McLaren, John (2003) Free radicals: on the left in postwar Melbourne. Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne.

Abstract

This is the story of three men, of their friendship and deep commitment to radical causes. Of the same age, the met at Melbourne University at the end of the Second World War and shared a radical vision of Australia. Along with some of the most intelligent, imaginative and freethinking people of their generation, Steven Murray-Smith, Ian Turner and Ken Gott submitted their minds and actions to the control of the Communist Party. The Party strongly influenced them, but they later rebelled against it. They held to their radicalism, however, and strove for liberty and social justice within Australia and peace abroad. Their robust Australian nationalism - they did much to further our knowledge of Australian literature, history, economics and culture - was matches by a dedication to internationalism. Friendship was also valued by them. They exchanged letters of honesty and intimacy, yet they were very different individuals. Their story gives us a window through which we can glimpse the passionate idealism of postwar Australia, its collapse into bickering and sterility, and the work of those who, through the years of adversity, nurtured its flame for a later generation.

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