Suchergebnisse

Tom Stannage made a significant contribution to Australian local history and regularly returned to it throughout his career, frequently speaking and writing about the local past and collaborating with the community organisations that promoted it. In the context of Stannage's perspectives, the work of some other historians and the author's experiences, this article briefly reflects on the state of local history in Australia and the role of local historical societies. The focus is on New South Wales and the Northern Territory, the parts of Australia that the author knows best, but some attention is also given to the rest of the country. The article considers why the work of local historians and historical societies matters in understanding the bigger picture of Australian history. The various attempts to tell the stories of individual communities quite frequently by and for local residents themselves encourage speculation on their contributions to the broader process of historical inquiry. Local history is, as Stannnage strongly believed it ought to be, usually a democratic phenomenon and one that allows a diverse range of approaches. The historical societies that survive and develop do so because they are solidly based in their communities. Perhaps even more crucial, the data of the past that local historical societies have often unearthed and recorded help allow Australians to shape what Stannage so aptly described as a 'history for their own purposes of identity'.

This thesis documents the rich meanings of recreational sailing and yachting in Australian waters between 1888 and 1945. It approaches sailing and yachting through two functional categories of maritime history, the use of the sea for leisure and the inspiration of the sea in culture, and considers how meanings are created through myth, legend, and ritual. By consulting newspaper articles, magazines, yachting histories and books, poetry, race programs, images and the design of boats, this thesis considers the way that sailing and yachting developed in Australian waters. By consulting secondary literature, it locates this development of sailing and yachting in the broader themes of Australian history. This thesis has found a strong tradition of sailing and yachting in Australian waters in events such as the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and Anniversary Regattas; the rituals and traditions of sailing clubs and yacht clubs, such as the open boat clubs in Sydney, and the Royal Yacht clubs throughout the capital port cities of Australia; legends created around sailing and yachting, such as the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, open boats, and ocean cruising; and the practices of sailing and yachting throughout the period covered. It has found that sailing and yachting developed in Australian waters between 1888 and 1945 within the broad context of modernisation. Old seafaring traditions were maintained in the context of technological changes in shipping and recreational sailing. Yachting and sailing was democratised as boats became more affordable, exclusive social boundaries weakened, and the pastimes were commodified. Local traditions and Britishness remained constant refrains in sailing and yachting culture during the period covered. However, in the twentieth century, local traditions have taken on national significance. This thesis had found that contemporary myths, legends, and rituals surrounding sailing and yachting, including the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and America's Cup, are based on a long tradition of sailing and ...

This thesis examines how the Australian Museum Library both reflected and affected scientific activity and debate at the Australian Museum, Sydney, and beyond, between 1836 and 1917. The relationship between those practising science in the metropolis and those on the periphery, such as in colonial New South Wales, has long been discussed but the role of natural history museum libraries in Australia is little mentioned. Similarly, the ways in which museum library activity signalled the shift of influence, in the nineteenth century, from the gentleman scientist to the university–trained professional are not well known and will be explored.This is a study of the history of books and their readers and consists of a combination of narrative chapters, biographical and bibliographical case studies, and statistical analyses. Case studies include the physical identification of the dispersed libraries of naturalists Ludwig Leichhardt and William Swainson, as well as a study of the influence of the Australian Museum Library on the scientific activity of Australian Museum Curator, Gerard Krefft. At the methodological core of this thesis is a database constructed from records in the Library's 1883 catalogue; this is combined with information from the Museum's archives and the physical evidence of the books themselves to reveal the evolution of a collection— including variations in the source, age, country of publication and subject categories of the books acquired—over a period of five decades.The gentleman naturalists who first managed the Australian Museum, under the direction of the family of Alexander Macleay, dominated Museum activity for almost forty years. The Library was initially a reflection of the interests of this elite group but was gradually transformed by the scientific aspirations of Governor William Denison, the Museum's greater accountability to the New South Wales government, the influence of Sydney University scientists and the research needs of the Museum's employees. Despite the Museum's reluctance to employ university-trained scientific staff even into the twentieth century, by the early 1900s the Australian Museum Library had adopted the most modern system of classification and international bibliographical subscription and index services available to support the work of its researchers.

