Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC (born 11 March 1930), is one of Australia's most significant historians. He is eminent both in academic circles and in the public mind, particularly after a controversy in 1984 over immigration policy. Insignia of a Companion of the Order of Australia. ... is the 70th day of the year (71st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A historian is an individual who studies history and who writes on history. ... See also: 1983 in Australia, other events of 1984, 1985 in Australia See also: 1984 Australian incumbents // Queen of Australia - Queen Elizabeth II Governor General - Sir Ninian Stephen Prime Minister - Bob Hawke Premier of New South Wales - Neville Wran Premier of South Australia - John Bannon Premier of Queensland - Sir Joh...

Blainey was born in Melbourne and raised in a series of Victorian country towns before attending Wesley College and the University of Melbourne. While at university he was editor of Farrago, the newspaper of the University of Melbourne Student Union. He was appointed to a teaching post at the University of Melbourne in 1962, becoming Professor of Economic History in 1968, Professor of History in 1977, and then Dean of Melbourne's Faculty of Arts in 1982. From 1994 to 1998 Blainey was foundation Chancellor at the University of Ballarat. Melbourne (pronounced ) is the second most populous city in Australia, with a metropolitan area population of approximately 3. ... Slogan or Nickname: Garden State, The Place to Be Motto(s): Peace and Prosperity Other Australian states and territories Capital Melbourne Government Constitutional monarchy Governor David de Kretser Premier Steve Bracks (resigning effective 30th July 2007) (ALP) Federal representation  - House seats 37  - Senate seats 12 Gross State Product (2004-05... Wesley College is an independent, co-educational, day school, located at St Kilda Road, Glen Waverley, Elsternwick & Clunes, in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ... The University of Melbourne, is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. ... The student union, one of several student organisations at the University of Melbourne, Australia, is divided into two parts. ... Year 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The University of Ballarat is a dual-sector university in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. ...

Career

His first major project in the 1950's was, as an author and researcher working on the history of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company, at Queenstown, Tasmania when a significant number of the older residents could remember the beginnings of the community. The resultant book is one of the few company and local histories in Australia to achieve six editions. He has since published 32 books, including his highly acclaimed, A Short History Of The World. Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company was a Tasmanian mining company formed on the 29 March 1893, most commonly referred to as Mount Lyell. ... Queenstown is a town on the West Coast of the island of Tasmania, Australia. ...

Blainey has had an exceptionally long and distinguished career in Australian academia. He was a Professor of Economic History and later the Ernest Scott Professor of History at the University of Melbourne. He held a Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University. He is listed as one of the Australian Living Treasures. Geoffrey Blainey was Chairman of the Australia Council for four years and Chairman of the Australia-China Council from its inception in 1979 until June 1984. In 2001, he was the Chairman of the National Council for the Centenary of Federation. From 1994 to 1998, he was the Foundation Chancellor of the University of Ballarat.^[1] Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... Australian Living Treasures are people who have been nominated by the National Trust of Australia. ... The Australia Council for the Arts (commonly called the Australia Council) is the Australian Governments arts council. ... The University of Ballarat is a dual-sector university in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. ...

Among many other posts, Blainey has served on the Council of Australian War Memorial since 1997, the Council of National Council for the Centenary of Federation since 1997, and the Council of the Royal Humane Society of Australasia since 1997. He writes sporadic columns regarding history for The Australian a national newspaper. The Australian War Memorial is Australias national memorial to the members of all its armed forces and supporting organizations who have died in the wars of the Commonwealth of Australia. ... The Australian (informally referred to as The Oz) is a national daily broadsheet newspaper published by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation. ...

In 2001, Blainey presented the Boyer Lectures on the theme This Land is all Horizons: Australian Fears and Visions.^[2] See also: 2000 in Australia, other events of 2001, 2002 in Australia See also: 2001 Australian incumbents // Incumbents Prime Minister - John Howard Governor General - Sir William Deane, then Peter Hollingworth Premier of New South Wales - Bob Carr Premier of South Australia - John Olsen, then Rob Kerin Premier of Queensland - Peter... The Boyer Lectures began in 1959 as the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Lectures. ...

Views on Asian immigration

In March 1984, Blainey commented to a group of Rotarians in the Southern Victorian town of Warrnambool that public opinion would not support the rate of Asian immigration to Australia. Speaking of South East Asian immigrants, he said: "Rarely in the history of the modern world has a nation given such preference to a tiny ethnic minority of its population as the Australian Government has done in the past few years, making that minority the favoured majority in its immigration policy." He further stated: "As a people, we seem to move from extreme to extreme. In the past 30 years the government of Australia has moved from the extreme of wanting a white Australia to the extreme of saying that we will have an Asian Australia and that the quicker we move towards it the better." Warrnambool is a regional city of 29,500 people on the south-western coast of Victoria, Australia, located in the municipality City of Warrnambool. ...

These and other comments, later expanded upon in a book entitled All for Australia, caused some controversy, and 24 historians from the University of Melbourne signed a public letter distancing themselves from his views.^[3] Many of Blainey's colleagues argued that his views were divisive and would inflame racism in Australia. All for Australia is a controversial 1984 book by Australian historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey. ...

