School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemThe economic and political development of Victoria 1877-1881( 1951)Alfred Deakin wrote in a short (unpublished) memoir on the period surveyed in this thesis, “Whatever the relative importance or interest of the years 1875 – 1882 may be, it is certain that the tide of political life ran then much more fiercely than at any subsequent period.” It was to see why political life was so bitter and ran ‘so fiercely’ that this work was undertaken. Letter books and other MS material belonging to members of the Victorian Legislature in the period have been made available by several Victorian families and the access given to this material has been of great assistance to the writer. The division into sections – Part I Economic Development and its relation to Politics, Part II, Political Development – has been made necessary by the pioneering character of the work. Although the whole theme of the thesis centres in the complex interaction of economic and political development, the division was found necessary in order to deal more completely with topics on which there has been no detailed study.
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ItemThe road to Singapore: Australian defence and foreign policies 1919-1941( 2008)Nationalist historians have argued, variously, that Australia was betrayed by Britain in 1941-42 with the fall of Singapore, and plunged into crisis, or conversely, that the nation was 'armed and ready' for the much feared Japanese invasion. Arguing that neither proposition is true, this thesis establishes that Australia was not armed and ready even for a much feared large-scale Japanese invasion. Nor was the nation ready for the small-scale Japanese attacks which were more probable and which, under Imperial defence, were a local defence responsibility. This thesis explains why Australia was unprepared. It does this by exploring Australian understandings of Imperial defence, assessing Australian responses to international crises 1919-1939, evaluating criticisms of those responses, and analysing the nature of domestic politics. It concludes with a socioeconomic analysis of Australia's key elites - political, military, and industrial.(Open document for complete abstract)