Mateship

a very Australian history
Nick Dyrenfurth

‘[A] provocative and insightful book … the first significant exploration of what the author terms “our secular egalitarian creed” since Russel Ward’s path-breaking 1958 work The Australian Legend.’

Ross Fitzgerald, The Australian

‘[A] detailed, nuanced and readable study, which charts the evolution of the concept in all its complexity’

Steven Carroll, Sydney Morning Herald

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‘Laudably [Dyrenfurth's] history and study of mateship is not partisan. His view is balanced and he acknowledges that neither side of politics has exclusive rights to mateship … [it] belongs as equally to the right as to the left and for everyone in between’

Phil Brown, Courier Mail

A ‘mate’ is a mate, right? Wrong, argues Nick Dyrenfurth in this provocative new look at one of Australia’s most talked-about beliefs.

In the first book-length exploration of our secular creed, one of Australia’s leading young historians and public commentators turns mateship’s history upside down. Did you know that the first Australians to call each other ‘mate’ were business partners? Or that many others thought that mateship would be the basis for creating an entirely new society — namely, a socialist one? For some, the term ‘mate’ is ‘the nicest word in the English language’; for others, it represents the very worst features in our nation’s culture: conformity, bullying, corruption, racism, and misogyny. So what does mateship really mean?

Covering more than 200 years of white-settler history, Mateship demonstrates the richness and paradoxes of the Antipodean version of fraternity, and how everyone — from the early convicts to our most recent prime ministers, on both sides of politics — have valued it.

Ross Fitzgerald, The Australian

‘[A] detailed, nuanced and readable study, which charts the evolution of the concept in all its complexity’

Steven Carroll, Sydney Morning Herald

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size:

Extent:256pp

ISBN (13):9781925106350

RRP:$29.99

Pub date:5 Jan 2015

Rights Held: World

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Nick Dyrenfurth

Dr Nick Dyrenfurth is an adjunct research fellow in the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University in Melbourne. Nick is the author or editor of several books on Australian politics and history, including A Little History of the Australian Labor Party (2011, with Frank Bongiorno), Heroes and Villains: the rise and fall of the early Australian Labor Party (2011), All That’s Left: what Labor should stand for (2010, co-edited with Tim Soutphommasane), and Confusion: the making of the Australian two-party system (2009, co-edited with Paul Strangio). Nick is a leading media commentator, having written for The Age, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, The Daily Telegraph, The Canberra Times, The Saturday Paper, and The Monthly, as well as having frequently appeared on television and radio stations across the nation.