Australia's Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s by Stuart Macintyre

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Inscribed by author.

In this landmark book, Stuart Macintyre explains how a country traumatised by World War I, hammered by the Depression and overstretched by World War II became a prosperous, successful and growing society by the 1950s.

An extraordinary group of individuals, notably John Curtin, Ben Chifley, Nugget Coombs, John Dedman and Robert Menzies, re-made the country, planning its reconstruction against a background of wartime sacrifice and austerity.

The other part of this triumphant story shows Australia on the world stage, seeking to fashion a new world order that would bring peace and prosperity.

This book shows the 1940s to be a pivotal decade in Australia. Macintyre reminds us that key components of the society we take for granted - work, welfare, health, education, immigration, housing are not the result of military endeavour but policy, planning, politics and popular resolve.