Geoffrey Blainey

Before I Forget (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

One of five children, Geoffrey Blainey recalls a carefree childhood spent in rural Victoria, from Terang to Leongatha, Geelong to Ballarat, surrounded by books. These places ignited for him a great affection for the Australian landscape, and a deep curiosity in Australia's history. As a Newtown newsboy he developed a thirst for current affairs, following the unfolding drama of the Second World War and the political careers of local identities John Curtin and Robert Menzies. He longed to travel, and would climb atop the roof of their home to stare out at the Great Dividing Range and imagine the world beyond.

A scholarship to Wesley College further instilled a great love of learning, which flourished later at the University of Melbourne as both student under Manning Clarke, and lecturer. Later both became friends, serving on the Whitlam Government's new Literature Board. Adventure always beckoned; he hitched to Sydney with a schoolfriend to see the harbour that greeted the First Fleet, and visited the national theatre of Parliament House on the way home to see Billy Hughes, JT Lang, Arty Fadden, Arthur Calwell, Enid Lyons and hero Ben Chifley in action.

Hours spent at Melbourne's State Library as a student poring over the country's old newspapers cemented his calling to become a professional historian and writer, compelled to visit the places of our historical interest, and beyond, including places of archaeological and Indigenous significance. His groundbreaking early book The Tyranny of Distanceoffered Australians a new understanding of ourselves and catapulted a new phrase into the vernacular. From the 1970s he was a trailblazer speaking on the influence of climate on our nation's history. Now the author of over forty books, Geoffrey Blainey claims he has discovered Australia's history his own way - and is still learning.

Warm, lively and lyrically written, Before I Forgetrecounts the experiences and influences that have shaped the astonishing mind of Australia's most remarkable historian. But in this book Blainey has given us something more - a fascinating and affectionate social history in and of itself.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Penguin Books Australia
• Seitenzahl: 352
• Erscheinungstermin: 18. Juni 2019
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781760144920
• Artikelnr.: 62439154

Autorenporträt

Professor Geoffrey Blainey's first book was completed when he was in his early twenties. Since then he has written another thirty-five, including Triumph of the Nomads, The Rush That Never Ended, The Tyranny of Distance and other well known books on Australia's history. His more recent books on global history, including a Short History of the World, have been translated into many foreign languages and published in places as far apart as Brazil, India, Spain and Turkey. For twenty years he was professor of economic history and then Ernest Scott professor of history at the University of Melbourne, with a term as professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University. He also served the federal government as chairman of the Australia Council, the National Council for the Centenary of Federation, and the Australia-China Council. In New York, in 1988, Blainey received the celebrated Britannica Prize 'for excellence in the dissemination of knowledge for the benefit of mankind'.