For the most part, Blainey stayed silent following his comments in Warnambool as others debated the merits of his opinions.^[4] Blainey's views were widely reported in overseas countries,^{[citation needed]} particularly in Asia and there was a fear, subsequently discounted, that Australia's trading relations with its Asian neignbours would be affected by his comments.^{[citation needed]} In 1988, Blainey resigned from the University of Melbourne to which he had given most of his working life because of the hostility from many of his colleagues following his speech in Warnambool.^[5] More than two decades later, in the more conservative climate of 2005, the University of Melbourne attempted to make restitution for their treatment of Blainey by naming a Chair in Australian history in his honour.^{[citation needed]}

Although Blainey's book Triumph of the Nomads was considered to be a scholarly study into the history of Australia's original inhabitants, his opinions opposing High Court decisions in favour of Aboriginal land rights put him in the line of fire and once again led to accusations of racism.

Blainey and the History Wars

Blainey has been an important but low-key contributor to the debate over Australian history and settlement often referred to as the History Wars. Blainey coined the term the "Black armband view of history" to refer to those historians, usually leftist, who accused Australians of genocide against Aborigines having previously referred to nationalistic histories as the "three cheers" school.^[6] The History wars are an ongoing public debate over the interpretation of the history of the white colonisation of Australia and its influence on responses to the current situation of the original inhabitants of the land. ... The black armband view of history is a phrase coined by Australian historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey in his 1993 Sir John Latham Memorial Lecture. ...

Awards

• Order of Australia (1975).
• Companion in the Order of Australia (2000).

See also: 1974 in Australia, other events of 1975, 1976 in Australia and the Timeline of Australian history. ... See also: 1999 in Australia, other events of 2000, 2001 in Australia See also: 2000 Australian incumbents // Incumbents Prime Minister - John Howard Governor General - Sir William Deane Premier of New South Wales - Bob Carr Premier of South Australia - John Olsen Premier of Queensland - Peter Beattie Premier of Tasmania - Jim Bacon...

Bibliography

• The Peaks of Lyell, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Vic., 1954.
• The Rush That Never Ended: A History of Australian Mining, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Vic., 1963.
• Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia's History, Sun Books, Melbourne, Vic., 1966.
• Triumph of the Nomads: A History of Ancient Australia, Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic., 1975.
• A land half won, Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic., 1980.
• All for Australia, Methuen Haynes, North Ryde, N.S.W., 1984.
• A Short History of the World, Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Vic., 2000.
• Black Kettle & Full Moon: Daily Life in a Vanished Australia, Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Vic., 2004.
• A Short History of the Twentieth Century, Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Vic., 2006.

The Peaks of Lyell is a book by Geoffrey Blainey, originally published in 1954. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1984 Gregorian calendar). ... A Short History of The World isnt a general history book by Luke Berry and Christopher Duffield, which explains some areas of history in ordinary language. ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays full 2006 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Biography

• (2003) in Deborah Gare, Geoffrey Bolton, Stuart Macintyre and Tom Stannage (eds): The Fuss that Never Ended: The Life and Work of Geoffrey Blainey. Melbourne, Victoria: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-85034-0. 

References

1. ^ Wickham, Dorothy (2005). Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Blainey (1930-); Historian and author; Foundation Chancellor of the University of Ballarat. UB Honour Roll. University of Ballarat. Retrieved on 2007-02-11.
2. ^ This Land is all Horizons: Australian Fears and Visions. Boyer Lectures. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (2001). Retrieved on 2007-02-11.
3. ^ Letter to the Age of 19 May 1984 signed by 24 historians in quoted in Morgan, Hugh (2006). Can Australia Survive the 21stCentury? (pdf). The Wilfred Brookes Memorial Lecture. Deakin University.
4. ^ Speaking in an interview in August 2006, Blainey said "there was a book written against me in 1985, called, I think, Surrender Australia. It was the work of a group of academics, some of whom I knew, and it attacked me in virtually every field in which I'd written. Fortunately, before the book came out, I got some excellent advice from Sir John Bunting, the former head of the Prime Minister's Department, with whom I'd served on the Australia Council. He told me: "You have to acknowledge the book's existence. Write something for the Age and the [Melbourne] Herald, then say nothing at all. In no circumstances must you go on television or radio." ...I followed it to the letter." [1]
5. ^ Blainey's comments in interview with Frank Devine of Quadrant published in October 2006
6. ^ Gordon, Michael. "Going down in history", The Age, 6 September 2003. Retrieved on 2007-02-11. 

Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 42nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Australian Broadcasting Corporation or ABC is Australias national non-profit public broadcaster. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 42nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Hugh Matheson Morgan AC, (born September 9, 1940), an Australian businessman, is the son of former Western Mining Corporation CEO Bill Morgan, and was himself CEO of Western Mining Corporation from 1990 to 2003, and President of the Business Council of Australia from 2003 to 2005. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 42nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Works by Geoffrey Blainey
• Works about Geoffrey Blainey
• ABC Interview with audio