rly entry has a major section titled Sectarianism , so important a feature of NSW politics was that subject in that decisive period, when the Labor Party first became established as a party of government.
This development took place despite a constant Protestant mobilisation against the Labor Party, focussing on Catholics, socialists, liquor, gambling and sport. Macintyre's failure to use the evidence presented in this monograph seemed to me amazing and then it struck me rather forcibly that he nowhere refers to any of the historical work of the empiric al political historical school that developed around Henry Mayer, Dick Spann, Joan Rydon, Ken Turner, Michael Hogan and others in the Sydney University Government Department from the 1950s to the 1990s. p> Macintyre doesn't recognise any of the publications or books of this major school anywhere in the Concise History . It seems a pretty tall order to ignore the seven editions of the Henry Mayer Readers on government, which influenced tens of thousands of students, but Macintyre succeeds in doing this.
Given his, selectively asserted, past attachment to Marxism in the historical sciences, Macintyre's book has a very curious approach to the history of capitalist development and the conflict between the classes.
His approach is heavily influenced by the current "Globalising" fashion, particularly popular in cultural studies, but also advanced by capitalist ideologues who positively applaud the decline of manufacturing industry in countries like Australia.
The effect of this is that Macintyre concentrates on political history, of the generalised national sort, and cultural criticism of popular social practices. The actual history of Australian capitalist economic development is de-emphasised, and the spectacularly piratical origins of Australian capitalism, particularly British imperial finance capital, is considerably understated.
The sharply contradictory and brutal, but very effective development of manufacturing capitalism in Australia tends to be written of by Macintyre with the enthusiastic hindsight stemming from its current decline, which he seems to favour. (Macintyre manages to write a Concise History of Australia without mentioning Crick, Willis, W. L. Baillieu, W. S. Robinson, Essington Lewis or Bully Hayes, for instance)
In writing about the 19th century, sources such as Brian Fitzpatrick, Eris O'Brien, Michael Cannon and Cyril Pearl, all of whom have a critical or muckraking approach to the development of Australian society, particularly the economic origins of the ruling class, are ignored completely.
How is it possible to write about the origins of Australia without reference to the work of Eris O'Brien? How is it possible to write about capital formation and the slump of the 1890s without reference to historians such as Michael Cannon, Brian Fitzpatrick and Andrew Wells. But Macintyre does so and, as a result, his narrative is a dry as dust, bland, official history, neglecting conflict and particularly de-emphasising the piratical origins of the Australian bourgeoisie.
When you get into the early 20th century, this curious style of history writing is even more pronounced. When discussing the First World War, the whole emphasis is on "heroic sacrifice". He manages to avoid explicit reference to the General Strike of 1917, to the release of the IWW leaders framed in 1917, or to the assassination of Percy Brookfield, the leftist Labor politician who procured their release by his use of his balance of power in the NSW parliament.
The sectarian Protestant mobilisation against the Labor Party led by the Tory murderer T. J. Ley in the 1920s is not mentioned. No mention is made of the adoption of the socialisation objective by the Labor Party in 1921. The Seamen's strike, and Bruce's attempt to deport the Seamen's leaders Tom Walsh and Jacob Johnson doesn't make it, and neither does the Victorian Police strike.
Popular historians and popular historical works about the period, such as Turner's Sydney's Burning , Brown and Haldane's Days of Violence about the police strike, and Lang's I Remember , are ignored. Important radical figures such as the Labor Federal politician Frank Anstey and the then Communist secretary of the Sydney Labor Council, Jock Garden, don't rate a mention. br/>
Macintyre abolishes Langism
When you get into the 1930s, the narrative gets even wierder. The only mention of Jack Lang is in relation to incident during the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, when a member of the fascist-minded New Guard galloped up on a horse and cut the ribbon before Lang could do so. All that Macintyre says about the popular mobilisation behind Lang at the time of the Premier'...
