'In the early 1970s, Geoffrey Serle presented a series of groundbreaking lectures on Australian cultural history. These lectures became the book From Deserts the Prophets Come, first published in 1973. Serle relates in his preface to the original edition, "I was aiming to cut a new path for teaching and research in Australian history, to bring cultural history into the general discourse of Australian historians, and to bridge the gap between general history and the major works in literary, art, musical, and architectural history which have appeared in recent years." Serle's articulation of the particular relations between the arts, politics, economics, and society within Australia, and what he called his "rudimentary attempt at a theory of cultural growth," remain important.' (Source 2013 edition)
Momentous Decade : Society and Thought : Australia, 1838-1848
Canberra
:
1976
19373512
1976
single work
thesis
'In searching for the origins of the Australian ethos it is tempting to regard convicts and "old hands" as the seedbed of Australian political democracy as well as part of the humus that nourished mateship and egalitarianism. While, as Russel Ward documents in The Australian Legend, many Australian social attitudes data back to convict days, the origin of Australian political democracy followed urban English rather than American or Australian frontier patterns.' (Thesis description)
