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BOOK REVIEW
| David Clune and Ken Turner (eds), Writing Party History: Papers from a Seminar Held at Parliament House, Sydney, May 2006, Parliament of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007. pp. xv + 735. $59.95 cloth
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| Writing Party History fills a significant gap in the bibliography of Australian political history. The result of a seminar convened as part of the commemoration of the Sesquicentenary of Responsible Government in New South Wales in 2006, the collection aims, in the words of its editors, to 'encourage further research' into party history. This is an admirable objective: in recent decades postgraduate research into political history, including party histories, has declined, as students choose more fashionable areas of study. Although focussed on party histories in New South Wales, Writing Party History offers much for those interested in writing histories of political parties both federally and in other States. |
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The convenors of the seminar invited politicians, journalists, historians and political scientists to speak on a range of topics concerned with the writing of party histories. These papers have now been collected for publication with various degrees of success. A number of the essays offer insights into approaching sources and developing methodologies that will be invaluable to students embarking on writing political history. Rodney Cavalier on using political diaries and memoirs, Ken Turner on sources for party history, Stuart Macintyre on writing Communist Party history, and Sean Scalmer and Murray Goot on new methodologies for examining elections, are especially useful in this respect. Other contributions from leading historians give the book considerable authority. Ian Hancock writes thoughtfully on the comparative value of archival research and interviews in writing the history of the Liberal Party. Frank Bongiorno's essay on the benefits of writing the histories of regional parties identifies significant opportunities for further work. In an excellent essay, Rodney Smith calls for more scholarly attention to be paid to the phenomena of minor parties and independents. |
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Other essays will be less useful to students. Those by past and present politicians confusingly blur the line between party and personal political history; indeed 'party history' is nowhere defined with absolute clarity. In the essays by non-academics, it is sometimes difficult to discern a clearly articulated argument that students can use to inform their work. One or two of the shorter essays have the feeling of the 'filler' about them. A more extensive further reading list would have been useful. The book's chief weakness, however, significantly undermines its usefulness for my students, at least. I teach a history Honours seminar that explores new ways of writing Australian political histories, encouraging students to consider how political history – including party history – might incorporate the insights offered by developments in historiography, for example, social history, post-colonial history, and women's history. |
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Students choosing this seminar are overwhelmingly female. These women are drawn to writing political histories because they recognise the importance of politics in contemporary society. Repulsed by the masculine culture that pervades contemporary Australian politics, they are looking for new ways to imagine political histories. They want a new kind of politics, one that is inclusive and consensual. They want to see women represented in politics and in political history. Unfortunately they won't find what they're looking for in Writing Party History. |
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Every contributor to the book is male. This may well reflect the long domination of men in political life in New South Wales but that fails to explain why no female journalist or academic was invited to contribute. As the publication of 'No Fit Place For Women'?: Women in New South Wales Politics 1856–2006 edited by Deborah Brennan and Louise Chappell (UNSW Press, Sydney 2006) has shown, there are plenty of qualified women who might have made a valuable contribution. |
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In fact, women are mentioned little more than a dozen times in the entire book, outside of footnotes, including a no-doubt well-deserved acknowledgment to Barbara Fahey for 'typing up ... messy drafts'! Only Peter Davey, Stuart Macintyre and Ken Turner consider the role of women in political parties as worthy subjects of future studies: this despite women having voted for the State's political parties since 1902, having represented voters as members of those parties since 1925, having worked tirelessly to ensure those parties were elected to office – and having actually paid for this book, as tax payers of New South Wales. |
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I can't wait to show my female students the table of contents in Writing Party History. I expect a range of responses – from the sad, ironic shrug and 'what else would you expect?' to the angry and defiant 'I'll show them'. I really hope she does. |
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| University of Melbourne |
JACQUELINE DICKENSON | |
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