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Graeme Davison

Graeme Davison

Graeme Davison is Australia's best-known urban historian and a leading social historian.

Graeme Davison reviews 'Emperors in Lilliput: Clem Christesen of Meanjin and Stephen Murray-Smith of Overland' by Jim Davidson

October 2022, no. 447 26 September 2022
‘In Sydney if you have something to say you hold a party; in Melbourne you start a journal,’ quipped the poet and critic Vincent Buckley in 1962. Buckley was an acute, astringent observer of the literary culture of the two cities. An outsider in both, he recognised Melbourne’s characteristic voice – ‘earnest, do-gooding, voluble’ – in the leftish humanism of its leading literary jour ... (read more)

Graeme Davison reviews 'Asbestos in Australia: From boom to dust' edited by Lenore Layman and Gail Phillips

October 2019, no. 415 25 September 2019
Wittenoom is no more. The notorious mine has been abandoned and the township, ten kilometres away across the Pilbara, has been demolished and buried. The name has been erased from road signs along Route 95. Blue asbestos – the mineral that created and then condemned the place – is still virulently present in its soil, air, and water. But while Wittenoom is no more, it is not forgotten. It surv ... (read more)