Two Radical Legends: Russel Ward, Humphrey McQueen and the New Left Challenge in Australian Historiography

In the late 1960s and 1970s, Russel Ward's "The Australian Legend" (1958) came under sustained critique from younger radical historians associated with the New Left. Following the most famous of these assaults by Humphrey McQueen around 1970, attacks on the Old Left in general and Ward in particular were nearly obligatory for young historians launching academic careers. Undertaken with varying degrees of vigour, they became a part of how to perform the role of radical historian in the 1970s, attesting to the powerful status Ward's "Legend" had achieved by this time.