The French Revolution seen from the Terres Australes

Abstract

The history of the French Revolution was taught in the first Australian universities as part of courses on modern European history. At the University of Melbourne, for example, the foundation professor of history, William Edward Hern, examined the earliest students in the 1850s through their study of Carlyle, Lamartine and Tocqueville. Subsequently, Ernest Scott between the world wars and Max Crawford and Kathleen Fitzpatrick after World War II taught about the French Revolution in the context of European history. But it was really only after a highly controversial academic scandal in the 1950s that one may speak of Australian contributions to research on the revolutionary period.