Track 6: Geoffrey Blainey

There has been no more controversial Australian historian than the respected, admired and sometimes pilloried Geoffrey Blainey. Depicted here in this cartoon by Peter Nicholson, Blainey was one of a group of important historians who congregated at the University of Melbourne School of History in the late 1940s and early 1950s. His lecturers included Manning Clark, and fellow students included Ken Inglis, John Poynter, Ian Turner and Geoffrey Serle. It was the heyday of the Melbourne school. However, from the outset Blainey's career was not to follow the conventional path of tutoring followed by study at Oxford and a return to academia; instead Blainey chose to work in the field.

On display in The Independent Type is Peter Nicholson's cartoon of Blainey, published in April 1985 in The Age. A year earlier The Age had published an open letter signed by 24 historians distancing themselves from Blainey's views on Asian immigration. In March 1984 at a Rotary meeting in Warrnambool Blainey had stated that public opinion would not support the rate of Asian immigration to Australia. His views, later expanded upon in his book All for Australia, provoked heated debate and controversy. As a result of the furor Blainey eventually resigned as Professor of History at the University of Melbourne.

Blainey is admired, even by his critics, for his curiosity and creative approach to the writing of history. Phrases he has coined – such as 'tyranny of distance' and the black armband view of history' – have become part of our lexicon.