The relationship between Australian political and social history has received little historiographical attention. Political history has been lauded or, more often, dismissed as traditional historical practice, while from the 1960s social history took its

The relationship between Australian political and social history has received little historiographical attention. Political history has been lauded or, more often, dismissed as traditional historical practice, while from the 1960s social history took its

In August 1968, conservative National Party leader Joh Bjelke-Petersen became Premier of the state of Queensland. He referred to conservationists as these 'subversives, these friends of the dirt'. A generation later, few if any Australian politicians would have publicly attacked the environment and its supporters for fear of electoral damage. After years of major environmental battles which on occasion determined the fate of some governments, the environment had crashed through into mainstream politics. Natural and cultural heritage was firmly on local, state and federal political agendas. Heritage in Australia was also, by the 1990s, a substantial, multifaceted industry. Cultural and eco tourism generated a significant proportion of the country's gross domestic product. Along side and partially in response to industry, a heritage bureaucracy had developed. The corporatisation of heritage saw the rise in the 1980s and 1990s of a new generation of heritage professionals who attempted with varying degrees of success to place heritage assessment on a quasi-scientific footing. Perhaps their greatest achievement, in terms of cultural heritage, was gaining recognition in the 1990s for the vital importance of intangible heritage. Intangible heritage, or social value, inscribes objects and sites that cannot speak for themselves with cultural and social meanings. Since the 1980s, some more radical practitioners had been working to counteract the dominance of tangible remains of the past in determining cultural significance. This victory over empiricism, however, was in some respects to prove pyrrhic. Heritage conservation, as with some other heritage practices, was by the turn of the twenty-first century institutionally confined in its ability to represent conflict. This article charts the incorporation and corralling of heritage work at the federal level in Australia through a case study of the rise and fall of the Australian Heritage Commission.

The Chinese press was the largest foreign-language press in Sydney in the late nineteenth century, and the only foreign-language press to publish continuously from the 1890s into the 1920s. Yet the story of Chinese-language newspapers during this period of emerging Australian and Chinese nationalism has, until now, been left untold. Beginning with a review of an especially bitter conflict that split the Sydney Chinese community, in 1892, and ending two decades later with the establishment of the earliest political alliance between Chinese-Australian elites in Sydney and Melbourne, set up to support the building of the Republic of China, Making Chinese Australia demonstrates how the interpretations and narratives of journalists and editors of Chinese-Australian newspapers played a powerful role in shaping the social identities and historical awareness of Chinese Australians. In the process of relating this important narrative, Mei-fen Kuo employs new historical and philosophical frameworks to initiate a dialogue between Chinese-Australian history and international and diasporic Chinese studies.

The connection between history and COVID-19 might appear counter-intuitive. We are used to being told by media outlets and employers, government officials and friends that we are 'living in unprecedented times'. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the rhythms of our daily lives, but not every response to COVID-19 has been new. It has also been understood through history. This article comes from a roundtable discussion that was held as part of NSW History Week on 11 September 2020. Bringing together historians, curators and archivists, this panel explored the way that history has been used to understand COVID-19. Particular attention was paid to attempts to record and archive our experiences through the pandemic, comparisons between COVID-19 and the 'Spanish' flu as well as shifting understandings of temporality during the pandemic. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has ruptured our quotidian experience, it is not a moment beyond history. This panel examined how history is being used as an anchor point, a source of inspiration and an educational tool with which to tackle 'these uncertain times'.

