Geoff Robinson Geoff Robinson i(14872380 works by)
Gender: Male
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 A Man of Only Relative Autonomy Geoff Robinson , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Arena Magazine , August no. 155 2018; (p. 56-57)

'For decades now, the temptation for students of the life and career of Alfred Deakin has been to define him as a man of policy and a nation-builder. The policies at issue here are those of old Australian economic interventionism: tariffs and industrial arbitration, and authors either praise or condemn Deakin according to their attitudes towards these institutions. In The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, Judith Brett is less interested in this than previous analysts and for this reason her focus is more on Deakin’s nineteenth century experience than the well-trodden path of post Federation civic construction. Instead, she focuses on the manner in which Deakin constructed himself out of the available materials, and the crucial role that religion played in the life of the country’s most famous liberal. Brett also teases out the ultimate paradox: Deakin’s unconventional personal journey led to an utterly conventional political destination, a fused liberal-conservatism.'  (Introduction)

X