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Our Side of the Country: The Story of Victoria
- GenresHistory
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1984
About the author
Geoffrey Blainey
62 books82 followersGeoffrey Blainey, one of Australia's most eminent historians, was appointed the foundation Chancellor of the University of Ballarat (UB) in 1993 after an illustrious career at the University of Melbourne. He was installed as UB Chancellor in December 1994 and continued until 1998. The Blainey Auditorium at the Mt Helen Campus of UB is named in his honour. Blainey, always a keen exponent of libraries and the acquisition of books, has donated part of his extensive book collection to the UB library. In 2002 the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters was conferred on Blainey in recognition of his contribution to the University of Ballarat and to the community in general.
Educated at Ballarat High School, Blainey won a scholarship to Wesley College, before attending Melbourne University where he studied history. He worked as a freelance historical author writing mainly business histories such as The Peaks of Lyall; Gold and Paper; a History of the National Bank of Australasia; and Mines in the Spinifex. Blainey accepted a position at the University of Melbourne in 1962 in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce. He held the positions of Professor of Economic History (1968-77); Senior Lecturer 1962; and from 1977-1988 he occupied the Ernest Scott Chair of History at Melbourne University. Professor Blainey also held the chair of Australian studies at Harvard University.
As an economic historian, Blainey challenged the conventional view, questioning accepted contemporary understandings of European settlement of Australia as a convict nation, Aboriginal land rights, and Asian immigration. He is described as a 'courageous public intellectual, a writer with rare grace and a master storyteller'. In a reassessment of the life of Blainey, 'The Fuss that Never Ended' considers his ideas, his role in Australian history, politics and public life, and the controversies that surrounded him.
He was always popular with students. According to the Melbourne University home page 'When Geoffrey Blainey spoke to final-year students in the Friends of the Baillieu Library HSC Lectures in the 1970s, the Public Lecture Theatre was packed to capacity and his audience carried copies of his books to be signed, a tribute to what Geoffrey Bolton characterised as his "skills in interpreting technological change in admirably lucid narratives that appealed to both specialist and non-specialist audiences".
Among his most popular works are the 'The Rush that Never Ended: A History of Australian Mining'; 'The Tyranny of Distance'; 'A Shorter History of Australia'; 'A Short History of the World'; and 'The Origins of Australian Football'.
In 2000 Professor Blainey was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia for service to academia, research and scholarship, and as a leader of public debate at the forefront of fundamental social and economic issues confronting the wider community. At that time the University's Vice-Chancellor Professor Kerry Cox said 'Geoffrey Blainey guided the new and inexperienced university through its first four years with a benevolent but firm hand. This time was challenging as the university strove to make a place for itself in higher education, grappled with funding cuts and the eventual merger with neighbouring TAFE institutes. For those at the university fortunate enough to work with Geoffrey Blainey during his time as Chancellor, they witnessed first hand his humility, and we are proud of his role in our history.'
In 2002 the degree of Doctor of Letters was conferred on Professor Blainey in recognition of his contribution to the University of Ballarat and the community in general. The same year Blainey donated a collection of material to the University of Ballarat. Included in this collection are historical books, papers and other material relating to the early history of mining and the central Victorian goldfields. A second generous donation of material was received in 2005. 'The Geoffrey Blainey Mining Collection' is l
Educated at Ballarat High School, Blainey won a scholarship to Wesley College, before attending Melbourne University where he studied history. He worked as a freelance historical author writing mainly business histories such as The Peaks of Lyall; Gold and Paper; a History of the National Bank of Australasia; and Mines in the Spinifex. Blainey accepted a position at the University of Melbourne in 1962 in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce. He held the positions of Professor of Economic History (1968-77); Senior Lecturer 1962; and from 1977-1988 he occupied the Ernest Scott Chair of History at Melbourne University. Professor Blainey also held the chair of Australian studies at Harvard University.
As an economic historian, Blainey challenged the conventional view, questioning accepted contemporary understandings of European settlement of Australia as a convict nation, Aboriginal land rights, and Asian immigration. He is described as a 'courageous public intellectual, a writer with rare grace and a master storyteller'. In a reassessment of the life of Blainey, 'The Fuss that Never Ended' considers his ideas, his role in Australian history, politics and public life, and the controversies that surrounded him.
