Radicals — Remembering the Sixties
Edited by Meredith Burgmann and Nadia Wheatley
NewSouth Publishing, 1 April 2021
If you remember the Sixties you weren’t there.
The Sixties — an era of protest, free love, civil disobedience, duffel coats, flower power, giant afros and desert boots, all recorded on grainy black and white film footage — marked a turning point for change. Radicals found their voices and used them. While the initial trigger for protest was opposition to the Vietnam War, this anger quickly escalated to include Aboriginal Land Rights, Women’s Liberation, Gay Liberation, Apartheid, and ‘workers’ control’.
In Radicals, some of the people doing the changing reflect on how the decade changed them and Australian society forever. Fifty years on from that era, it is timely to consider the radicalisation of the generation who came of age in the Sixties — how our conversion to radical action came about, how it changed us, and how it changed the society in which we all live today.
Radicals – Remembering the Sixties will make you feel like you were there, whether or not you really were. Meredith Burgmann and Nadia Wheatley battled police on the barricades of many a campaign. Friends for over fifty years, they have joined forces to share their own memories of that time, and to showcase the stories of eighteen fellow-radicals.
Featuring:
Gary Foley, Geoffrey Robertson, Margret RoadKnight, Albert Langer (Arthur Dent), David Marr, Margaret Reynolds, Brian Laver, Bronwyn Penrith, Ellis D Fogg (Roger Foley), Peter Duncan, Vivienne Binns, Gary Williams, Peter Batchelor, Helen Voysey, John Derum, Robbie Swan, Jozefa Sobski, Peter Manning,
Selected Reviews
“Just like the Sixties, this book is a mesmerising kaleidoscope of unforgettable characters doing brave things inventing new ways to talk and act and express themselves and, above all, reinventing politics as their radicalised generation went to work to banish injustices like racism, sexism, conscription and, looming over everything else, the Vietnam War. We also are treated to their diverse personal stories, the family ties many of them needed to rebel against, and the inventing of new ways of living that still guide them today.”
“An exciting time of change that shaped Australia and the world for decades to come, perhaps forever. Thank you, Radicals — you made a better place for us.”
“Aah, the memories. What a buzz!”
“To achieve the change we desperately need now, it is crucial to look back on how we got the change we take for granted.”