Nugget Coombs: A Reforming Life
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 7/23/2002
EAN 9780521817837, ISBN10: 0521817838
Hardcover, 430 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm
Language: English
H. C. Coombs was one of the most influential Australians of the twentieth century. Born in 1906, he is best known as the governor of the Reserve Bank, but the breadth of his activities and his commitment to public life until his death is unsurpassed. Tim Rowse traces Coombs' life from his childhood in Western Australia to his many roles as policy maker, change agent, advocate and adviser. Particularly interested in Coombs as an economist, Tim Rowse shows that a key motif in his life as a public servant was to create an economic rationality among the political elite that was socially integrative and that looked beyond the strictures of economics to environmental sustainability, scientific and artistic creativity. This 2002 book covers Coombs' life from birth to death, providing intriguing insights into the life of one of Australia's most influential people.
Part I. Learning and Teaching
1. Childhood and youth
2. Schooling
3. Self-possession
4. Busselton
5. Claremont
6. Wheat belt days
7. Night student
8. Finding the words
9. Representing
10. Murdoch
Part II. Liberalism's Crisis
11. LSE student
12. Politics v. economics
13. The money power and its critics
14. Poor Britain
Part III. The Experts we Need
15. A vacancy?
16. The economists
17. From people's bank to central bank
18. Sweden and Australia
Part IV. New Orders
19. Trusting the people
20. Reconstruction and feminism
21. Fighting for 'yes'
22. Soldiers and workers
Part V. Internationalist
23. Labor's new internationalism
24. The diplomacy of security
25. Success in London
26. Global temptations
27. Geneva
28. Havana
29. An official community
30. Coombs the Keynesian
Part VI. From Labor to Liberal
31. Chifley's 'family'
32. The commanding heights?
33. The Cold War and CSIRO
34. Vice Chancellor?
35. Reconstructing Papua New Guinea
36. Governor and father
37. Chifley's man
38. Menzies' man?
39. Corporate Elizabethan
Part VII. Other People's Money
40. Inflation and war
41. Wage earners' democracy
42. Horror budget
43. The Governor muted
44. Stern mentor?
45. Coombs as boss
46. Carrots and sticks
47. Women at the bank
48. A culture of inflation
49. Separation
50. A Melanesian way?
51. Poor man's overdraft
52. Frustrated internationalist
Part VIII. Managing Creativity
53. Reasonable liberty
54. Visualising Australia
55. Nuclear matters
56. Opera
57. Ballet
58. In search of an audience
59. Re-designing Australia
Part IX. Labor's Second Chance
60. Retirement
61. Whitlam conscripts Coombs
62. Trade reform
63. Two cultural constituencies
64. Wages and taxes
Part X. Rethink
65. The stuffed owl of Minerva
66. Nature and human nature
67. Economies and communities
68. Losing the master key
69. The responsive public servant
Part XI. Elite Outrider
70. Torres Strait
71. Conservation and Aborigines
72. Bapa Dhumbul
Conclusion
histories nostalgic and hopeful.
'This is a remarkable study both for the depth of the research, the intellectual range of the analysis, and the sheer force of the exposition. I recommend it wholeheartedly.' Stuart Macintyre 'This is an excellent account of an excellent Australian.' Professor Geoffrey Bolton