Doug Munro (International) assertion Doug Munro i(12037282 works by)
Gender: Male
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1 Doug Munro Review of Richard Allsop, Geoffrey Blainey : Writer, Historian, Controversialist Doug Munro , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Journal of Biography and History , no. 6 2022; (p. 227-233)

— Review of Geoffrey Blainey : Writer, Historian, Controversialist Richard Allsop , 2019 single work biography
'Geoffrey Blainey (b. 1930) has had a most unusual trajectory for a historian. It  started conventionally enough when he enrolled in 1948 in Max Crawford’s history department at the University of Melbourne. He was one of several stellar students of that immediate postwar generation, and topped Manning Clark’s third year history course. At age 20, he then astonished everyone by taking on a full professor, R. S. Parker, in the country’s leading journal in the discipline, Historical Studies, as to whether Australian Federation was primarily motivated by economic considerations. His progression rapidly diverged from his fellow students in other ways. Instead of the usual career path as a tutor, followed by further study at Oxford, he embarked on a commissioned history of Mount Lyell Mining & Railway Company, published in 1954 as The Peaks of Lyell. That set his course for more than a decade, and a further six commissioned histories followed. Only in late 1961 did he become a teaching academic, beginning with a brief (and very successful) stint at the University of Adelaide followed by long-term employment at his alma mater, where he rose to become dean of the Faculty of Arts.' (Introduction)
1 6 y separately published work icon History Wars : The Peter Ryan–Manning Clark Controversy Doug Munro , Canberra : Australian National University Press , 2021 23639649 2021 multi chapter work criticism

'‘In 1993, Manning Clark came under severe (posthumous) attack in the pages of Quadrant by none other than Peter Ryan, who had published five of the six volumes of Clark’s epic A History of Australia. In applying what he called “an overdue axe to a tall poppy”, Ryan lambasted the History as “an imposition on Australian credulity” and declared its author a fraud, both as a historian and a person. This unprecedented public assault by a publisher on his best-selling author was a sensation at the time and remains lodged in the public memory. In History Wars, Doug Munro forensically examines the right and wrongs of Ryan’s allegations, concluding that Clark was more sinned against than sinning and that Ryan repeatedly misrepresented the situation. More than just telling a story, Munro places the Ryan-Clark controversy within the context of Australia’s History Wars. This book is an illuminating saga of that ongoing contest.’

— James Curran, University of Sydney

'‘The Ryan-Clark controversy … speaks to the place of Manning Clark in Australia’s national imagination. Had Ryan taken his axe to another historian, it’s unlikely that we would be still talking about it 30 years later. But Clark was the author and keeper of Australia’s national story, however imperfect his scholarship and however blinkered that story. Few, if any, historians in the Anglo-American world have occupied the space that Clark occupied by dint of will, force of personality, and felicity of pen.’

— Donald Wright, University of New Brunswick' (Publication summary)

1 Oliver MacDonagh : Foundation Professor of History at Flinders University Doug Munro , 2019 single work biography
— Appears in: History Australia , January vol. 15 no. 4 2019; (p. 638-656)

'Oliver MacDonagh, a distinguished historian of Britain and Ireland, was appointed in 1963 to the foundation chair of history at what became the Flinders University of South Australia. The present article dissects the process of his elevation to the Flinders chair, at a time when senior academic appointments were handled differently than today, and discusses MacDonagh’s work at his new place of abode. As one of the new universities in Australia during the 1960s, Flinders had a brief to be different from its traditional counterparts and to ‘experiment boldly’. But was this what MacDonagh did during his time there?'  (Publication abstract)

1 Walvin, Fitzpatrick and Rickard : Three Autobiographies of Childhood and Coming of Age Doug Munro , Geoffrey Gray , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Clio’s Lives : Biographies and Autobiographies of Historians 2017; (p. 39-64)

'Once a comparatively rare beast, historians’ autobiographies are becoming prevalent to the point of being commonplace. Since the 1980s, such works have crystallised into a genre and have become a historiographic growth area. Limiting the head count to monograph-length works, a dozen historians’ memoirs were published in the 1970s, rising to three dozen in the 1980s, five dozen in the 1990s, and the contributions continue apace. Once on the fringes of the historical enterprise, historians’ memoirs are now edging closer to centre stage. Increasing frequency has lent respectability. There remain significant pockets of resistance, the usual canards being that autobiography is inescapably egotistical, self-indulgent and narcissistic. Nonetheless, the genre is rapidly gaining acceptance and being treated seriously – and not simply historians’ autobiographies but autobiography by academics generally. Almost without exception, historians’ autobiographies contain a chapter or chapters on childhood and coming of age. In parallel with the increasing prevalence of historians’ autobiographies, a subgenre devoted to the childhoods through to the young adulthoods of historians has also become a growth area. We are concerned in this chapter with three such works: Sheila Fitzpatrick’s My Father’s Daughter (2010); John Rickard’s An Imperial Affair (2013); and James Walvin’s Different Times (2014).' (Introduction)

1 Introduction Doug Munro , John G. Reid , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Clio’s Lives : Biographies and Autobiographies of Historians 2017; (p. 1-16)

'This volume of essays was inspired by the increasing though still-limited body of scholarship connecting the writing of history directly with the lives of those who write it, and the contributions were initially presented as papers at an intensive workshop held at The Australian National University in July 2015. While the writing of historians’ lives by themselves or others is not new in itself – Edward Gibbon’s Memoirs of My Life and Writings, for example, appeared posthumously in 1796 – considerable discussion flowed during the 1980s and 1990s from the publication of Pierre Nora’s Essais d’ego-histoire.  The extent of subsequent developments is demonstrated in the seminal work in the English language – Jeremy Popkin’s History, Historians, & Autobiography – where the significant increase in historians’ autobiographies and associated discussion of the genre becomes evident.' (Introduction)

1 4 y separately published work icon Clio’s Lives : Biographies and Autobiographies of Historians Doug Munro (editor), John G. Reid (editor), Canberra : Australian National University Press , 2017 12037345 2017 anthology criticism autobiography biography

'Including contributions from leading scholars in the field from both Australia and North America, this collection explores diverse approaches to writing the lives of historians and ways of assessing the importance of doing so. Beginning with the writing of autobiographies by historians, the volume then turns to biographical studies, both of historians whose writings were in some sense nation-defining and those who may be regarded as having had a major influence on defining the discipline of history. The final section explores elements of collective biography, linking these to the formation of historical networks. A concluding essay by Barbara Caine offers a critical appraisal of the study of historians’ biographies and autobiographies to date, and maps out likely new directions for future work.'  (Publication summary)

1 y separately published work icon Scholars at War : Australasian Social Scientists, 1939-1945 Geoffrey Gray (editor), Doug Munro (editor), Christine Winter (editor), Canberra : ANU E View , 2012 12042979 2012 anthology biography

'Scholars at War is the first scholarly publication to examine the effect World War II had on the careers of Australasian social scientists. It links a group of scholars through geography, transnational, national and personal scholarly networks, and shared intellectual traditions, explores their use, and contextualizes their experiences and contributions within wider examinations of the role of intellectuals in war.

'Scholars at War is structured around historical portraits of individual Australasian social scientists. They are not a tight group; rather a cohort of scholars serendipitously involved in and affected by war who share a point of origin. Analyzing practitioners of the social sciences during war brings to the fore specific networks, beliefs and institutions that transcend politically defined spaces. Individual lives help us to make sense of the historical process, helping us illuminate particular events and the larger cultural, social and even political processes of a moment in time.'(Publication summary)

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