Eric Fry (ed): Rebels and Radicals George Allen & Unwin, 1983, r.r.p. $8.95 (paper)
3 splendid collection, presenting the lives of a dozen rebels and radicals of nineteenth century Australia – there’s black rebel Musquito and Convict Ralph Entwistle; republican J D Lang and feminist Catherine Helen Spence; Socialist William Winspear and revolutionary Monty Miller. Each resisted the ruling orthodoxies of the day; each had the courage to fight.
Issy Wyner: With Banner Unfurled – The Early Years of The Ship Painters And Dockers Union Hale Iremonger, 1983, r.r.p. $11.95 (paper)
A long-overdue counterbalance to the histories of the ad stocrats of the labour movement, by the secretary of the N.S.W. Branch of the Union. The book brings alive the struggle of the non-skilled to organise in the critical years between 1883 and 1900. It reveals, as never hefore, the contribution to, the fledgling Labor Party of the painters and dockers of Balmain, and of their nonskilled brothers and sisters.
D J Murphy (Ed): The Big Strikes – Queensland 1889 – 1965, University of Queensland Press, 1983. r.r.p. $12.95 (paper)
Nineteen separate reappraisals of strike action in the North since the big strikes of the 1890s. The range of industries and workers covered is indeed impressive, from shearers and railwaymen to cane cutters, miners and meatworkers. The next best thing to a history of the A.W.U. in the deep North!
Len Fox: Broad Left – Narrow Left, available from the author, 10 Little Surrey St Potts Point, N.S.W. 2011. $10.00 (postage included)
Personal glimpses of the Australian Left over the past fifty years, by one of the Left’s most respected intellectuals and researchers. Don’t miss this one!