Humanities and Social Sciences

History Program

Staff Profiles

Dr John Hirst

Emeritus Scholar Tel: c/- (61 3) 9479 2430 Fax: (61 3) 9479 1942 Email: j.hirst@latrobe.edu.au Qualifications: PhD Adel., FASSA, FAHA

Research interests: Australian social and political history; democracy and civic culture.

Research Projects
Indexes to the Argus newspaper, 1860-1909 to fill the gap between existing indexes. Indexes for the 1860s and 1870s are complete; the index for the 1880s is being finalised.
The Places of Politics: a study of the buildings connected with Australian political history for the Heritage Commission.

Research Publications

Books

• Adelaide and the Country 1870-1917: their social and political relationships, Melbourne University Press, 1973.
  
• Convict Society and its Enemies: a history of early New South Wales, George Allen and Unwin, 1983.
  
• The strange Birth of Colonial Democracy: New South Wales 1848-1884, George Allen and Unwin 1988.
  
• The World of Albert Facey, Allen and Unwin, 1992.
  
• A Republican Manifesto, Oxford University Press, 1994.
  
• The Oxford Companion to Australian History, Graeme Davison, John Hirst and Stuart Macintyre (eds), Oxford University Press, 1998; revised edition, 2001.
  Discovering Democracy: a guide to government and law in Australia, Curriculum Corporation, 1998.
  
• The Sentimental Nation: the making of the Australian Commonwealth, Oxford University Press, 2000.
  
• Australia’s Democracy: a short history, Allen and Unwin, 2002.
  ‘Kangaroo Court’: Family Law in Australia, Quarterly Essay, no. 17, 2005.
  
• Making Voting Secret, Victorian Electoral Commission, Melbourne, 2006.
  
• Sense and Nonsense in Australian History, Black Inc. Melbourne, 2006.
  The Australians: Insiders & Outsiders on the National Character Since 1770, Black Inc. Melbourne, 2007 (forthcoming).

Chapters in books

• 'La sociedad rural y la politica en Australia, 1850-1930', J. Fogarty, E. Gallo, H. Dieguez (eds), Argentina y Australia, Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, 1979.
  
• 'Distance' and 'Farming', Australians 1888, G. Davison, J. McCarty, A. McLeary (eds), Fairfax, Syme and Weldon, 1988.
  
• 'The Republic and Our British Heritage', Upholding the Australian Constitution, Proceedings of the Samuel Griffith Society, Melbourne, 1993, pp. 9-22.
  
• 'Stuart Macintyre and Samuel Griffith: The Report of the Civics Expert Group', Upholding the Australian Constitution, Proceedings of the Samuel Griffith Society, Melbourne, 1995, pp. 85-100.
  
• 'Can subjects be citizens?', Crown or Country: the traditions of Australian republicanism, David Headon et al (eds), Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1994, pp. 118-23.
  
• 'The Australian Experience: the convict colony', Oxford History of the Prison, Norval Morris and David J. Rotham (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, pp. 263-296.
  
• ‘Labor and the Great War’ and ‘Towards the Republic’ in he Australian Century: Political Struggle in the Building of a Nation, Robert Manne (ed.), Text, Melbourne, 1999.
  
• ‘More or Less Diverse’, in Helen Irving (ed.), Unity and Diversity: A National Conversation, The Barton lectures, ABC Books, 2001, pp. 110-129.
  ’Changing my mind’ in The historian’s conscience: Australian historians and the ethics of history, Stuart Macintyre (ed.), Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2004.
  
• ‘The Chinese and Federation’ in Sophie Couchman, John Fitzgerald, Paul Macgregor (eds), After the Rush: Regulation, Participation, and Chinese Communities in Australia 1860 -1940, Otherland, no. 9, Dec 2004.
  
• ‘The distinctiveness of Australian Democracy’ in Papers on Parliament, no. 42, December 2004.

Articles

• 'Centralisation reconsidered: the South Australian Education Act of 1875', Historical Studies, vol. 13, no. 49, Oct. 1967, pp. 42-59.
  'Distance in Australia - was it a tyrant?', Historical Studies, vol. 16, no. 64, 1975, pp. 435-447.
  
• 'The pioneer legend', Historical Studies, vol. 18, no. 71, 1978, pp. 316-337; reprinted in J. Carroll (ed.), Intruders in the Bush: The Australian Quest for Identity, Oxford University Press, 1982.
  
• 'Keeping Colonial History Colonial: the Hartz thesis revisited', Historical Studies, vol. 21, no. 82, 1984, pp. 85-104.
  
• 'Egalitarianism', Myths and Clichés, no. 5, 1986, pp. 12-31; reprinted in S.L. Goldberg and F.B. Smith (eds), Australian Cultural History, Cambridge University Press, 1988.
  
• 'Australia, Argentina and Atomization', New Zealand Journal of History, vol. 25, no. 2, October 1991, pp. 91-97.
  
• 'Australian Defence and Conscription: a reassessment', Part I , Australian Historical Studies, vol. 25, no. 101, Oct 1993, pp. 608-27.
  
• 'Australian Defence and Conscription: a reassessment', Part II, Australian Historical Studies, vol. 26, no.102, April 1994, pp. 39-56.
  
• ‘A Novel Convention: Adelaide 1897’, The New Federalist, no. 1, June 1998, pp. 5-9.
  
• ‘Who is the Father of Federation?’, The New Federalist, no. 8, December 2001, pp. 24-28.
• ‘Aboriginal couples at the 2001 census’, People and Place, vol.10, no.3, 2002, pp. 23-28. (with Joanne Hutton) ‘The war book of Lillian Shaw’, History Australia, vol.2 no.1, 2004.
  

History and Commentary

• 'Communism and Australia's Historians', Quadrant, No. 265. April 1990, pp. 26-31.
  
• 'Other People's Wars: Anzac and Empire', Quadrant, no. 270, Oct. 1990, pp. 15-20.
  
• 'Australia's Absurd History: A Critique of Multiculturalism', Overland, no. 117, February 1990, pp. 5-10.
  
• 'The Left and New Rights', Overland, no. 125, Summer 1991, pp. 23-28.
  
• 'The Conservative Case for an Australian Republic', Quadrant, September 1991.
  
• 'Will We Defend Ourselves?', Quadrant, no. 284, March 1992, pp. 16-21.
  'The British Link', Quadrant, no. 288, July 1992, pp. 50-2.
  'Australian History and European Civilization', Quadrant, no. 296, May 1993, pp. 28-40.
  
• 'Five Fallacies of Aboriginal Policy', Quadrant, no. 308, July-August 1994, pp. 11-16.
  
• 'National Pride and Multiculturalism', Quadrant, no. 311, November 1994, pp. 29-34.
  
• 'Women and History', Quadrant, no. 314, March 1995, pp. 35-43.
  
• ‘Who tugged the forelock?: Australian attitudes to Britain and independence’, Quadrant, no. 321, November 1995, pp. 10-16.
  
• 'In Defence of Appeasement: Indonesia and Australian Foreign Policy', Quadrant, no. 325, April 1996, pp. 10-16.
  
• 'History and the Republic', Quadrant, no.329, September 1996, pp.38-43.
  
• ‘A Novel Convention: Adelaide 1897’, Quadrant, June 1997, pp. 24-28.
  ‘The distinctiveness of Australian democracy’, Quadrant, December 2002, pp. 19-27.
  
• 'From British Rights to Human Rights’, Quadrant, March 2004.