1901 became a middle world power of 22.8 million people in 2010. The narrative chapters largely explore the operation of the Commonwealth parliament and how the key prime ministerial players operated in times of economic and political cris world wars, in the 1980

453

financial crisis of 2008. The thematic chapters, however, tackle more complex issues such as religion and politics, society and welfare, gender and sexuality, Indigenous Australians, science and medicine, culture and media, the economy, education, the environment, travel and tourism, as well as Asia-Pacific relations. They offer a completely different picture of the twentieth century. The tension between the political narrative and thematic chapters is never resolved. John Hirst sets the narrative pattern with a masterful survey of the first decade of the Commonwealth parliament which laid the foundations for the nation’s raison d’être for the next sixty years. Stephen Garton and Peter Stanley then show how World War I destroyed the optimism of the first decade with a devastating account of the statistical and emotional impact of the war on Australians at home and on the battlefields of the Middle East and France. The Great War appears to have dampened Australians’ radical spirit. Not even Frank Bongiorno, who rarely produces a dull word in whatever he writes, quite succeeds in bringing the 1930s Depression to life, although Kate Darian-Smith’s fast-paced chapter on the big issues of postwar reconstruction spawned by World War II produces some gems. After that the political scientists take over and the broader approach of the earlier narrative chapters dissipates. Judith Brett’s stylish account of the Menzies era does not quite come to grips with Cold War ideology and how it was unable to sniff the winds of political and social change of the 1960s. Paul Strangio’s sober assessment of the 1960s and 1970s, James Walter’s focus on how the Australian government grappled with globalisation in the 1980s and 1990s and Murray Goot’s attempts to understand the political complexities of the last decade result in rather dry dissections of the political process rather than serious analyses of key moments in the nation’s postwar history such as the 1951 Referendum to ban the Communist Party, the Dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975, the republican convention of 1997 and the Dark Victory election of 2001. Above all they avoid comparisons with the past such as the federation debates on representative democracy that enlivened Volume 1. The thematic chapters open out the broader

Next

Let us know how we're doing! ℹ Help us improve your ResearchGate experience by taking this short survey.

Are you a registered member of ResearchGate?

Yes No

h

6

10.6.2021 Download full-text PDF

Read full-text

Downloaded by [University of Newcastle (Australia)] at 00:47 20 October 2014

new life into the debate about the critically important connections between religion and politics. The chapter on gender and sexuality by Katie Holmes and Sarah Pinto also adds immeasurably to our understanding of the ongoing tension between sexual desire and religious faith. Anna Haebich and Steve Kinnane painfully illustrate the myriad ways Indigenous peoples across Australia sought to claim their independence from control by government, pastoral companies and missions in the first seventy years of federation and their varied experiences with government bodies since then. Simon Ville’s lively chapter on the economy draws out important differences between large and small economies across the century, and the other thematic chapters are very informative although without having anything particularly new to say. However, when read as a whole, they convey a deep sense of disappointment at opportunities lost. In the final chapter Mark McKenna provides an overview of the history profession and its development since World War II, and it could be read as an explanation for historians’ disappointment with the present. It could also indicate that as the nation matures they have become less optimistic and more realistic about the possibilities of the past which contains so much unfinished business. Indeed the overall impression of Australia that is offered by The Cambridge History of Australia is of a nation still in search of itself and desperately uncertain of its future. LYNDALL RYAN University of Newcastle © 2014, Lyndall Ryan

Australian History Now. Edited by Anna Clark and Paul Ashton. Sydney: New South Publishing, 2013. Pp. 317. A$34.99 paper. Anna Clark and Paul Ashton have done the profession a great service by compiling and editing a rich volume detailing the transformation in Australian historiography over the past three decades. Australian History Now sets out to consider key developments in historical research and writing as well as the nature and meaning of historical practice in the early twenty-first century. Its diverse collection of brief, reflective essays by some of Australia’s finest historians has more

Citations (0)

