The Australian Encyclopedia: Third Edition by Grolier Society of Australia

The first edition of the Australian Encyclopedia was published by Angus & Robertson in two volumes in 1925, under the general editorship of Captain Arthur Jose. The second edition, completely revised and rewritten, was published in 1958 and ran to ten volumes, including an index. The editorial team was headed by Alec Chisholm. This edition was later sold to the Grolier Society, which has now published a third edition with Bruce W. Pratt as Editor&shy;in-Chief. This edition is a complete revision and updating of the second. The rewriting has taken the form of shearing extrinsic detail from some of the entries in the earlier edition in order to allow for the addition of new entries or the lengthening of others to cover more recent developments. An unfortunate part of the revision has been the exclusion of an index volume, a loss which is only partly compensated by the provision of extensive cross&shy;referencing. An indication of the loss would be someone wanting guidance on the issues at stake in the constitutional crisis of 1975. Such a reader looking up the excellent article on the Constitution of the Commonwealth would find a factual guide to its provisions, as well as the complete text, but would have to rely on a cross-reference to Parliamentary Government for direction to the discussion of the actual hijacking of the government and the constitutional im&shy;plications. Both these admirably dispassionate articles, incidentally, are attributed to Geoffrey Sawer, although shorter entries are in general anonymous. Similar references to the entries on Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam would produce the same cross-reference, so that the enquirer would eventually be satisfied. There is however no single point bringing all these references together. The same problem would arise for someone wishing to learn about Robert Lowe's important periodical, The Atlas. In the second edition of the Encyclopedia he would find an index entry with six references, and by following these – a time-consuming task because of the lack of any guide to the principal entry – he would learn the salient points about its origins and contributors. In the latest edition, however, he would need to read the two lengthy articles on Newspapers and Periodicals, and then would get little more than the dates of its publication. The second of these entries would lead him to Robert Lowe, but not to the names of others associated with its publication. These two articles offer an indication of other changes between the two editions. The article on periodicals is wholly or partly by Walter Stone in each edition; that on newspapers is anonymous in both cases. In each case the newer article is shortened as well as being brought up to date. In the case of the discussion of newspapers, this leaves us with little more than a summary of dates, titles and ownership, leaving out both the effects of papers in the political and social life of their times, and the role of the great newspaper families and their intrigues. We can however obtain some of this detail by following up such leads as those to the Fairfax or Syme families, although even here the concentration on factual detail obscures some of the truth. More complete rewriting has taken place in the entries relating to atomic energy. In the second edition, the major article is the entry labelled Atomic Energy and Weapons, by E. W. Titterton. In the latest edition, the entry is by J.P. Baxter, and is entitled Nuclear Energy. Titterton’s article refers only incidentally to peaceful uses of atomic power; Baxter refers only once, in a cross-reference entry on the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, to military uses of atomic power, and not once to the civil security aspects of its industrial use. Entries in both editions give a clear account for the layman of the scientific bases of nuclear energy, but the change in emphasis illustrates the change in the nature of the debate. Baxter's article should be seen as a contribution to this debate, not an appraisal of it, as he assumes both the desirability and safety of industrial nuclear power and the inevitability of its use as our main power source. Other readers will have other interests but in using the Encyclopedia for several months I have found it reliable on topics within my sphere of competence and informative on other areas for which I have turned to it. The writing is clear, concise and authoritative. As well as the lengthy articles on major topics, it has a host of briefer and useful entries on people, places, species and plentiful illustration, much of it in colour. If it does not replace the earlier edition, it is a necessary complement to it, if only because it brings events in its general articles up to date to 1975, and in its historical appendix to May 1977. A good piece of publishing.

John McLaren

From the New Issue

‘“Thin labourism”: How is the Albanese government travelling?’ by Frank Bongiorno

The Buddhist and the Ethicist: Conversations on effective altruism, engaged Buddhism, and how to build a better world by Peter Singer and Shih Chao-Hwei

‘When we talk about the Middle Ages: Revisiting the power of periodisation’ by G. Geltner

We All Lived in Bondi Then by Georgia Blain

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