Radical Students: the Old Left at Sydney University By Alan Barcan, Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, 2002, 392 pages, hardcover, 48 b&w illustrations, $49.95. Reviewed by Julie Ustinoff in the November 2002 issue. Help more readers find out about this article
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A few years ago, in the course of my studies, I had the pleasure of contacting the well-respected educational historian Dr Alan Barcan. During the very brief period of our acquaintance, his passion for education became obvious. Not the vocationally-oriented and funding-driven education favoured by many of today's politicians and economic rationalists, but an education grounded in the liberal humanist tradition. He was an enthusiastic proponent of a structure that encouraged critical thinkers and challenged conservative doctrines. Reading Radical Students, therefore, provided me with an insight into the history behind the man.
Through this documentary of events and personalities surrounding Australia's early radical student movement, Alan Barcan reveals the excitement, concerns, aspirations, experiences, and environment that helped shape the ideological and political perspectives of both he and a range of Australian intellectuals over a forty year period. Radical Students, though, is more than a documentary of student radicalism at Sydney University. It is a chronicle of world events, Australian society, and the struggle between conservatism and radical politics. Moreover, it is a snapshot of the cultural and educational environment that acted sometimes as support for, and other times as a barrier to, the radical thinking voiced by Australian youth.
Radical Students takes a chronological approach, beginning in the 1920s and ending in the 1960s. In this manner, Barcan systematically details the high and low points of student radicalism with the wit, warmth and attention to detail that can only come from someone who was part of the experience. Barcan's story begins with a personal account of his youth, describing the influences that shaped his early political education and ignited his love of history. In doing so, he invites the reader to connect with him on a more intimate level than would otherwise be expected in a history about such a highly politicised topic. From the very beginning, the sharp commentary tells us something of the young boy whilst also offering a glimpse of the ethos that drove Australian society during the 1920s and 1930s. For example, his recollection of entering high school begins:By the time I enrolled at Sydney Boys' High School in 1934, I realised that I had many attitudes setting me apart from the average Australian boy or his parents -- a Jewish background, some memories of English education, an interest in ideas, a limited interest in the beach, and none in sport. The book goes on to reveal the major influences in his political and intellectual growth, which included fellow university students and politically dynamic parents, university teachers, and the various members of organisations with which he became associated. These organisations included the Australian Labor Party, the Labour Club, the National Union of Australian University Students, and the radical student publication, Honi Soit. The pervasive atmosphere of conformism that existed on Australian campuses well into the 1960s is exposed through Barcan's recollections of these organisations and the activities of their members. He ably describes the competing influences of religion, politics, and dominant ideologies expressed by the radical student movement in an era when middle-class masculinity was more generally displayed through an emphasis on extra-curricula events that rarely extended past sporting activities to encompass political or social activism.
Taking this traditional conservatism as a starting point, Radical Students embarks on a detailed account of the growth in radical student politics centred on the campus of Sydney University. This focus on Sydney, though, does not obstruct a wider consideration of student radicalism as evidenced by the amount of space devoted to comparing the Sydney experience with that of Melbourne. Although this necessitates a retelling of the sometimes intricate and overlapping machinations of a number of different groups and personalities, the story is made more relevant and intriguing by placing it in the context of contemporaneous global and internal Australian events. Beginning with the Depression and the rise of fascism, Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s, the book moves forward through that period of time where national and international politics were overshadowed by the Cold War and heightened global tensions. It concludes with the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s and the emergence of such personalities as Clive James and Richard Walsh, and a regretful acceptance that the student campuses of the 1970s were a place of utilitarianism and conservatism.
