Labour Historians as Labour Intellectuals: Generations and Crises

Terry Irving, University of Wollongong
Sean Scalmer, University of Melbourne

Abstract

Over the last nine decades Australian labour historians have been engaged in a massive, ongoing, fractious, collective intellectual project. This chapter argues that labour historians should understand their role historically, as labour intellectuals, and sketches three generational moments in the history of labour history intellectuals. We conclude that labour history is a popular, collective, democratic, regional, and political form of history-writing.