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Absolutely Revolting

September 1983, no. 54

Welcome to the September 1983 issue of Australian Book Review!

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Craig McGregor reviews A Nation Apart edited by John McLaren
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Contents Category: Essay Collection
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Article Title: Dystopia Now
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A Nation Apart is the title of this book of essays on contemporary Australia and it’s a good title because it summarises the fragmentation, the sense of disparateness, which characterizes this nation at the moment – and characterises the book itself.
Book 1 Title: A Nation Apart
Book Author: John McLaren
Book 1 Biblio: Longman Cheshire, $12.95 pb, 267 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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A Nation Apart is the title of this book of essays on contemporary Australia and it’s a good title because it summarises the fragmentation, the sense of disparateness, which characterizes this nation at the moment – and characterises the book itself.

‘We remain unknown … even to ourselves’, says the editor, John McLaren, in an introduction which sets the tone for the book. It is instructive to compare this collection with its forerunner, Australian Civilization, edited by Peter Coleman and published just twenty-one years ago at the height of the Menzies era.

Read more: Craig McGregor reviews 'A Nation Apart' edited by John McLaren

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Frank Strahan reviews Colonial Casualties, Chinese in Early Victoria by Kathryn Cronin
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Contents Category: Australian History
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Article Title: Racism at work
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The bias in settlement and exploitation of nineteenth-century Australia was essentially English. These Antipodes were classed as a wide white land, for the Anglo-Saxon. A Scot or a Welshman could have a place. They were Celts, and classed as ‘British’, close to the centre of England’s Empire, the greatest ever seen.
Book 1 Title: Colonial Casualties, Chinese in Early Victoria
Book Author: Kathryn Cronin
Book 1 Biblio: MUP, $17.95, 175 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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The bias in settlement and exploitation of nineteenth-century Australia was essentially English. These Antipodes were classed as a wide white land, for the Anglo-Saxon. A Scot or a Welshman could have a place. They were Celts, and classed as ‘British’, close to the centre of England’s Empire, the greatest ever seen.

In Chapter Four of her book, Kathryn Cronin writes of nineteenth-century debates about ‘monogenism’ or ‘polygenism’. Performance of English power restricted translation to the category of ‘English’ or ‘British’. The Celtic Irish were allowed ready entry to our outpost of Empire. They were supposed to be British. Yet they often had it hard; they were stubbornly Irish. Their treatment had more to do with economics, politics, and religion than with race.

Read more: Frank Strahan reviews 'Colonial Casualties, Chinese in Early Victoria' by Kathryn Cronin

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John Ritchie reviews Convict Society and its enemies by J.B. Hirst
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Contents Category: Australian History
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Article Title: Regeneration at Botany Bay
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In a major piece of historical revisionism, Dr John Hirst has scrutinised the so-called evils of convict society in New South Wales between 1788 and 1840. Together with a mythology that has stemmed from it. He sees the image of Botany Bay as a place of depravity, where ‘vice is virtue, virtue vice’, as having been created by the opponents of transportation, the late eighteenth-century prison reformers such as John Howard and Jeremy Bentham; he traces their influence through Evangelicals, like Wilberforce, to the liberal Russell and the radical Molesworth who, in the 1830s, saw Australian settlers wallowing with their assignees in a sensual sty. Since the penal colonies would never cleanse themselves, it behoved indignant parliamentarians at Westminster so to do.
Book 1 Title: Convict Society and its enemies
Book Author: J.B. Hirst
Book 1 Biblio: Allen & Unwin $19.95, $9.95 pb, 244 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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In a major piece of historical revisionism, Dr John Hirst has scrutinised the so-called evils of convict society in New South Wales between 1788 and 1840. Together with a mythology that has stemmed from it. He sees the image of Botany Bay as a place of depravity, where ‘vice is virtue, virtue vice’, as having been created by the opponents of transportation, the late eighteenth-century prison reformers such as John Howard and Jeremy Bentham; he traces their influence through Evangelicals, like Wilberforce, to the liberal Russell and the radical Molesworth who, in the 1830s, saw Australian settlers wallowing with their assignees in a sensual sty. Since the penal colonies would never cleanse themselves, it behoved indignant parliamentarians at Westminster so to do.