Central to the rise in student radicalism was the 1927 arrival of John Anderson at Sydney University to take up the chair of philosophy. According to Barcan, John Anderson ignited the intellectual and philosophical fervour of the students with his persuasive commentary on a range of contentious issues that included political freedom, censorship, and religion. Anderson's attacks on the monarchy and his urging of proletarian unity were indeed radical ideas that impressed some and worried many others. Nonetheless, Andersonian philosophy is credited with providing the student body and some members of academic staff with the stimulus and courage to pursue more liberal modes of thinking. As might be expected, the twin themes of Communism and Catholicism loom large over the story.
Many of the radical ideas spurred on by Andersonian thought challenged mainstream thinking, particularly when, with the outbreak of the second world war, many radicals actively opposed the allied war effort. Therein lies an interesting anecdote, as told by Barcan: after the war, the demographics of Australia's universities changed dramatically when ex-servicemen and women began to make up a significant proportion of the student body; a situation that clearly displeased John Anderson, who is reported to have complained that that 'the work done by ex-servicemen was appalling'. This little 'snippet' is indicative of the text as a whole, which is greatly enlivened by the inclusion of such revealing comments, along with photographs, and excerpts from radical student publications.
If there is one criticism to be made of Radical Students, it is that the attention to detail sometimes takes precedence over the broader themes and movements revealed through the text. Whilst the author is clearly a thorough and precise investigator with access to a plethora of records relating to the subject, the emphasis on the minutiae may be a source of distraction for some readers. Radical Students, therefore, is not a book for someone interested in the broad-brush approach to history. Its concern with the individual personalities and their roles in radical student politics makes it a text more suited to those who prefer to see the trees as much as they do the woods. Citation - Julie Ustinoff. 'Review: Radical Students: the Old Left at Sydney University by Alan Barcan' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), November 2002. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 30 July 2010].
Back Cover Blurb - From the 1920s to the 1960s the Australian Left struggled to make ideological sense of the Great Depression, the growth of fascism and militarism overseas, World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War and fear of communism.
All these issues found expression on the campus of Australia's oldest university, where ardent youth pursued the ideal of social justice. Sydney's controversial philosophy professor John Anderson and his Freethought Society added volatility to the mix with their rejection of orthodox politics. Later, impassioned hostility between supporters of the Communist Party, the Labor Party and the Catholic 'Movement' led by B. A. Santamaria ruffled undergraduate life.
Alan Barcan was himself a participant in the radical movement. This account of the period, leavened with anecdotes and lively undergraduate wit, recreates the texture of student life and the shifting faultlines of political loyalties.
The ruthless tactics, ponderous zeal and underlying idealism of student politics are set against discussions of the liberal humanist tradition and the nature and purpose of universities.
Barcan presents a roll-call of famous names in Australian political, professional and cultural life. Poet James McAuley, with fag in mouth and a glass of cheap plonk, pounds the piano for rehearsals of the student revue. Similarly unfamiliar appearances are made by Gough Whitlam, John Kerr, H. V. Evatt, Brian Fitzpatrick, P. R. Stephensen, Donald Horne, Christopher Brennan, A. D. Hope, Germaine Greer, Amy Witting, Neville Wran, Peter Coleman, P. P. McGuinness, and many other significant figures of the past half- century.
Radical Students will stir the blood of those who were there, and make stimulating reading for those Australians who care about education, politics and liberal thought.
Have You Also Read? Keeper of the Faith: a biography of Jim Cairns
 Paul Stangio, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002, 500 Pages, Hardback, $49.95Reviewed by Philip Mendes in the August 2002 issue.For many of the baby boomers who grew up in the 1960s, Jim Cairns was a hero who inspired significant social change and action. But for later generations he is at best an eccentric old man struggling to sell his quirky books in rundown markets. Paul Strangio's comprehensive biography attempts to reconcile these two contradictory interpretations and to explain the enigma that is Jim Cairns. Strangio offers a detailed analysis of Cairns' formative influences. He notes Cairns' difficult family upbringing including abandonment by his father, and regular physical and emotional separation from his mother. From an early age, Cairns was nurtured on an intellectual rather than affectionate basis. ... read more.
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