Book review: The Work of History: Writing for Stuart Macintyre

Abstract

This is a fascinating, comprehensive, and timely volume. It will enable those new to Stuart Macintyre's writings to better understand the historian, his intellectual background, formidable skills, and the reception of his ideas by a diverse group of leading scholars. The editors of these essays wisely encouraged contributors, 'to explain and appraise a book or a theme from the work of Stuart Macintyre', rather than contribute to a 'conventionally defined Festschrift' (Beilharz and Supski, 2022: 2). These basic design principles have resulted in a book of lasting value.The essays are the work of Stuart's colleagues, collaborators, students, and comrades. In totality they celebrate Stuart's multifaceted contributions to the discipline of history. They also address the broader question of the historian's vocation, advance multiple insights into how that vocation reflected clear political commitments, his embrace of an interdisciplinary framework, and the methodical use of archival and documentary research. It also required the historian to understand the major debates fundamental to their discipline. These characteristics and the heavy responsibilities they impose, are intrinsic to the work of an influential public intellectual. The collected contributions are of varied length, some including useful summaries and/or commentaries on Stuart's writings, while others are critical engagements with a theme or one of Stuart's many influential publications. ***In this review I have chosen to emphasize the chapters presenting critical engagement because they follow the spirit of Stuart's own engagement with the work of other scholars, undertaken to advance historical debate. It is clear from the chapter by Sean Scalmer, that Stuart's writings about earlier historians -Hancock, Crawford, Fitzpatrick, Blainey, Manning Clark, as well as the labour historians Gollan, Turner and Fry -were conducted with close attention to their virtues, acknowledging their achievements and gently pointing out their limitations. As Scalmer concludes, ' . . . he carefully