Panel discussions co-hosted by the Search Foundation, Victorian Trades Hall and The New International Bookshop on the topics most critical to Australia’s economic, political and environmental future
Stuart Macintyre, professorial fellow in history at the University of Melbourne, will give a public talk about his latest book, AUSTRALIA’S BOLDEST EXPERIMENT: War and reconstruction in the 1940s. RSVP on facebook here
When: Thursday October 22nd, 6:45pm for 7pm
Where: Meeting Room 1, Trades Hall, 54 Victoria St, Carlton.
The book explains how a country traumatised by World War I, hammered by the Depression and overstretched by World War II became a prosperous, successful and growing society by the 1950s. An extraordinary group of individuals, notably John Curtin, Ben Chifley, Nugget Coombs, John Dedman and Robert Menzies, re-made the country, planning its reconstruction against a background of wartime sacrifice and austerity. !e other part of this triumphant story shows Australia on the world stage, seeking to fashion a new world order that would bring peace and prosperity. This book shows the 1940s to be a pivotal decade in Australia.
At the height of his powers, Macintyre reminds us that key components of the society we take for granted – work, welfare, health, education, immigration, housing – are not the result of military endeavour but policy, planning, politics and popular resolve.
Stuart Macintyre is a professorial fellow in history at the University of Melbourne. His previous books include The Reds. He edited True Believers with John Faulkner and The Cambridge History of Australia with Alison Bashford.