Culture wars and corporatism: The cultural mission in Australian non-fiction book publishing, 1958–2018
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Author
Davis, MDate
2020-04-28Source Title
Australian Literary StudiesPublisher
Australian Literary StudiesUniversity of Melbourne Author/s
Davis, MarkAffiliation
School of Culture and CommunicationMetadata
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Journal ArticleCitations
Davis, M. (2020). Culture wars and corporatism: The cultural mission in Australian non-fiction book publishing, 1958–2018. Australian Literary Studies, 35 (1), pp.1-23. https://doi.org/10.20314/als.dc695e21d5.Access Status
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ARC/DP170103192Abstract
In this article I investigate four phases in Australian non-fiction publishing between the late 1950s and early 2000s, focused on works of current affairs, politics and popular history. Many such books, I argue, were published as part of a ‘cultural mission’ in Australian non-fiction book publishing, where an imperative for reform motivated many publishers to publish books they believed to be of greater than commercial importance. The paper first defines ‘cultural mission’ publishing. I then argue that such publishing has played a crucial role in Australian culture wars and struggles over national identity since the late 1950s and that these struggles have played out in four overlapping phases that reflect shifts in national debate and the commercial imperatives of book publishing. These consist of, first, a ‘renaissance’ phase from the late 1950s until roughly the late 1960s; second, an ‘insurrectionist’ phase from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s; third, a ‘reaction’ phase from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, and fourth a ‘corporatist’ phase that gathered pace in the late 1990s.
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