
The Seventies
The Personal, the Political and the Making of Modern Australia
Michelle Arrow(Author)
NewSouth Publishing
Published on 1. March 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-1-74223-470-0 (ISBN)
Description
In 1970 homosexuality was illegal, God Save the Queen was our national anthem and women pretended to be married to access the pill. By the end of the decade conscription was scrapped, tertiary education was free, access to abortion had improved, the White Australia policy was abolished and a woman read the news on the ABC for the first time.
The Seventies was the decade that shaped modern Australia. It was the decade of 'It's Time', stagflation and the Dismissal, a tumultuous period of economic and political upheaval. But the Seventies was also the era when the personal became political, when we had a Royal Commission into Human Relationships and when social movements tore down the boundary between public and private life. Women wanted childcare, equal pay, protection from violence and agency to shape their own lives. In the process, the reforms they sought - and achieved, at least in part - reshaped Australia's culture and rewrote our expectations of government.
In a lively and engaging style, Michelle Arrow has written a new history of this transformative decade; one that is more urgent, and more resonant, than ever.
Sales Points
This book is the first to explore the impact of the 1970s on Australiansociety since Frank Crowley's Tough Times: Australia in the seventies,published over 30 years ago
Michelle Arrow was the joint winner of the 2014 NSW Premier'sHistory Awards Multimedia History Prize
She was the first historian to read the archives of the Royal Commissionon Human Relationships, an extraordinary social inquiry that hadbeen almost entirely forgotten until now. Has led to an award-winning radio documentary and to this book
Many accounts of the 1970s focus only on economic and politicalissues where this emphasises changing relationships, more openness to sex and sexuality, looking at gay and lesbian activists
One of the first books to address place of conservative anti-feminist activists at the time, such as Women Who Want To Be Women and the Festival of Light
The Seventies was the decade that shaped modern Australia. It was the decade of 'It's Time', stagflation and the Dismissal, a tumultuous period of economic and political upheaval. But the Seventies was also the era when the personal became political, when we had a Royal Commission into Human Relationships and when social movements tore down the boundary between public and private life. Women wanted childcare, equal pay, protection from violence and agency to shape their own lives. In the process, the reforms they sought - and achieved, at least in part - reshaped Australia's culture and rewrote our expectations of government.
In a lively and engaging style, Michelle Arrow has written a new history of this transformative decade; one that is more urgent, and more resonant, than ever.
Sales Points
This book is the first to explore the impact of the 1970s on Australiansociety since Frank Crowley's Tough Times: Australia in the seventies,published over 30 years ago
Michelle Arrow was the joint winner of the 2014 NSW Premier'sHistory Awards Multimedia History Prize
She was the first historian to read the archives of the Royal Commissionon Human Relationships, an extraordinary social inquiry that hadbeen almost entirely forgotten until now. Has led to an award-winning radio documentary and to this book
Many accounts of the 1970s focus only on economic and politicalissues where this emphasises changing relationships, more openness to sex and sexuality, looking at gay and lesbian activists
One of the first books to address place of conservative anti-feminist activists at the time, such as Women Who Want To Be Women and the Festival of Light
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Sydney, NSW
Australia
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
547 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-74223-470-0 (9781742234700)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
03/2019
NewSouth
€24.49
Available for download
Person
Michelle Arrow is an award-winning historian based in Sydney. Michelle is an Associate Professor in Modern History at Macquarie University, where she teaches and researches postwar Australian history, the history of popular culture, and the ways history is depicted in television and film. She has been a research fellow at the National Archives of Australia and the National Library of Australia. She has won a national award for her university teaching and her two books have both been shortlisted for several prizes. Michelle has also produced history for radio and television: in 2004, she was a historian-presenter for the ABC TV series Rewind, and in 2013, she made her first radio documentary, Public Intimacies: The Royal Commission on Human Relationships, which won the 2014 Multimedia prize in the NSW Premier's History Awards.