Table Of ContentCLIO’S LIVES
BIOGRAPHIES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
OF HISTORIANS
CLIO’S LIVES
BIOGRAPHIES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
OF HISTORIANS
EDITED BY DOUG MUNRO
AND JOHN G. REID
Published by ANU Press
Te Australian National University
Acton ACT 2601, Australia
Email:
Tis volume is afectionately dedicated to the memory of
Geofrey Bolton (1931–2015)
Geofrey Bolton was an enthusiastic participant in the project
from which this volume arose, and in the workshop at which his
and the other essays were initially presented. An accomplished
biographer, with four book-length biographies to his credit
reaching back as far as 1958, he was also one of the fnest
Australian historians of an exceptionally productive generation
of scholars. His presence was a highlight at the workshop.
Despite deteriorating health, his characteristic combination of
erudition and afability was undiminished. All of us were deeply
privileged by his participation and, in sadly bidding him ave
atque vale, we acknowledge gratefully the magnitude of his
contribution to this and so many other scholarly endeavours.
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of Contributors xi
1 Introduction 1
Doug Munro and John G Reid
Autobiographies of Historians
2 Writing History/Writing about Yourself: What’s the Diference? 17
Sheila Fitzpatrick
3 Walvin, Fitzpatrick and Rickard: Three Autobiographies
of Childhood and Coming of Age 39
Doug Munro and Geofrey Gray
4 The Female Gaze: Australian Women Historians’
Autobiographies 65
Ann Moyal
Nation-Defning Authors
5 ‘A gigantic confession of life’: Autobiography, ‘National
Awakening’ and the Invention of Manning Clark 81
Mark McKenna
6 Ceci n’est pas Ramsay Cook: A Biographical
Reconnaissance 103
Donald Wright
Discipline-Defning Authors
7 Intersecting and Contrasting Lives: G M Trevelyan
and Lytton Strachey 137
Alastair MacLachlan
8 An Ingrained Activist: The Early Years of Raphael Samuel 173
Sophie Scott-Brown
9 Pursuing the Antipodean: Bernard Smith, Identity
and History 199
Sheridan Palmer
Collective Biography
10 Australian Historians Networking, 1914–1973 227
Geofrey Bolton
11 Country and Kin Calling? Keith Hancock, the National
Dictionary Collaboration, and the Promotion of Life Writing
in Australia 247
Melanie Nolan
12 Imperial Women: Collective Biography, Gender
and Yale-trained Historians 273
John G Reid
13 Concluding Refections 301
Barbara Caine
Index 307
Acknowledgements
Tis book had its origins in 2011, in a proposal by the two co-editors
for a panel session at the then forthcoming 2015 Congress of the
International Committee of Historical Sciences in Jinan, to be entitled
‘Biographies and Autobiographies of Historians: Teir Historiographical
Importance’. It turned out for the better that our proposal did not make
the cut for the congress. We promptly turned to Professor Melanie Nolan
– one of the proposed Jinan panelists – to see if the National Centre for
Biography (NCB) at Te Australian National University (ANU) would be
willing to host a workshop based on the idea of the panel but expanded
to become a more ambitious undertaking with a published collection
of essays now to be the ultimate goal. She responded graciously and
positively, and the intensive two-day workshop in Canberra on 4–5 July
2015 proved to be a frm foundation for the book. By common consent,
it was a memorable gathering. Te participants gelled and the exchange of
ideas fowed back and forth.
Accordingly, we are very grateful to Melanie and all at the NCB – and
especially Karen Ciufetelli, who took care of key organisational matters –
for being our hosts at the workshop. A number of ANU scholars attended
and contributed notably to the discussions; in particular, Malcolm
Allbrook, Frank Bongiorno and Chris Wallace were kind enough to
chair sessions. Ann Curthoys and Stuart Macintyre were unable to attend
the workshop, but provided behind-the-scenes support. We also thank
Tom Grifths, who presented a paper on Eleanor Dark that could not
appear in the collection because it was already committed elsewhere, but
that added greatly to the workshop.1 Funding support came from the
NCB itself, and from the Gorsebrook Research Institute of Saint Mary’s
University (Halifax, Nova Scotia).
1 Tom Grifths, ‘Te Timeless Land: Eleanor Dark’, in Grifths, Te Art of Time Travel: Historians
and their Craft (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2016), 16–41.
ix
CLIo'S LIvES
As the collection made its way from workshop to book, we again
received valued support from a number of quarters. As we have noted
in the dedication, the presence of Geofrey Bolton was a highlight of the
workshop, and we are very grateful to Carol Bolton for giving us the
editorial freedom to prepare his now posthumous essay for publication.
For helpful comments on the collection and on the specifc essays, we
thank warmly the two peer reviews and the members of the Editorial
Board of the ANU.Lives Series in Biography. As editors, of course, we
are deeply grateful to all of the contributing authors, not only for their
fne essays but also for being receptive to our suggestions and dealing
with them so expeditiously. An especial role was kindly taken by Barbara
Caine, who provided the closing commentary at the workshop and then
also contributed the Concluding Refections to the book.
Finally, the publication process through ANU Press was smooth and
expeditious, and we especially thank Geof Hunt for his expert copy-
editing.
Our profound gratitude to one and all!
Doug Munro
John G. Reid
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