Read more: John Ritchie reviews 'Convict Society and its enemies' by J.B. Hirst

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Frances McInherney reviews Double Agent: David Ireland and his work by Helen Daniel
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Contents Category: Literary Studies
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Article Title: In the eye of the beholder
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Penguin’s publication of Helen Daniel’s critical book on the fiction of David Ireland is their first venture into Australian criticism, and one which I hope will be the beginning of a series on Australian writers.

David Ireland is an obvious choice for the launching of such a venture. As Daniel points out, he does not have the international reputation or readership of White or Keneally; she seems to suggest that this is because he is a far more ‘adventurous’ and ‘elusive’ writer. He has always been a controversial author in Australia, winner of many major awards, placed on some school/university reading lists, while barred as ‘obscene’ by other institutions.
Book 1 Title: Double Agent
Book 1 Subtitle: David Ireland and his work
Book Author: Helen Daniel
Book 1 Biblio: Penguin, $6.95 pb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Penguin’s publication of Helen Daniel’s critical book on the fiction of David Ireland is their first venture into Australian criticism, and one which I hope will be the beginning of a series on Australian writers.

David Ireland is an obvious choice for the launching of such a venture. As Daniel points out, he does not have the international reputation or readership of White or Keneally; she seems to suggest that this is because he is a far more ‘adventurous’ and ‘elusive’ writer. He has always been a controversial author in Australia, winner of many major awards, placed on some school/university reading lists, while barred as ‘obscene’ by other institutions.

Read more: Frances McInherney reviews 'Double Agent: David Ireland and his work' by Helen Daniel

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John Landvogt reviews The Artist & The River: Arthur Boyd and the Shoalhaven by Sandra McGrath and Orienteering: Painting in the Landscape edited by Heather Briggs
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Contents Category: Art
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Article Title: The scene is set
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In 1968, at the time of the Field Exhibition, Regionalism in painting was not a respectable concept. Not one painting in that exhibition related in any way to place. Internationalism was paramount. Now fifteen years later, even such localised phenomena as the highly stylised spray-can graffiti of the New York subways has infiltrated easel painting and the art galleries of that city, once the capital of Internationalism.

In Australia, as styles flourished and died with rapidity throughout the 1960s and 1970s, a significant number of important painters continued to work, not only with ‘recognisable shape’ as advocated by the Antipodeans, but with one particular form of it, the landscape.
Book 1 Title: Orienteering
Book 1 Subtitle: Painting in the Landscape
Book Author: Heather Briggs
Book 1 Biblio: Deakin University Press, $15.95, $2.95 pb, 162 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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In 1968, at the time of the Field Exhibition, Regionalism in painting was not a respectable concept. Not one painting in that exhibition related in any way to place. Internationalism was paramount. Now fifteen years later, even such localised phenomena as the highly stylised spray-can graffiti of the New York subways has infiltrated easel painting and the art galleries of that city, once the capital of Internationalism.

In Australia, as styles flourished and died with rapidity throughout the 1960s and 1970s, a significant number of important painters continued to work, not only with ‘recognisable shape’ as advocated by the Antipodeans, but with one particular form of it, the landscape.

Read more: John Landvogt reviews 'The Artist & The River: Arthur Boyd and the Shoalhaven' by Sandra McGrath...

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Hugh Clarke reviews Black Jack: The life and times of brigadier Sir Frederick Galleghan by Stan Arneil and The Fall of Singapore 1942 by Timothy Hall
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Contents Category: War
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Article Title: Fall and resist
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Timothy Hall has written a brief readable account of the lamentable Malayan campaign. but over the past forty years the story has been told more accurately and more dramatically by a succession of authors, many of whom were participants in that tragic debacle.

This obviously swiftly researched book is flawed by a number of omissions and exaggerations.
Book 1 Title: The Fall of Singapore 1942
Book Author: Timothy Hall
Book 1 Biblio: Methuen, $17.95, 223 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Readings Link: www.booktopia.com.au/the-fall-of-singapore-1942-timothy-hall/book/9781138912427.html
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Timothy Hall has written a brief readable account of the lamentable Malayan campaign. but over the past forty years the story has been told more accurately and more dramatically by a succession of authors, many of whom were participants in that tragic debacle.

This obviously swiftly researched book is flawed by a number of omissions and exaggerations.

Read more: Hugh Clarke reviews 'Black Jack: The life and times of brigadier Sir Frederick Galleghan' by Stan...

