The Australian Journal of Politics and History articles from March 2005

The Australian Journal of Politics and History archives from March 2005

"Post-imperial" Australia: introduction.(British influence in Australian culture and politics, especially three decades following the Second World war)
March 1, 2005... The essays in this issue have their origins in a July 2002 conference in London on the theme: "Australia and Britain: The End of the Affair", jointly organised by the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies and the Monash University London...

The colonial strut: Australian leaders on the world stage.
March 1, 2005... Political leaders are usually born actors, always practising their lines, appraising their audience, looking for applause. They live their lives, as we say, "in the public eye", never sure, even in their private moments, that the audience they...

Australian external policy and the end of Britain's empire (1).
March 1, 2005... Australia's attachment to Britain was only one factor, and very often not a major one, in the policy-making of the post-war Menzies Government. In security matters, for example, the ANZUS agreement of 1951 was followed in 1955-57 by...

Natural-born subjects? Race and British subjecthood in Australia.
March 1, 2005... One of the most famous, and in some ways illustrative, references to British subjecthood in nineteenth century Australia was made by a man named Jemmy Morrill (also known as James Murrells). Morrill, who provided the seed for the central...

"In essence still a British country": Britain's withdrawal from East of Suez.(effect upon Australian National Identity)
March 1, 2005... In 1967, Harold Wilson's Labour Government effectively ended Britain's military world role by deciding to withdraw British troops from the area east of Suez. (1) To contemporary observers in Australia and Britain it appeared that the...

"Culture up to our arseholes": projecting post-imperial Australia.(Australian cultural identity)(Australian Council for the Arts)
March 1, 2005... The late 1960s and early 1970s have been regarded, both at the time and since, as an era of unprecedented cultural renewal in Australia. The youthful exuberance of the student protest movement, the establishment of new experimental theatre...

The Mythical Australian: Barry Humphries, Gough Whitlam and "new nationalism".
March 1, 2005... Barry Humphries's book, The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie, published in London in 1968, was banned in Australia. The Australian Minister for Customs and Excise stated that it relied on indecency for its humour. Two years later the...

From heroes to whingers: changing attitudes to British migrants, 1947 to 1977.
March 1, 2005... "The Guts to be Decent Australians": Attitudes to British Migrants in the 1940s and 1950s On 1 January 1947, The West Australian announced the imminent arrival at Fremantle of the first party of post-war British migrants. (1) On board the...

Passengers of memory: constructions of British immigrants in post-imperial Australia.
March 1, 2005... In the wake of Australia's bicentennial celebrations, the poet Robert Adamson published "Remembering Posts" as part of his collection The Clean Dark (1989). In the nationalist context of the bicentenary, the poem provided an alternative way of...

De-dominionisation revisited.(Immigration and National Identity)(Anglo-Celtic influences)
March 1, 2005... De-dominionisation. The word is an ugly one, granted; but it was inherent in the designation the British had made and in the distinction I was trying to draw in my 1979 article. (1) That could be said to have extended the traditional...

History writ large.(The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons)(Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History)(Cultures in Contact: Worm Migrations in the Second Millennium)(The Three Waves of Globalization: A History of a Developing Global Consciousness)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Until very recently, world history was still thought to be a soft option for the serious historian. (1) Convincing colleagues of its scholarly worth seemed an inordinate challenge. In a lecture to the Royal Historical Society in 1981, the...

Encountering Terra Australis: the Australian Voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Encountering Terra Australis: The Australian Voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders. By Jean Fornasiero, Peter Monteath and John West-Sooby (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2004), 411 pp. + illustrations. $49.95 hb. The authors state...

Hill End: an Historic Australian Goldfields Landscape.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Hill End: An Historic Australian Goldfields Landscape. By Alan Mayne (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003), 232 pp. + illustrations; $34.95 (pb). We are familiar with the extended historical essay as a vehicle for historians to...

Professional Savages: Captive Lives and Western Spectacle.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Professional Savages: Captive Lives and Western Spectacle. By Roslyn Poignant (University of New South Wales Press, 2004), xv + 302 pp, illustrations, $59.95 (hb). It would be hard to read this book and not feel outraged at the inhumanity...

So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the World's First National Labour Government.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the World's First National Labour Government. By Ross McMullin (Melbourne: Scribe Publications, 2004), pp. vii+200, $29.95 (hb). The Watson Labor Government held office for just under four months,...

On the War Path: an Anthology of Australian Military Travel.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... On The War Path: An Anthology of Australian Military Travel. Edited by Robin Gerster and Peter Pierce (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004), pp. 368, $34.95 (pb). On The War Path is a critical anthology of "Australian military...

Radical Brisbane: an Unruly History.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Radical Brisbane: an Unruly History. Edited by Raymond Evans and Carole Ferrier (Carlton North: The Vulgar Press: 2004), pp. 329, illustrated, $50.00 (pb). This large, handsome and generously illustrated volume follows Radical Melbourne: A...

