Joan Beaumont
Author of Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War
About the Author
Joan Beaumont is the author of Broken Nation which won the Asher Award 2015. This award is presented to a female writer whose work carries an anti-war theme, has been announced. The award included a $12,000 monetary prize. (Bowker Author Biography)
Works by Joan Beaumont
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Gender
- female
Members
Reviews
Awards
Statistics
- Works
- 13
- Members
- 115
- Popularity
- #170,830
- Rating
- 4.2
- Reviews
- 1
- ISBNs
- 30
Australia’s Great Depression by Jean Beaumont is a comprehensive examination of the global crisis’s impact on the nation, particularly between the years of 1929 and 1932. Australia was amongst the hardest hit nations, with the economic crash triggered by a combination of wartime and repatriation spending, the collapse of export markets like wheat and wool, the rising price of imports, and high overseas debts.
I have to admit that I found some of the economic and political detail to be tedious, but I do feel it was explained clearly.
Of more interest to me was the impact on the population. Unemployment in Australia ranged between 25 and 30 per cent, and was at its highest in 1932. Beaumont shows that not all sectors of the economy equally affected, and hence the impact of the Great Depression varied according to location, age, marital status, gender, ethnicity, class and former military service. I found the specifics of the variables to be intriguing , though none were too surprising.
I also found the brief discussion of the parallels between the behaviour of political parties and politicians around the Depression and the current economic downturn post-CoVid to be of interest. It was also interesting to note, given current woefully low unemployment payments, that the ‘susso’ payment introduced during the Great Depression, was similarly set at a meagre rate, and for almost the same reasons that the government uses to justify it today.
There is a collection of photographs and other images included at the end of the book. So too are Beaumont’s extensive lists of References and Notes for anyone interested in further reading.
At nearly 600 pages I wouldn’t recommend Australia’s Great Depression. to a casual reader unless the topic is of specific interest, but I feel I learnt a lot about the nation’s socioeconomic history and the complexity of the Great Depression experience by reading it.… (more)