Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Don Aitkin's "What was it all for?" revisited

Back in 2009 I was lent given a copy of Don Aitkin's What was it all for? The Reshaping of Australia. (Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2005). I thought it a remarkably good book, inspiring several posts. Now I see that blogging colleague and fellow New Englander Paul Barratt has discovered it as well.

Just to inspire Paul to extend the discussion, I thought that I should record the posts inspired by the book. don aitkinThere is some repetition among them, but readers may find them of interest as a set. The posts are:

Another of my history posts, Social Change in New England 1950-2000 3: Church, state and social change in Australia, dealt in part with a second one of Don's book. Don's writing has been quite influential in my own work. 

If you are interested, our can find out more about Don - Don Aitkin and here. In the meantime, I encourage Paul to respond.

2 comments:

Evan said...

I hope he responds. Don raised an important question.

I think it is clear that we got the answers wrong. I think the Downshifting phenomenon shows this very clearly - that this phenomenon is so ignored is very significant I think

Jim Belshaw said...

Hi Evan. Paul has promised to respond, but I don't know what path he might follow in doing so. But that's the fun!