TY  - BOOK
AU  - Wilks, Stephen
AB  - Earle Christmas Grafton Page (1880–1961) – surgeon, Country Party leader, treasurer and prime minister – was perhaps the most extraordinary visionary to hold high public office in twentieth-century Australia. Over decades, he made determined efforts to seize 'the psychological moment', and thereby realise his vision of a decentralised, regionalised and rationally ordered nation. Page’s unique dreaming of a very different Australia encompassed new states, hydroelectricity, economic planning, cooperative federalism and rural universities. His story casts light on the wider place in history of visions of national development. He was Australia’s most important advocate of developmentalism, the important yet little-studied stream of thought that assumes that governments can lead the nation to realise its economic potential. His audacious synthesis of ideas delineated and stretched the Australian political imagination. Page’s rich career confirms that Australia has long inspired popular ideals of national development, but also suggests that their practical implementation was increasingly challenged during the twentieth century. Effervescent, intelligent and somewhat eccentric, Page was one of Australia’s great optimists. Few Australian leaders who stood for so much have since been so neglected.
DO  - 10.22459/NPM.2020
ID  - OAPEN ID: ONIX_20201203_9781760463687_5
ID  - OAPEN ID: 51073
ID  - OAPEN ID: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/43141
KW  - Earle Page
KW  - development
KW  - Australia
KW  - decentralisation
L1  - https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/43141/1/book.pdf
LA  - English
LK  - https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/33698
PB  - ANU Press
PP  - Canberra
PY  - 2020
TI  - Now is the Psychological Moment' : Earle Page and the Imagining of Australia
ER  - 
