History is a discrete discipline because it aims to explain bygone events, mindsets, and the course of change. Its purpose is to understand the past on its own terms, and not to apply or deduce laws or patterns. Masterful research, particularly of documentary evidence, enables historians to understand what is missing and/or what questions are implicitly raised. This is why political history is the queen of the discipline. There is truth to be discovered ‘if only we can find it’: such outcomes are more likely in history than in scientific disciplines because events and evidence are unalterable and independent of the practitioner. Evidence is to be criticized, however, leading to differing interpretations, which may be magnified by the historian’s individual style of writing. The format of presentation itself will be either narrative, the superior of chronology, or analytical, the higher form of description. The choice is normally dictated by the topic. In making the case for more use of narrative (where possible), Elton displays one of many instances where he sets his cap against social scientists and sundry postmodernists – in 1965. Aimed at professionals, it includes a section on teaching and is therefore not fluid. Still, a confident, masterful brief.
Month: February 2023
8. Beloff, A Historian in the 20th Century (2010)
A loose-knit series of essays reprising the author’s career as a historian-cum-policy specialist expert on Britain, France, the US, Europe, and Russia as well as Zionism / Israel. The chapters reflect enduring concern with continental unity and imperial aftermath. There are few insights here and no methodological passages: he is better when more topically focused.
9. Fader, Customer Centricity (2010)
Customer centricity is not serving every customer’s whim, but serving the best (i.e., most profitable) customers at every opportunity. This refinement is also an advantage over most product-driven businesses. The goal of data mining (as sometimes encapsulated in CRM) is to identify real, quantifiable differences in customers, in order to focus marketing so as to obtain more prime customers and also to know how much to spend on them.
10. Warhoff, Well May We Say (2010)
A collection of outstanding and well-regarded Australian speeches, 1850-2010. If Aussie rhetoric is known as laconic, sparing in adverbs with frequent hints of hilarity or sarcastic mirth, this aggregation of primary material sheds little light on the worldview that produces such communication. The book is organized by topic — nationhood, war, political and sociocultural debate, etc. — with useful (but sometimes presumptive) intros. A memento of our recent trip there.
4. Scaramucci, Goodbye Gordon Gecko (31 March 2012)
Financial professionals can succeed even while behaving ethnically. The author illustrates his belief with his own success story.
3. Fitzgerald et al., Made in Queensland (11 Feb 2023)
Narrates politics and government from formation in 1859 to the early 2000s, lamenting the persistent, centrifugal influence of such industries as ranching, sugar, and mining while emphasizing education and the arts in a state not known for such disciplines. The book often reads as a historicist critique, for example failure to sooner adopt 20th-century voting standards – notwithstanding the Sunshine State and Australia being in the world’s vanguard. Left unexplored are such matters as how the Australian Labor Party’s assumption of party supremacy over parliamentarians became Peter Beattie-era ‘consultative government’ or why ‘primary industries’ and country regions have retained influence despite two-thirds of the citizens coming to live in the southeast portion of the state (‘imagined ruralism’ lacking explanatory rigor).
Of note:
• In the late 1800s, the bias toward inland rails, rather than coastal connections, evinced opposition to Brisbane interests
• Queensland uniquely favored importing islanders, running contrary to white Australian policy – notably favored by the ALP as a means of raising wages
• The period 1903-15 marked a political sea change, including such innovations as industrial wages arbitration, as the state reacted to 1893’s depression with ‘New Liberalism’ – the state fostering equality of opportunity – as well as Federation
• During the Depression, the Labor government funded infrastructure without upending the primary industries, in part because the ALP was strongest in the country districts. The party believed regionalization had helped sidestep some urban hardships of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia
• Queensland modernized in the postwar era: railway mileage exploded; suburbs were retrofitted for utilities and sewage; motels were popular as women’s holidays. Politically, the state was isolated from Australia by the reactionary, sleazy Bjelke-Petersen government (to 1988). More specifically, Brisbane’s 1987 Fitzgerald policy-corruption industry offset the 1982 Commonwealth Games and 1988’s World Expo
From the 1990s, globalization (as if international competition was a new economic phenomenon) changed public policy from regionalization to neoliberal rationalization, as evidenced in the closing of state schools in small towns. Fly-in, fly-out employment took root. At last a falsifiable thesis, if minimally unexplored. The book lacks an analytical structure to underpin the state’s character. (On the policy side, schools and the arts are perpetually underfunded, and reconciliation is always exacerbated, unfinished; there is no discussion of sport, especially rugby league.)
It seems the continuing role of primary industries as well as tourism reflect the scale of revenue and employment, which along with expansive landmass countervails Brisbane; the state has continuously attracted intranational migration; and citizens are consciously proud of their work and lifestyle.
See also: http://www.oeler.us/2021/07/07/19-gorman-heartland-30-oct-2020/