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Earle Christmas Grafton Page (1880–1961) – surgeon, Country Party leader, treasurer and prime minister – was perhaps the most extraordinary visionary to hold high public office in twentieth-century Australia. Over decades, he made determined efforts to seize ‘the psychological moment’, and thereby realise his vision of a decentralised, regionalised and rationally ordered nation. Page’s unique dreaming of a very different Australia encompassed new states, hydroelectricity, economic planning, cooperative federalism and rural universities. His story casts light on the wider place in history of visions of national development. He was Australia’s most important advocate of developme...
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. At the height of his powers, 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.
Commentaries by top scholars alongside the most important documents and speeches concerning the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 The two world wars brought an end to a long-standing system of international commerce based on the gold standard. After the First World War, the weaknesses in the gold standard contributed to hyperinflation, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, and ultimately World War II. The Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 arose out of the Allies’ desire to design a postwar international economic system that would provide a basis for prosperity, trade, and worldwide economic development. Alongside important documents and speeches concerning the adoption and evolution of the Bretton Woods system, this volume includes lively, readable, original essays on such topics as why the gold standard was doomed, how Bretton Woods encouraged the adoption of Keynesian economics, how the agreements influenced late-twentieth‑century ideas of international development, and why the agreements ultimately had to give way to other arrangements.
The Mungana scandal is not just the story of a failed mining venture and its victims, but an expose of the arrogance of powerful politicians who compromised integrity for personal greed. Late in the 19th century mining entrepreneurs were eager to profit from over optimistic expectations of “another Broken Hill” in North Queensland. Ventures thrived with private railways linking new mines, including the town of Mungana. In the wake of “1,000 disappointments” of the failed Chillagoe Company, the new Labor Government acquired the assets. This was the signal for opportunistic operators and politicians to orchestrate secret deals, allowing them to enjoy financial benefits at government expense. The critical acquisition was Mungana Mines. Its largest shareholder was William McCormack, future Queensland Premier. This culminated in a Royal Commission, whose bombshell report exposed key beneficiaries, including McCormack and his friend, Edward Theodore, then Treasurer of Australia. In the aftermath of the scandal several myths have arisen. These are identified and refuted. It is pertinent to ask if ethical standards have really improved over the past 80 years.
Joseph Halevi, G. C. Harcourt, Peter Kriesler and J. W. Nevile bring together a collection of their most influential papers on post-Keynesian thought. Their work stresses the importance of the underlying institutional framework, of the economy as a historical process and, therefore, of path determinacy. In addition, their essays suggest the ultimate goal of economics is as a tool to inform policy and make the world a better place, with better being defined by an overriding concern with social justice. Volume III explores the ethics of economics.
Milton Friedman is regarded as one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century. This volume assesses the importance of the full range of Friedman's ideas, from his work on methodology in economics, and his consumption theory, his research on monetary economics, to his views on contentious social and political issues such as education, conscription, and drugs. It also presents personal recollections of Friedman by some of those who knew him, both asstudents and colleagues, and offers new evidence on Friedman's interactions with other noted economists. The volume provides readers with an up to date account of Friedman's continuing influence andwill help to stimulate further research across a variety of areas, including macroeconomics, the history of economic thought, and public policy. With contributions from a stellar cast, this book will be invaluable to academics and students alike.
Assesses central bank policies towards capitalist money creation and war finance against inflationary and deflationary class strengths in specific democracies.
This is a biography of Bill Phillips, famous economist and inventor. His early life was a search for adventure across the world in the 1930s and 1940s. His later economic focus was about how to make struggling economies work better. He was very practical, yet unconventional and a genius. He built a famous water machine of the economy, showed economists how to model by computer, and became world famous for the Phillips Curve, a basis for monetary policy today.
League of Nations offers new perspectives on the history, legacies and impact of the League of Nations. The essays in this collection demonstrate how vastly diverse topics from film, education, Christian youth movements, colonial rule in the Pacific islands, national economic analyses, disarmament, humanitarianism and refugees as well as international relations, national sovereignty and domestic League of Nations associations—all led to Geneva. As well as the shared connection with Geneva and the League, the chapters are temporally aligned within the twenty-five-year lifespan of the League, from 1920 to 1946. Together the book revitalises the history of the League, and deepens understandings of how its 'many organs' operated and impacted on far-flung parts of the globe, simultaneously crossing borders and scholarly boundaries.
In a time of pandemics, war and climate change, fostering knowledge that transcends disciplinary boundaries is more important than ever. Economic history is one of the world’s oldest interdisciplinary fields, with its prosperity dependent on connection and relevance to disciplinary behemoths economics and history. Australian Economic History is the first history of an interdisciplinary field in Australia, and the first to set the field’s progress within the structures of Australian universities. It highlights the lived experience of doing interdisciplinary research, and how scholars have navigated the opportunities and challenges of this form of knowledge. These lessons are vital for tho...