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A discovery of Australia
56 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1976
About the author
Manning Clark
72 books13 followersBorn to a working-class Anglican priest and a mother from a well-off background, Charles Manning Hope Clark was a quiet, academically minded child who went to school in Melbourne, and excelled at literature, Greek, and Latin (as well as exhibiting a great love of cricket). Clark earned a scholarship to Oxford, where he studied from 1938, but returned to Australia in 1940 (he was exempt from serving in WWII due to mild epilepsy) and took up life as a highschool history teacher.
Growing up in a time of war, Clark flirted with a variety of political views, ultimately settling into moderate socialism - although always with a healthy separation from anything serious (he was seen by some as conservative, but tended to have more ties to left-wing historians and thinkers). During his middle years, Clark would be a subject of surveillance from Australia's intelligence forces, like many other intellectuals, for his perceived destabilising thoughts and writings. After the war, Clark - now married to the historian Dymphna Clark and gradually fathering six children - established himself as a lecturer in history at Melbourne University, moving to their Canberra branch which gradually became the separate Australian National University, where he would live most of his professional life.
Clark's first significant publication was "Select Documents in Australian History" (2 volumes, 1950-55) which provided a significant examination of primary sources of the birth and development of modern Australia. In 1956, he began serious research on a lengthy History of Australia, which rapidly expanded from his concept of a two-volume work to a series of six. Published between 1962 and 1987, the History is his major work, spanning Australia's early history through to its colonisation by the British in 1788, to the 1930s, where his story comes to an end. Throughout, Clark explores the relationships of Catholics, Protestants, and Enlightenment thinkers, the delicate balance of European values and the world of the Australian continent, and the tragedy of Australia's Indigenous population. The earned its acolytes and its detractors, for reasons both political and literary, and remains controversial in the 21st century.
In 1974, Clark formally retired from lecturing at the ANU, and retained the title of Emeritus Professor until his death. In his later years, Clark's disdain for the upper and upper middle classes of Anglo-Australia (which had caused a fractious relationship with his mother all his life) became more evident, particularly in his campaigning for Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, and his outrage when Whitlam was dismissed by the Queen's representative, the Governor-General of Australia, in 1975.
Manning Clark was awarded the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 1970, and was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1975. He was named Australian of the Year in 1980 and, in Australia's bicentenary year of 1988, his History of Australia was adapted by others (including Prime Minister Paul Keating's future speechwriter Don Watson) as a musical, which ran for a short period in Melbourne.
In his last years, Clark was seen as something of an Australian icon, with a recognisable image (a classic Aussie bush hat, a goatee, and a walking stick), and was routinely published in journals and newspapers around the country. His last volumes were not highly regarded by contemporary historians, especially in the patriotic years of the 1980s, both because he was seen as left-wing and because he was seen as an old man whose pessimism and repetition had overwhelmed his natural gifts. Others regarded Clark as an iconic figure who urged Australians to question and reconsider some of the longstanding myths of Anglo-Australian culture, a debate which would escalate rapidly in the decades after the Australian bicentenary and the author's death. In 1989 and 1990, Clark published two volumes of autobiography. H
Growing up in a time of war, Clark flirted with a variety of political views, ultimately settling into moderate socialism - although always with a healthy separation from anything serious (he was seen by some as conservative, but tended to have more ties to left-wing historians and thinkers). During his middle years, Clark would be a subject of surveillance from Australia's intelligence forces, like many other intellectuals, for his perceived destabilising thoughts and writings. After the war, Clark - now married to the historian Dymphna Clark and gradually fathering six children - established himself as a lecturer in history at Melbourne University, moving to their Canberra branch which gradually became the separate Australian National University, where he would live most of his professional life.
Clark's first significant publication was "Select Documents in Australian History" (2 volumes, 1950-55) which provided a significant examination of primary sources of the birth and development of modern Australia. In 1956, he began serious research on a lengthy History of Australia, which rapidly expanded from his concept of a two-volume work to a series of six. Published between 1962 and 1987, the History is his major work, spanning Australia's early history through to its colonisation by the British in 1788, to the 1930s, where his story comes to an end. Throughout, Clark explores the relationships of Catholics, Protestants, and Enlightenment thinkers, the delicate balance of European values and the world of the Australian continent, and the tragedy of Australia's Indigenous population. The earned its acolytes and its detractors, for reasons both political and literary, and remains controversial in the 21st century.
In 1974, Clark formally retired from lecturing at the ANU, and retained the title of Emeritus Professor until his death. In his later years, Clark's disdain for the upper and upper middle classes of Anglo-Australia (which had caused a fractious relationship with his mother all his life) became more evident, particularly in his campaigning for Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, and his outrage when Whitlam was dismissed by the Queen's representative, the Governor-General of Australia, in 1975.
Manning Clark was awarded the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 1970, and was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1975. He was named Australian of the Year in 1980 and, in Australia's bicentenary year of 1988, his History of Australia was adapted by others (including Prime Minister Paul Keating's future speechwriter Don Watson) as a musical, which ran for a short period in Melbourne.
In his last years, Clark was seen as something of an Australian icon, with a recognisable image (a classic Aussie bush hat, a goatee, and a walking stick), and was routinely published in journals and newspapers around the country. His last volumes were not highly regarded by contemporary historians, especially in the patriotic years of the 1980s, both because he was seen as left-wing and because he was seen as an old man whose pessimism and repetition had overwhelmed his natural gifts. Others regarded Clark as an iconic figure who urged Australians to question and reconsider some of the longstanding myths of Anglo-Australian culture, a debate which would escalate rapidly in the decades after the Australian bicentenary and the author's death. In 1989 and 1990, Clark published two volumes of autobiography. H
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 3, 2020
This is an account of the problem of writing history in Australia, eminently readable because it retains the spoken diction of a radio lecture, instead of the convoluted prose of a learned essay. Manning Clark spoke the year after the dismissal of the Whitlam government, and his anger is still palpable:
"To me it was rather depressing that in December 1949 when one third of the population of the world was marching forwards, we chose to stand still. It was even more depressing in December 1975 when we showed the world that we did not much mind if someone turned the clock back" (p.15).
Of course, he thought the communist government of the Soviet Union was leading humanity forward into the light, and he even imagined that the Marxists would one day be victorious in Australia. He was still alive in 1989 to witness the people of eastern Europe revolting against the evils that had been done in their name. But he died in May 1991, before the USSR imploded.
Nevertheless, this is still an interesting reflection on what there is to say about the history of this country. One of his blind spots is the continuing survival of the Aboriginal people, but that was a blindness common to people of his generation.
"To me it was rather depressing that in December 1949 when one third of the population of the world was marching forwards, we chose to stand still. It was even more depressing in December 1975 when we showed the world that we did not much mind if someone turned the clock back" (p.15).
Of course, he thought the communist government of the Soviet Union was leading humanity forward into the light, and he even imagined that the Marxists would one day be victorious in Australia. He was still alive in 1989 to witness the people of eastern Europe revolting against the evils that had been done in their name. But he died in May 1991, before the USSR imploded.
Nevertheless, this is still an interesting reflection on what there is to say about the history of this country. One of his blind spots is the continuing survival of the Aboriginal people, but that was a blindness common to people of his generation.
Displaying 1 of 1 review