He was always popular with students. According to the Melbourne University home page 'When Geoffrey Blainey spoke to final-year students in the Friends of the Baillieu Library HSC Lectures in the 1970s, the Public Lecture Theatre was packed to capacity and his audience carried copies of his books to be signed, a tribute to what Geoffrey Bolton characterised as his "skills in interpreting technological change in admirably lucid narratives that appealed to both specialist and non-specialist audiences".
Among his most popular works are the 'The Rush that Never Ended: A History of Australian Mining'; 'The Tyranny of Distance'; 'A Shorter History of Australia'; 'A Short History of the World'; and 'The Origins of Australian Football'.
In 2000 Professor Blainey was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia for service to academia, research and scholarship, and as a leader of public debate at the forefront of fundamental social and economic issues confronting the wider community. At that time the University's Vice-Chancellor Professor Kerry Cox said 'Geoffrey Blainey guided the new and inexperienced university through its first four years with a benevolent but firm hand. This time was challenging as the university strove to make a place for itself in higher education, grappled with funding cuts and the eventual merger with neighbouring TAFE institutes. For those at the university fortunate enough to work with Geoffrey Blainey during his time as Chancellor, they witnessed first hand his humility, and we are proud of his role in our history.'
In 2002 the degree of Doctor of Letters was conferred on Professor Blainey in recognition of his contribution to the University of Ballarat and the community in general. The same year Blainey donated a collection of material to the University of Ballarat. Included in this collection are historical books, papers and other material relating to the early history of mining and the central Victorian goldfields. A second generous donation of material was received in 2005. 'The Geoffrey Blainey Mining Collection' is l
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 18, 2019
A history of Victoria. Very interesting and informative and a very easy and engrossing read. I love how Blainey has the ability to bring togetehr disparate threads and from it weave a coherent analysis. A gem of a book
February 5, 2026
It is impossible to say which of the Australian states is of cardinal historical importance. New South Wales is the oldest, largest and wealthiest , the architect of the trajectory of Australia’s development in many spheres. In the second half of the twentieth century the great resource-rich frontier states, Queensland and Western Australia, became increasingly important to the economy and developed corresponding influence.
The claim of Victoria, Australia’s perennial second state, may be the strongest. The spectacular Victorian gold rush of the mid-19th century transformed the international image of the antipodean colonies from places of squalor and punishment to a frontier of opportunity, spurring a flood of immigration that, in one form or another, has never ended. In the bust that followed the gold boom Victoria became the engine of the campaign for Federation, ultimately triumphing over a reluctant New South Wales in 1901. Victoria’s sustained grappling with its northern rival dominated the 20th century, and Australian demographers continue to compete to put out dramatic forecasts about when Melbourne will overtake Sydney to become the nation’s largest city.
Victoria’s cultural influence has, if anything, been greater still. The national and international image of the Australian bush, and its most celebrated figures, is a picture of northern Victoria. Sydney may claim Australia’s only Nobel Prize-winning author, but Melbourne was the birthplace of Australia’s most important art movements. New South Wales has Australia’s most iconic building, but Victoria has its largest and best-patronised art gallery as well as its busiest library. And certainly not least, Melbourne is home to Australia’s most famous sports stadium and is the birthplace of Australian rules football. The Barassi Line, demarcating AFL country, splits New South Wales in half while leaving Victoria intact.
Geoffrey Blainey’s Our Side of the Country is a social history of Victoria and the colonies that came before it. It covers roughly the period from colonisation to the 1980s, with a limited acknowledgement of pre-colonisation conditions.
It is thematic rather than chronological, except in its earliest chapters, and is focused on social and economic issues. It is characteristic of Blainey’s approach, for example, that Alfred Deakin, arguably the most important Victorian in the 1890s and undoubtedly the most notable in the critical decade between 1901 and 1911, receives about the same amount of sustained attention as a delightful analysis of how mid-19th century Victorians felt about their climate (it turns out, perhaps surprisingly, that they thought it rather too warm).
The old rushes that transformed the colony and the subsequent busts necessarily dominate the narrative. The analysis is spirited and accessible, with a keen eye for the narrative possibilities of history. So, for example, Blainey dates the end of the gold era to the discovery of the Welcome Stranger:
This isn’t particularly scientific history (no doubt Blainey would agree with a chuckle), but it makes for excellent reading.
Our Side of the Country illuminates the origins of many of the issues that are central to Victoria’s current predicament. These include Victoria’s unique patterns of immigration, its propensity for politically and financially risky infrastructure projects, its sentimental attachment to manufacturing and the Faustian bargain it struck with the brown coal deposits of the Latrobe Valley to nurture this sentiment.
