Australia's boldest experiment : war and reconstruction in the 1940s / Stuart Macintyre.
Publication details: Sydney, NSW : NewSouth Publishing, 2015.Description: xi, 596 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cmISBN:- 9781742231129
- 1742231128
- Reconstruction (1939-1951) -- Australia
- Australia -- Economic conditions -- 1939-1945
- Australia -- Economic policy -- 1939-1945
- Australia -- Economic conditions -- 1945-
- Australia -- Economic policy -- 1945-
- Australia -- Social conditions -- 1939-1945
- Australia -- Social conditions -- 1945-
- Australia -- History -- 20th century
- Australian
- 994.05 23
- Winner 2016 NSW Premier's Award for Australian History.
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item reserves |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Melbourne Athenaeum Library | Non-Fiction | 994.05 MACI | Available | 058956 |
A major new account of the 1940s in Australia. In this landmark book, Stuart Macintyre 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. The 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 u work, welfare, health, education, immigration, housing u are not the result of military endeavour but policy, planning, politics and popular resolve.
Winner 2016 NSW Premier's Award for Australian History.