Australian Universities A History of Common Cause

Few of Australia's institutions are as significant or as complex as its universities. This first comprehensive history of Australia's university system explores how universities work and for whom, and how their relationship with each other, their staff and students, and the public has evolved over a century. This book tells the story of how Australia's universities have expanded to usher in an era of much wider participation in higher education, and shaped and been shaped by internationalisation. Since coming together as a system, universities have played a profound role in Australia's development, from making research a national undertaking during the Great Depression and embracing reconstruction after World War II to being at the forefront of the establishment of the internet in Australia. Australian Universities is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand where Australian universities have come from, and where they are heading.

Gwilym Croucher is a Senior Lecturer in the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, and Program Director at the LH Martin Institute. He is a co-author of two histories with Stuart Macintyre and André Brett: Life After Dawkins: The University of Melbourne in the Unified National System of Higher Education; and No End of a Lesson: The Creation and Consequences of Australia’s Unified National System of Higher Education. James Waghorne is a Senior Research Fellow, who leads the University History Program in the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne. He is the author of Liberty: A History of Civil Liberties in Australia, co-authored with Stuart Macintyre, and The First World War, the Universities and the Professions in Australia, 1914–1936, co-edited with Kate Darian-Smith.