Download citation

Copy link

than accomplished this goal and will become an indispensable part of libraries for years to come. This is a very full but accessible compilation. Clark and Ashton have produced a useful introductory essay, which is followed by writing on Aboriginal history (Peter Read), labour history (Stuart Macintyre), a feminist voice (Ann Curthoys), oral history (Alistair Thomson), military history (Peter Stanley), history in the academy (Alan Atkinson), history in schools (Paul Kiem), history in museums (Mathew Trinca), the history wars (Anna Clark), public history (Paul Ashton), history and heritage (Graeme Davison), community history (Martha Sear), history and television (Clare Wright), history and creative writing (Tony Birch), environmental history (Tom Griffiths), transnational history (Marilyn Lake) and new cultural history and the colonial past (Leigh Boucher). The diversity and breadth of the collection makes it difficult for the reviewer to select contributions to comment on. Peter Read’s perceptive analysis of Aboriginal historiography charts key shifts within the scholarship, from the studies of frontier violence in the 1970s informed by the recording of indigenous oral histories; to stories of survival in the face of overwhelming odds in the 1980s; to the decade of hope in the 1990s that witnessed ‘a rejuvenated Aboriginal Australia in poetry, autobiography, fiction and history’ (32). In contrast, the first decade of the new millennium saw the mood quickly change, reflecting both the Howard government’s rejection of reconciliation and a new preoccupation with uncovering the stories of the Stolen Generations. Ann Curthoys has written a wonderfully engaging autobiographical essay on her evolution as a historian. Curthoys’ early scholarly interest in race relations in colonial New South Wales was augmented by an encounter with Women’s Liberation in 1970 ‘that changed everything’ and ‘stimulated a rethink of my politics, my life and my approach to history’ (58). An early essay from this time, ‘Women’s Liberation and Historiography’, set out Curthoys’ initial thoughts on how a focus on women’s history would transform the writing of Australian history generally. As the new field of feminist history came into its own in the 1970s, Curthoys participated fully as a teacher, researcher, commentator, theorist and historiographer; and in the 1980s and 1990s,

References (0)

Next

Let us know how we're doing! ResearchGate has not b

ℹ Help us improve your ResearchGate experience by taking this short survey.

Are you a registered member of ResearchGate?

Yes No

h

6

10.6.2021

(PDF) The Cambridge History of Australia, Volumes 1 and 2 Download full-text PDF

Read full-text

Download citation

Copy link

Project

Australian frontier massacres 1788-1872 Lyndall Ryan ·

Mark Brown ·

William Pascoe

Identify every frontier massacre in Eastern Australia 1788-1872 View project

Project

Early trans-Tasman memorialisation associated with the 1840s NZ wars and other conflicts or disasters associated with Royal Navy or Army. Jeff Hopkins-Weise ·

Lyndall Ryan

In conjunction with Professor Lyndall Ryan, preparing a further article on early trans-Tasman memorialisation associated with the 1840s NZ wars. This will explore the active field service & garriso ... [more] View project

Project

Colonial Frontier Massacres in Eastern Australia 1788-1872 William Pascoe ·

Lyndall Ryan ·

Jennifer Debenham

View project

Article

History of medicine--a phoenix rising April 1985 · The Medical journal of Australia Ronald Winton Read more

Article

The history of Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane April 1969 · The Medical journal of Australia E M Kent-Hughes Read more

Article

Terence Campbell Butler. · The Medical journal of Au W Crowther Read more

Next

Let us know how we're doing! ℹ Help us improve your ResearchGate experience by taking this short survey.

Are you a registered member of ResearchGate? Article

Yes No

Bibliography of the History

h

6

10.6.2021

(PDF) The Cambridge History of Australia, Volumes 1 and 2 Download full-text PDF

Read full-text

Download citation

Copy link

Read more

Article

Full-text available

Your Flag’s Got My Flag on it: The Union Jack and the Australian Flag March 2011 Glen William Wright This paper is an attempt to unravel the significance of the presence of the Union Jack on the Australian flag. I will start by briefly recounting the histories of the Union Jack and Australian flags and the history of the flag debate in Australia. I will then reflect on Australia’s British heritage, other immigrant heritage, and, finally, Aboriginal heritage. Lastly, I will discuss the continued ... [Show full abstract] View full-text

Company

Support

Business solutions

About us News

Help Center

Advertising Recruiting

Careers

© 2008-2021 ResearchGate GmbH. All rights reserved.

Terms · Privacy · Copyright · Imprint

Next

Let us know how we're doing! ℹ Help us improve your ResearchGate experience by taking this short survey.

Are you a registered member of ResearchGate?

Yes No

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280170802_The_Cambridge_History_of_Australia_Volumes_1_and_2

6/6...