Geoffrey Bolton was the most versatile and widely travelled of his generation of Australian historians. As a scholar, teacher and commentator he enriched understanding of the country’s regional mosaic, some of its notable figures and others who were just as revealing, the natural environment, social patterns and political life. He was also unflagging in his encouragement of others. The contributors to this volume take his work as a departure point for original essays on a variety of themes in Australian history.
Contributors include Stuart Macintyre, Jenny Gregory, Lenore Layman, Carol Bolton, Mark McKenna, Graeme Davison, Carl Bridge, Alan Atkinson, Andrea Gaynor, Tom Griffiths, Tim Rowse, Lizzy Watt, Mary Anne Jebb and Pat Jalland.
Stuart Macintyre was recruited to Murdoch University by Geoffrey Bolton in 1976 and worked with him on the Oxford History of Australia. His most recent publication is Australia’s Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s and he has currently exchanged chocolates for boiled lollies with a study of what has happened to Australia’s universities.
Jenny Gregory co-authored Claremont: a History with Geoff and remains grateful for his generosity towards a junior colleague who had criticised his view of Western Australia’s interwar years. Her research focuses on urban history and heritage, but her most recent book is Seeking Wisdom: A Centenary History of the University of Western Australia.
Lenore Layman enjoyed being a colleague of Geoff Bolton at Murdoch University. She has most recently published Blood Nose Politics: A Centenary History of the WA National Party, worked on the Australian Asbestos Network website on the health disaster of asbestos use in Australia, and is currently busy on a variety of community history projects.
