Analytical frameworks of Australia's economic history

Abstract

Australian economic history as a branch of social science has had a history of disputation and debate between different approaches. Broad consensus about the main causal forces and explanations of this historical process has been difficult to construct and ideological predispositions have been influential. This is no different from the experience of other countries or disciplines. Economic history has been part of a broader western and later global intellectual development that, while exhibiting some distinctive features of Australia's historical trajectory and economic structure, has evolved in a dynamic context of local and international issues, problems and ideas. As in all social sciences, intellectual frameworks and viewpoints have played a role just as important as problems of describing and explaining the evolving economic reality. The truth of economic history, as with all the social sciences, is not given objectively in reality in some immediate way but has to be conceptualised, discovered, debated and constantly investigated and re-examined in a broadly improving research process. In the 21st century there is good reason to think that convergence between approaches has grown and that a new consensus could be emerging.