The Forgotten Fifties: Aspects of Australian Society and Culture in the 1950s

(Paperback)

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Some of Australia's leading historians present new perspectives on social and cultural life in the 1950s. The 1950s is usually treated in the popular media as a metaphor for an Australia that was complacent, monocultural, banal and domesticated. On the other hand, historical writing about the decade has long been dominated by accounts of political and foreign policy conflict, the Labor Split, the Cold War and the seemingly endless long summer of Robert Menzies. This collection assembles some of Australia's leading historians to present new perspectives on the 1950s. Focusing on social and cultural themes, they reveal a decade full of contradictions which belie the common, simplistic accounts of the time. Ranging from the education of the young Barry Humphries to the idea of an Australian 'identity' in the lead-up to the 1956 Olympics, these essays also include the personal recollections of three leading historians, providing a lively and critical insight into the Australia of the period. Drawing out themes such as style, sexuality, modernism, the suburbs, travel writing and immigrant 'assimilation', the authors excavate the experience of everyday life and the attitudes that characterised the 1950s. They present a past that-despite having shaped our lives-continues to be disputed in contemporary Australia.

Author Bio

Geoffrey Serle was one of Australia's most distinguished historians. He was Victorian Rhodes Scholar in 1947 and completed his doctorate at Oxford in 1950. He was general editor of the Australian Dictionary of Biography between 1975 and 1988. He is also a well-known author and his work has won several prestigious awards including the Ernest Scott prize, the National Book Council Banjo award and the Age Book of the Year. His published books include: The Melbourne Scene 1803-1956, The Golden Age, The Rush to be Rich, From Deserts the Prophets Come, John Monash: A Biography, Sir John Medley, For Australia and Labor: Prime Minister John Curtin. Geoffrey Serle died in 1998.