To read these essays is to be reminded of the breadth, the reach, and the significance of Macintyre’s career. Together they constitute a primer on the scholarly preoccupations of Macintyre. The early interest in Althusserian analysis is the subject of much almost nostalgic critique on the preoccupations of members of the 1970s New Left, a political movement that captivated the young student. An interest in the tension between structure and agency, though, would continue throughout his long career. At heart a political historian who looked for the wellsprings of change outside the mainstream, he sought to explain both innovation and opportunities lost, and to understand the distinctive elements and forces that shaped modern Australia. Anyone wanting to familiarise themselves with Macintyre’s intellectual interests would do well to begin here.

After doctoral work on Marxism, communism, and working-class militancy in inter-war Britain, Macintyre soon turned his attention to similar themes in Australian history and broadened his temporal focus, scope, and ambition. His volume of the Oxford University Press history of Australia, The Succeeding Age 1901–1942, which appeared in 1986, propelled him onto the national stage. He would remain there for the rest of his career. Conservative commentators never forgave him an early association with communism, but it was his involvement with the formal labour movement that proved more influential in the long term. Studies of Victorian liberalism, the Communist Party of Australia, postwar reconstruction, and a concise general history that ran to five editions after its initial publication in 1999 were just some of his achievements. Macintyre had a remarkable capacity to write elegant books that tackled big topics, and a fearlessness to engage in debate, as evidenced in publications such as The History Wars (2003, with Anna Clark).

The most successful essays in the collection are those that combine context, insightful analysis, anecdote, and an awareness of the purpose of the exercise. Frank Bongiorno’s study of Macintyre’s work on the Labor Party, Federation, and arbitration between 1890 and the beginning of World War I is one stand-out. Although Macintyre did not address these themes in a book-length study, in Bongiorno’s careful reading we are shown their complex relationship to contemporary political concerns, the way they embody Macintyre’s ambivalence about liberalism and reflect his experience of both politics and leadership within institutions. Sean Scalmer’s reflection on the study of Australian historians, ‘Scrutiny, Context and Power’, is another excellent contribution which traces Macintyre’s own intellectual evolution as a historian and his penetrating analysis of a field that he both inherited and shaped.

Even though the editors explicitly asked contributors to ‘address those in the know but also to be mindful of a general audience’, some leaned a little too much in the direction of the former. The editorial decision to refer to other scholars by their surnames, but to Macintyre as ‘Stuart’ throughout, struck a somewhat clubbish note. A couple of contributors attempted to revive debates with Macintyre that were of limited general interest but may intrigue the specialist. Others provided relatively brief accounts of their interactions with him, which nevertheless allowed us to see him in action as a teacher, colleague, collaborator, and enabler. Several entries, such as the one by Graeme Davison, evoked the contours and rhythms of a pre-digital academic culture. The image of Davison, Macintyre, and John Hirst sitting around a dining room table nutting out The Oxford Companion to Australian History (1998) is a compelling insight into the era of the great reference works.

There is a distinct lack of biographical framing, a curious absence for a collection about a historian who was both a celebrated biographer and master of the pithy biographical detail. Some contributors referred to telling moments, such as Nicholas Brown’s mention of Macintyre’s subscription to Hansard when he was only fourteen years old. Brown also refers to Macintyre as a baby boomer, the only person in the collection to do so, despite the clear relevance of this generational position. One might also ask about the role of gender. Macintyre was surrounded by feminist colleagues, several of whom contributed to this collection, and his work ultimately incorporated gender as a category of analysis. To what extent masculinist networks facilitated Macintyre’s own career is less clear but worthy of consideration.

The origins of Macintyre’s early radicalism are obscure beyond intellectual appeal. Several contributors consider the ‘oedipal element’ in Macintyre’s writing to be his relationship with the elder statesmen of the Melbourne history department in the late 1960s, such as Max Crawford. This is neat but incomplete. The editors included family photographs, without ever commenting on family of origin, family of choice, or the interplay between intellectual concerns and life experiences.

Macintyre’s capacity for hard work, his almost encyclopedic knowledge (‘Ask Stuart’), and his commitment to institutions despite a robust capacity to critique them, are themes threaded throughout this collection. He was without doubt widely revered and admired, and the collection itself shows the esteem of colleagues from all generations representing a wide range of disciplines and organisations. The overall result is an intellectual portrait of Macintyre – a clear narrative about his scholarship and eminence, his generosity to students and colleagues – but little sense of him as a man of his time or circumstance. Therein lies the task of his biographer, a moment which will surely come.