John Gunther's Inside Australia

by John Gunther, William H. Forbis

Hardcover. IH

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Travel

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

John Gunther was one of the best known and most admired journalists of his day, and his series of "Inside" books, starting with Inside Europe in 1936, were immensely popular profiles of the major world powers. One critic noted that it was Gunther's special gift to "unite the best qualities of the newspaperman and the historian." It was a gift that readers responded to enthusiastically. The "Inside" books sold 3,500,000 copies over a period of thirty years.

While publicly a bon vivant and modest celebrity, Gunther in his private life suffered disappointment and tragedy. He and Frances Fineman, whom he married in 1927, had a daughter who died four months after her birth in 1929. The Gunthers divorced in 1944. In 1947, their beloved son Johnny died after a long, heartbreaking fight with brain cancer. Gunther wrote his classic memoir Death Be Not Proud, published in 1949, to commemorate the courage and spirit of this extraordinary boy. Gunther remarried in 1948, and he and his second wife, Jane Perry Vandercook, adopted a son.

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not complete this book, but neither did John Gunther. As explained in the introduction, “suddenly, at the end of May 1970, Gunther became ill and went to the hospital. Within a week, he was dead, of a cancer that neither he nor anyone else knew he had,” so ended the astonishing nearly four decade career of this famous, and talented globe trotting journalist. There was nothing incredibly notable about Australia on the world stage in 1970, but it was a charming and unique country, going through its own period of transition like the rest of the world in the 60s, moving away from Britain, and trying to find its role in the Pacific, and even if a modest one, in the wider world. I suspect there was a completionist tendency at play here, and with this book, the only major landmasses on the map that Gunther didn't even remotely cover were Canada and Antarctica.

The remaining product was compiled by William Forbis, from John Gunther's notes and research materials. You go in biased knowing it wasn't really completed by Gunther, and it simply doesn't feel completely like an authentic John Gunther book. At one point it felt like I was reading a travel guide with hotels and such, and that is never what one of the Inside... books should feel like at all. Nonetheless you've got your politics, your personalities, your geography, history, culture, and economics. The book goes through the major cities of the more temperate, populated region, Sydney, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Adelaide, with their aristocratic mansions, and suburban sprawl, though I was most interested in the cities way out in the middle of nowhere: Perth, Darwin, Alice Springs. Back then New Guinea was also under the administration of Australia, and you get quite the exotic description of the land and the people, and the ongoing debate over independence. I did not get to New Zealand, but it's there as well.

A major theme is Australia coming to terms with globalization and finding its role in the world, there had barely started to be Governor-Generals, a largely meaningless and ceremonial position anyways, that were not British born. Now Australia comes to terms that it is neighbors with Asia. At this point the White Australian immigration policy was still in effect, but Gunther characteristically dismisses the matter as non-viable in the long term, and notes that the younger generations are against it. The book closes with reflections that Australia must now work with Indonesia, with Malaysia, and most notably with Japan and China. At this point Australia had not recognized the People's Republic of China, even the U.S. Had barely opened up diplomatic relations, but Gunther smells the winds of change, and recommends that the future lies in collaborating with all of Australia's increasingly important Asian neighbors.

Ultimately I have to admit that it’s a bit of an anti-climactic manner of ending Gunther’s career.

[Shelly Janger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written in 1972, which was just a couple of years after my mom left Australia to live in the US. I realize much of the book is outdated by now, but I enjoyed reading about the country at a time when my mom last experienced it. It was also fun to look things up that the author predicted to see if they really happened. He was 50/50.