Australian History

Perhaps no other social attitude has changed so markedly in this century as the prevailing public reaction towards the question of the limitation of population growth and the use of birth control devices.

It would be remarkable indeed, if this collection of documents did not fulfil its broadly stated aim of interesting the general reader of Australian history and adding something more to the available literature for women’s studies courses. For the general reader it is a pleasantly presented book, utilising line drawings, cartoons, and advertisements as they appeared in the journals and newspapers of the late nineteenth century. The documents appear also as very extensive illustrations to the editor’s commentary, and although a querulous reader might complain that it is not always clear where the commentary ends and the documents begin, it is an easy book for browsing. As well, because documents of this kind have not been over-used in the conventional collections on Australian history, the general reader is bound to find something that is either new or stimulating.

Fifteen years ago the British urban historian Asa Briggs wrote a short but stimulating essay on Melbourne in the Victorian era in his Victorian Cities. In thirty pages he not only challenged the conventional assumptions of Australian historiography of that time (specifically deploring the lack of systematic study of the Australian city) but also threw out various ideas about how to approach Australian urban history. It took some time for historians here to take up Briggs’ challenge, but with the publication of Graeme Davison’s The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne Australian urban history has come of age.