Stuart Macintyre - Publications

Publications

As a historian Macintyre has been prolific. He has published numerous books, including a history of Marxism in the United Kingdom in the early 20th century, based on his doctoral thesis, a history of the labour movement in Australia,, and Reds, this last being a history of the CPA.

Perhaps his most widely known work is The History Wars (with Anna Clark), a study of the history wars, a public debate about the recent interpretation of various aspects of the history of Australia. The book was launched by former Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating, who took the opportunity to criticise conservative views of Australian history, and those who hold them (such as the then current Prime Minister John Howard), saying that they suffered from "a failure of imagination", and said that The History Wars "rolls out the canvas of this debate." Macintyre's critics, such as Greg Melluish (History Lecturer at the University of Wollongong), responded to the book by declaring that Macintyre was a partisan history warrior himself, and that "its primary arguments are derived from the pro-Communist polemics of the Cold War." Keith Windschuttle said that Macintyre attempted to "caricature the history debate" but failed to explain what he meant. In a foreword to the book, former Chief Justice of Australia Sir Anthony Mason said that the book was "a fascinating study of the recent endeavours to rewrite or reinterpret the history of European settlement in Australia."