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Contents Category: Self Portrait
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Article Title: Self-portraits
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So, my lad, you’ve got yourself born. It happens to all of us, and say what they will, those Deep-South Born-Again Americans, it is a-once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. One birth, one life, one death. You are fortunate; you have a good, a very good pair of parents, you have a strong body, and a questing mind. I had the same, a firm base from which to start out. I had a good spell of breastfeeding, and later, the richness of stew. Three penn’orth, sometimes six penn’orth, of beef and mutton pieces, with potatoes and onions, carrots, celery, whatever vegetables were available, the final touch a measure of rice or pearl barley for thickening. Poverty food, by some standards, but it was strong and strengthening. Father was strong, even after the timber mill accident that left him with a right leg that swung half paralyzed and a totally paralyzed right arm. Mother was strong; in hindsight I marvel at her strength, her fortitude. Radicals, both of them, rebels, who were not to be tricked by the forked tongues of politicians or parsons. Readers, and writers, and they handed on the heritage. Butter was scarce on our table; there was always plenty of beef dripping. Sauce and jam and soft drink were non-existent; we lived and throve on stew and bread, fruit, and milk. There were books, in place of butter; we came to know quite a deal about the many worlds beyond our own horizons. ‘You’ll write, sooner or later,’ my mother said. I remember still the lift of my heart when I first finished Olive Schreiner’s Story of an African Farm. I’ve read it, in whole or in part, a dozen times since, and it does not pall. You shall have a copy from me, in time; I hope you’ll read it, hope you’ll get something of what I got from it.

Read more: 'Self-portraits' by Donald Stuart

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Alex Sheppard reviews The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia by Frank Cain
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Contents Category: Politics
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Article Title: Watching the watchers
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This is such a good book, written in the best military fashion, with all points assembled in proper order but written with the wit and irony usually missing from military historians, that it is a pity it is not better designed. The title page really lacks finesse. But the illustrations and notes are very well-chosen and easy on the eye. It deals equally with civilian surveillance as with military surveillance over, and the reduction of, the rights of others.
Book 1 Title: The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia
Book Author: Frank Cain
Book 1 Biblio: Angus & Robertson, $24.95, 320 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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This is such a good book, written in the best military fashion, with all points assembled in proper order but written with the wit and irony usually missing from military historians, that it is a pity it is not better designed. The title page really lacks finesse. But the illustrations and notes are very well-chosen and easy on the eye. It deals equally with civilian surveillance as with military surveillance over, and the reduction of, the rights of others.

Read more: Alex Sheppard reviews 'The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia' by Frank Cain

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Richard Waterhouse reviews The Transformation of Virginia 1740-1790 by Rhys Isaac
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Contents Category: History
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Article Title: Great awakening in Virginia
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In a recent issue of the New York Review of Books, Gordon S. Wood lamented the current dominance of ‘monographic history’, a dominance which he claimed has brought ‘chaos’ to the discipline of history. Most works, he argued are so specific and technical that they are comprehensible only to a few specialists in each field. The title of this book might suggest that here is yet another study designed only to appeal to that hardy little band of historians who spend their professional lives grubbing through the records of early America.
Book 1 Title: The Transformation of Virginia 1740-1790
Book Author: Rhys Isaac
Book 1 Biblio: University of North Carolina Press, US $29.50, 451 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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In a recent issue of the New York Review of Books, Gordon S. Wood lamented the current dominance of ‘monographic history’, a dominance which he claimed has brought ‘chaos’ to the discipline of history. Most works, he argued are so specific and technical that they are comprehensible only to a few specialists in each field. The title of this book might suggest that here is yet another study designed only to appeal to that hardy little band of historians who spend their professional lives grubbing through the records of early America.

In fact, this elegantly written book demands attention not only from historians of colonial America but from a wider intellectual audience. At one level, Isaac is writing microhistory, but at another he is dealing with the mentalite of pre-industrial civilisation. Moreover, in reconstructing the ‘world view’ of the prospective protagonists of this study – the gentry on one side, the ‘New Light’ evangelicals on the other – Isaac has utilised a sophisticated methodology based on ethnographic techniques developed by anthropologists – particularly Clifford Geertz. In an age when most historians shun theory, and by simply ‘writing history, implicitly embrace empiricism, here is a history which deserves to be read (by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists) not only for its findings but for its methodological underpinnings.

Read more: Richard Waterhouse reviews 'The Transformation of Virginia 1740-1790' by Rhys Isaac

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