Men of the World single work   review  
Issue Details: First known date: 2021... 2021 Men of the World
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.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Both Judith Brett’s The Enigmatic Mr Deakin and Julia Suares’ J.B. Chifley: An ardent internationalist have received much attention since their publication in 2017 and 2019. This review is coming late to the parties welcoming the revitalisation of our understanding of two of Australia’s most significant prime ministers. The coupling of these books here might seem unlikely. Alfred Deakin (1856–1919) and Ben Chifley (1885–1951) led during transformative periods. Brett judges Deakin ‘Australia’s most constructive prime minister before … World War Two’ (330); Suares seeks greater recognition of Chifley’s influence in shaping the reconstruction agenda following that war, particularly in pursuing a bold ‘emergent future’ of international cooperation (18). In background and personality, however, the two can hardly have been more different. What can these two studies, and these two men, show when viewed side-by-side? At a time when the personal account dominates discussion of political leadership, it is in itself refreshing to reflect on the different contexts that shaped these figures, not as individual projects but as lives interdependent with their times.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon History Australia vol. 18 no. 1 2021 21778194 2021 periodical issue

    'The editors look forward to the day when we do not feel compelled to open our editorial with a recent dramatic historical crisis. Today, however, is not that day. We have finalised the details of this issue in the shadow of the insurrection against the United States’ congress building on 6 January 2021. Even those most resistant to listening to historians have been unable to escape their demand to compare this event to key moments in the past – to Kristallnacht, to the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, to the many coup d’etats of the postwar world, or even to the revolution of 1776 (if racialist minority overthrows of constitutional governments are the comparisons one is after). Politicians, journalists, and punters around the world have been beseeching their advisers, audiences, inner souls, and the fathomless ether to answer their questions about the most appropriate analogy. What should we call this event? How did we get here? What can we do now? And what does it all foretell?' (Editorial introduction)

    2021
    pg. 184-186
Last amended 12 May 2021 11:16:37
184-186 Men of the Worldsmall AustLit logo History Australia
Review of:
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X