Cirrus@Austlit

'Most historians’ memoirs bear the mark of their authors’ calling. They relate their own lives with an unusual precision, giving full details of antecedents, for example, and are attentive to chronology and context. Historians use this scaffolding to make sense of their lived experience, so that a disciplinary understanding of the past directs and supplements memory. In looking back on their lives, moreover, they are concerned to explain how it was that they found their vocation. This can involve the identification of formative influences, teachers, interests and opportunities that shaped their careers. It can also impart a teleological cast, the life following a predetermined path.' (Introduction)

'Geoffrey Bolton was the most versatile and widely travelled of his generation of Australian historians. As a scholar, teacher and commentator he enriched understanding of the country’s regional mosaic, some of its notable figures and others who were just as revealing, the natural environment, social patterns and political life. He was also unflagging in his encouragement of others. The contributors to this volume take his work as a departure point for original essays on a variety of themes in Australian history.

'Contributors include Stuart Macintyre, Jenny Gregory, Lenore Layman, Carol Bolton, Mark McKenna, Graeme Davison, Carl Bridge, Alan Atkinson, Andrew Gaynor, Tom Griffiths, Tim Rowse, Lizzy Watt, Mary Anne Jebb and Pat Jalland.' (Publication summary)

'John Hirst was a singular historian – a scholar of incisive intelligence and originality, never satisfied with conventional wisdom; a public commentator and controversialist of strong civic conscience; and a gifted teacher and generous colleague who remained steadfast in his calling. He cared little for honours and awards, and rejected all invitations to become a professor. Yet his influence on the profession as a graduate supervisor, head of his department at La Trobe University, and editor of this journal for six years, was profound. He did much more than his share of examining theses, reading manuscripts, and promoting shared endeavours.' (Introduction)

'Stuart Macintyre reviews a new biography of the titan of Australian newspaper proprietors, David Syme'