Jessie Street: a Revised Autobiography.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Jessie Street: A Revised Autobiography. Edited by Lenore Coltheart (Sydney: The Federation Press, 2004); pp. x, 246, $30.00 (pb). In 1966 the Australasian Book Society published what was originally envisaged as the first volume of Jessie...

Kisch in Australia: the Untold Story.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Kisch in Australia: The Untold Story. By Heidi Zogbaum (Melbourne: Scribe Publications, 2004), pp. viii + 229, $26.95 (pb). ISBN 1 920769 35 8. Despite the title, most of the story told here is familiar. Egon Kisch, a Czech writer, came to...

Freedom Ride: a Freedom Rider Remembers.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Freedom Ride: a Freedom Rider Remembers. By Ann Curthoys (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2002), pp. 352, illustrated. $35.00 (pb). Some books take a long time to write. The nucleus of this one is a personal diary written almost forty years ago,...

The Power of Speech: Australian Prime Ministers Defining the National Image.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Power of Speech: Australian Prime Ministers Defining the National Image. By James Curran (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004), pp. xv + 314, $34.95 (pb). Standing apart from the other functionaries of Australian governments,...

Latham and Abbott.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Latham and Abbott. By Michael Duffy. (Sydney: Random House, 2004). 408 pp, colour photos, index. $32.95. Books on opposition leaders and cabinet ministers are rare enough; ones that compare two politicians yet to lead their country are...

From Camp to Queer: Remaking the Australian Homosexual.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... From Camp to Queer: Remaking the Australian Homosexual. By Robert Reynolds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002, pp. vii + 199, $34.95 (pb). The onset of queer theory in the early 1990s provided an environment in which younger...

The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonisation and Indonesia, 1945-1962.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonisation and Indonesia, 1945-1962. By C.L.M. Penders (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002), pp. 490, US$30.00. An American official once described the western half of New Guinea as a "few...

The Western Front: Battle Ground and Home Front in the First World War.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Western Front: Battle Ground and Home Front in the First World War. By Hunt Tooley (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. xi + 305, 16.50 [pounds sterling] (pb). Hunt Tooley explains that the theme of his book is "the relationship...

The Justicing Notebook (1750-64) of Edmund Tew.(Publications of the Surtees Society, vol. 205.)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Justicing Notebook (1750-64) of Edmund Tew (Publications of the Suttees Society, vol. 205.) Edited by Gwenda Morgan and Peter Rushton (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Surtees Society/The Boydell Press, 2000), pp. xi+240, US$70.00/GB40.00 [pounds...

British Clubs and Societies, 1580-1800: the Origins of an Associational World.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... British Clubs and Societies, 1580-1800: The Origins of an Associational World. By Peter Clark (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), pp. xviii+516. $290.00 AUD (hb), $85.00 AUD (pb, 2002). Few images are more central to the popular conception of...

Soldier and Peasant in French Popular Culture, 1766-1870.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Soldier and Peasant in French Popular Culture, 1766-1870. By David M. Hopkin (Woodbridge and Rochester: the Royal Historical Society, the Boydell Press, 2003), pp. xiv + 394, 45.00 [pounds sterling] (hb). This study of popular mentalities...

Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe. By Alexander Grab (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 249, maps. A$56.95 (pb). Ten years ago, a lecturer who might have wanted to teach a course on the Napoleonic era would have been at pains...

Hitler's Last Chief of Foreign Intelligence. Allied Interrogations of Walter Schellenberg.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Hitler's Last Chief of Foreign Intelligence. Allied Interrogations of Walter Schellenberg. Edited by Reinhard R. Doerries (London; Portland OR: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. xvii + 382. Illustrations. 45.00 [pounds sterling] (cloth). Richard...

War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. By Edwin Black (New York, London: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), pp.xxv + 550. $27.00, 17.99 [pounds sterling], hb. Eugenics, although born in Britain (the...

A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples. By Ilan Pappe. (Cambridge University Press, 2004). xxi + 333 pp. Maps, photos, chronology, notes, glossary of names, glossary of terms, bibliography, and index. AU$39.95 (Pb). ISBN...

Subverting Colonial Authority: Challenges to Spanish Rule in Eighteenth-Century Southern Andes.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Subverting Colonial Authority: Challenges to Spanish Rule in Eighteenth-Century Southern Andes. By Sergio Serulnikov (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. viii + 287, US$23.95 (pb). Scholars of South American history refer to the...

Honour Among Nations? Treaties and Agreements with Indigenous People.(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Honour Among Nations? Treaties and Agreements with Indigenous People. By Marcia Langton, Maureen Tehan, Lisa Palmer and Kathryn Shain (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004, 354 pp. $39.95. Honour Among Nations is an anthology edited...