Fighting Back: The Politics of the Unemployed in Victoria in the Great Depression

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Work for the dole is not a new idea. It was introduced in Victoria in 1932 and became one of the battlegrounds of the politics of unemployment. In this important and topical study, Charles Fox shows that far from being apathetic, unemployed workers were active, organised and remarkably successful in their aims. The Great Depression may be little remembered now, but old Depression attitudes remain with us.

Reviews

"Fighting Back asserts a bold claim for the rights of citizenship on behalf of Australia's dispossessed." --Australian Historical Studies
"This is an engaging, pugnacious and long overdue book. The author explores the intricate detail of how, in the midst of a devastating economic collapse, unemployed workers resisted the combined pressures of a barren labour market, coldly condescending charity, ineffective or overtly hostile agencies of the state, and yet still managed to fight back." --The Journal of Industrial Relations

Author Bio

Dr Charles Fox has been teaching in the History Department of the University of Western Australia since 1989, having studied and taught for several years in the History Department at the University of Melbourne. His previous books include Australians at Work (1989) with Marilyn Lake; Working Australia (1991) (winner of the 1992 Keith Hancock History Prize); Historical Refractions (1994); and Under Blue Skies (1996).