Present too, always, is the shadow of New South Wales. One of the best chapters of the book is Chapter 14 – an analysis of the long rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney. Blainey argues that “it is difficult to find another pair of cities which for more than a century have sought supremacy and not been far apart.” This struggle remains central and although some of the facts have changed (Blainey calls Sydney “the cultural as well as the money capital”, which may have stood in 1984 but would be vigorously challenged by any self-respecting Melburnian today) this Chapter is invaluable on this important topic.
The danger of regional history, like the danger of economic and social history, is the risk of niche interest. Our Side of the Country is unapologetically regional, economic and social, and it is almost 50 years old, but it deserves a broad audience among readers of Australian history.
The claim of Victoria, Australia’s perennial second state, may be the strongest. The spectacular Victorian gold rush of the mid-19th century transformed the international image of the antipodean colonies from places of squalor and punishment to a frontier of opportunity, spurring a flood of immigration that, in one form or another, has never ended. In the bust that followed the gold boom Victoria became the engine of the campaign for Federation, ultimately triumphing over a reluctant New South Wales in 1901. Victoria’s sustained grappling with its northern rival dominated the 20th century, and Australian demographers continue to compete to put out dramatic forecasts about when Melbourne will overtake Sydney to become the nation’s largest city.
Victoria’s cultural influence has, if anything, been greater still. The national and international image of the Australian bush, and its most celebrated figures, is a picture of northern Victoria. Sydney may claim Australia’s only Nobel Prize-winning author, but Melbourne was the birthplace of Australia’s most important art movements. New South Wales has Australia’s most iconic building, but Victoria has its largest and best-patronised art gallery as well as its busiest library. And certainly not least, Melbourne is home to Australia’s most famous sports stadium and is the birthplace of Australian rules football. The Barassi Line, demarcating AFL country, splits New South Wales in half while leaving Victoria intact.
Geoffrey Blainey’s Our Side of the Country is a social history of Victoria and the colonies that came before it. It covers roughly the period from colonisation to the 1980s, with a limited acknowledgement of pre-colonisation conditions.
It is thematic rather than chronological, except in its earliest chapters, and is focused on social and economic issues. It is characteristic of Blainey’s approach, for example, that Alfred Deakin, arguably the most important Victorian in the 1890s and undoubtedly the most notable in the critical decade between 1901 and 1911, receives about the same amount of sustained attention as a delightful analysis of how mid-19th century Victorians felt about their climate (it turns out, perhaps surprisingly, that they thought it rather too warm).
The old rushes that transformed the colony and the subsequent busts necessarily dominate the narrative. The analysis is spirited and accessible, with a keen eye for the narrative possibilities of history. So, for example, Blainey dates the end of the gold era to the discovery of the Welcome Stranger:
If any event should mark the end of the gold era, the finding of the Welcome Stranger near Dunolly on 5 February 1869 is that landmark. It was unearthed on a much-trodden part of a goldfield by the wheel of a puddler’s cart, a few inches below the soil. It weighed nearly 2300 ounces, and was not easily lifted by one man, and in shape and colour and smoothness was an exquisite sight. Probably the largest nugget found in the world, its fate symbolised this rich an evanescent era: within a few days it was melted into impersonal ingots and sent on a long journey to the darkness of strong rooms and vaults on the far side of the world.
This isn’t particularly scientific history (no doubt Blainey would agree with a chuckle), but it makes for excellent reading.
Our Side of the Country illuminates the origins of many of the issues that are central to Victoria’s current predicament. These include Victoria’s unique patterns of immigration, its propensity for politically and financially risky infrastructure projects, its sentimental attachment to manufacturing and the Faustian bargain it struck with the brown coal deposits of the Latrobe Valley to nurture this sentiment.
Present too, always, is the shadow of New South Wales. One of the best chapters of the book is Chapter 14 – an analysis of the long rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney. Blainey argues that “it is difficult to find another pair of cities which for more than a century have sought supremacy and not been far apart.” This struggle remains central and although some of the facts have changed (Blainey calls Sydney “the cultural as well as the money capital”, which may have stood in 1984 but would be vigorously challenged by any self-respecting Melburnian today) this Chapter is invaluable on this important topic.
The danger of regional history, like the danger of economic and social history, is the risk of niche interest. Our Side of the Country is unapologetically regional, economic and social, and it is almost 50 years old, but it deserves a broad audience among readers of Australian history.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews