ABSTRACT

Let me explain. One fateful morning which must have been in May or June of 1959, shortly before taking final exams at Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, I walked out of College before breakfast and bought a copy of the Manchester Guardian. There I found an advertisement for PhD scholarships at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Over that summer I applied for several jobs and various scholarships, but with little success. The application that I put in to the ANU was more a matter of routine than in pursuit of a clear ambition. Indeed, the fact that I had applied was something half-forgotten when, about three months later, I received a two-line acknowledgement on a postcard sent from Australia by sea mail. But a few days after that I took a phone call from my Oxford politics tutor telling me the ANU was offering me a scholarship.