History of Australia: The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green (A history of Australia) [Hardcover]

Charles M. Clark (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0522843522 | ISBN-13: 978-0522843521 | Publication Date: December 1987

A sense of Australian uncertainty runs through the period 1916-1935: were Australians a people with their own country, their own responsibilities, their own history to make? Or were they essentially Britons, relocated merely by some chance in a far corner of the globe? Was it their destiny to look forward bravely to an unknown future, or to look backwards on a fading imperial past? Clark takes up and follows as a reprise the themes of earlier volumes, and leaves a nation poised on its greatest trial of destiny - the outbreak of World War II. So concludes this great achievement of scholarship and vision - the story of a nation's soul.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'. . . He flooded whole areas with light in ways that nobody had ever done before. He was an oracle, not a conventional historian.' -- Geoffrey Serle

'. . . He looked for great human issues and presented them as moral dramas.' -- Donald Horne

'. . . a novelist, a painter, a theologian and prophet, and from these callings he brings some of the qualities of imagination, the sense of wonder, and the will to create order from chaos, which is as vital to the historian as those other more common and essential skills.' (Geoffrey Blainey)" -- (Geoffrey Blainey)

About the Author

Manning Clark was senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, and later, Professor of History in the School of General Studies, Australian National University. In 1972 he became the first Professor of Australian History. In June 1975 Clark was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, in recognition of his writing of the monumental A History of Australia. He was named Australian of the Year for 1980. Professor Clark died in May 1991.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 538 pages
• Publisher: Melbourne Univ Pr (December 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0522843522
• ISBN-13: 978-0522843521
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,262,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars It's all in the perspective, November 29, 1999

By 

Gavan Dominic Iacono (Hanoi, Vietnam) - See all my reviews

This review is from: History of Australia: The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green (A history of Australia) (Hardcover)

Manning Clark's Histories are often misunderstood as when heuses words such as "Shylock" and "Harlot"etc. some readers regard it as the writer's opinion, and infer from that that the writer must be racist or prejudiced.

In fact Manning Clark takes on the perspectives of the characters in his human epic/drama and invests them with reality by assuming THEIR manner of thinking, attitudes etc. The use of course language reflects the character's standpoint and not necessarily the author's. To call MC anti-semitic is ridiculous. And to compare two historians' histories and say which one is "better" is also ridiculous. Clark is aware his perspective, and that of the characters he writes about, are only perspectives among many. Clark's method is anti-ideological, and in the tradition of story telling.

This is why his histories/story telling have caused so much controversy. Is he a real historian or not? Does he hold the facts or not? Facts can be fluid things, especially historical ones.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Filled with errors., June 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: History of Australia: The Old Dead Tree and the Young Tree Green (A history of Australia) (Hardcover)

The book is filled with errors and elementary mistakes of fact. The constant references to "Shylocks" and other anti-semitic stereotyping is disgusting. Geoffrey Blainey's histories of Australia are far better.