The whig View of Australian History: And Other Essays

A. W. Martin is best known as biographer of Sir Henry Parkes, Father of Federation, and Sir Robert Menzies, Australia's longest serving prime minister. Martin, Foundation Professor of History at La Trobe University, Melbourne, brought a deep and insightful understanding to Australia's history in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This volume brings together a major essay on Parkes and several significant studies of particular aspects of Menzies' long career. It includes notable analyses of the development of historical research in Australia. Especially important is an undoubted classic, The 'Whig' View of Australian History. These essays demonstrate the range and depth of Martin's considerable scholarship, and illustrate why he is rightly acknowledged as a central figure in the mid-twentieth-century development of research in Australian history.

A. W. Martin (1926-2002) first studied history at the University of Sydney. He was subsequently the first doctoral graduate in history at the Australian National University. He later held appointments at The University of Melbourne, The University of Adelaide, the ANU and La Trobe University. With Peter Loveday he wrote Parliament, Factions and Parties. In addition to the Parkes and Menzies biographies, he also edited Essays in Australian Federation, The Emergence of the Australian Party System (with Loveday and R. S. Parker) and Australians from 1939 (with A. Curthoys and T. Rowse).