The history wars are far from over—the question is, do they resonate beyond the limited public sphere in which they play out? What do Australians think of their history in light of these politicised historical debates? By way of answer, this paper examines the enduring public contest over the past and then investigates more elusive, but no less significant, everyday conversations about Australian history around the country. By proposing a method of 'oral historiography' to gauge contemporary historical understandings in Australia, it brings a critical new perspective to these ongoing debates. It offers ordinary people a chance to contribute to national discussions about Australian history and it challenges some of the more simplistic and troubling assumptions of the history wars.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart of May 2017 articulated an Indigenous vision for a better relationship between settler and Indigenous Australians: one 'based on justice and self-determination'. The culmination of years of consultation with Indigenous people about constitutional recognition, the statement proposed a referendum in which the Australian people could approve (or not) the formation of an Indigenous deliberative and advisory body – a Voice to Parliament. The government-appointed Referendum Council endorsed this proposal, but the Australian Government quickly dismissed it in October 2017. One prominent advocate of the Uluru Statement and member of the Referendum Council, Megan Davis, seemed to anticipate that response when, back in January 2016, she stated that 'Australia has rejected self-determination – freedom, agency, choice, autonomy, dignity – as being fundamental to Indigenous humanness and development'.

German interest in, and reception of, Indigenous Australian cultures have a long and also burdened history. With the emergence of German translations of Indigenous literature in the 1980s – that is, literature not about, but penned by, Indigenous authors – one-sided politics of representations and thus also stigmatised images started to change. Yet, the translation of literature per se does not simply entail a representation free of clichés and prejudices. Cultural knowledge cannot be simply rendered 'correct' according to the regimes of the source culture, but need to be adapted to the regimes of the target cultures. This article focuses on the ways the manifold concepts of race have been translated into three German audiobooks. Important aspects of race, it shows, have been lost in translation, while the racial history of the target culture poses new challenges for a literature that is intricately enmeshed with race and that seeks to rebut racism.

The Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) is Australia's pre-eminent Jewish Left organisation. In an earlier publication, I examined the history of AJDS from its formation in 1984 till 1999. This updated history traces the history of the organisation from 2000 till the current day. Section one examines AJDS's views and actions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Section two specifically analyses their approach to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Section three considers their relations with the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) and other mainstream Jewish bodies. Section four explores internal AJDS divisions. Sections five and six discuss their relations with other Jewish Left groups, and the political Left more generally. Section seven assesses their relations with the local Palestinian community. Section eight overviews AJDS perspectives on other issues such as Indigenous rights and refugees. Section nine dissects the impact of generational change on the society.

In July 2005, the Howard federal Coalition government gained a majority in both houses of the Commonwealth parliament. This rare event in the recent history of the parliament has provided the government with a unique and probably limited opportunity to pass its legislation unamended by the upper house, the Senate. The government designated reform of the system of employment regulation in Australia as an important priority item in its parliamentary and political agenda. In particular, the government signalled its intention to create a unified system of employment regulation in Australia. This paper will study the government's intentions and place them within a longer historical context in order to determine the extent to which these proposed changes represent a 'watershed' in the history of Australian industrial relations. The paper will discuss the increased reliance on the corporations power, as opposed to the conciliation and arbitration power of the Commonwealth Constitution as the legal basis for employment regulation in Australia. It will also discuss the shift in the priorities of the State away from dispute resolution and towards an economic efficiency and productivity based agenda. The declining significance of labour market institutions such as trade unions and the federal dispute settlement tribunals are central to this analysis of change and continuity in the Australian system of industrial relations.

"Spying is eternal," says John le Carre's George Smiley, at the end of his career. Yet certain political and historical events seem to bring espionage to the surface. Such were the events of 9/11 and its various aftermaths. Was there ever a halcyon time before espionage? Some pristine paradise before the eye of God, or one of his proxies, kept watch on the garden and reported on activities? The purpose here is to sketch a map of an emergent field of investigation.

"Spying is eternal," says John le Carre's George Smiley, at the end of his career. Yet certain political and historical events seem to bring espionage to the surface. Such were the events of 9/11 and its various aftermaths. Was there ever a halcyon time before espionage? Some pristine paradise before the eye of God, or one of his proxies, kept watch on the garden and reported on activities? The purpose here is to sketch a map of an emergent field of investigation.