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{{Use Australian English|date=November 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2021}}
{{Infobox
| image =
▲| name = Humphrey McQueen
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| caption =
| birth_date
| birth_place = [[Brisbane]], [[Qld]], [[Australia]]
| death_date =
| death_place =
| era =
|alma_mater = [[University of Queensland]] ([[Bachelor of Arts#Australia.2C Canada.2C New Zealand.2C South Africa|B.A (Hons.)]])▼
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| workplaces = [[Australian National University]]<br/>
▲| alma_mater
| thesis_title =
| thesis_url =
| thesis_year =
| doctoral_advisor =
| doctoral_students =
| notable_students =
| school_tradition =
| main_interests = Australian history, capitalism, slavery
| principal_ideas =
| major_works = ''A New Britannia'' (1970), ''Social Sketches of Australia'' (1978)
| awards = Literature Board, [[Australia Council]] (1975, 1979–1980, 1998)<br/><ref name="surplusvalue.org.au">{{cite web|url=http://surplusvalue.org.au/McQueen/abiog.htm|title=abiography|access-date=1 May 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170217083008/http://surplusvalue.org.au/McQueen/abiog.htm|archive-date=17 February 2017}}</ref>
| influences = [[Karl Marx]], [[Antonio Gramsci]], [[Manning Clark]], [[Georg Lukacs]]
| influenced = [[Elizabeth Humphrys]]
| website = https://www.surplusvalue.org.au/index.html
| footnotes =
}}
'''Humphrey Dennis McQueen''' (born 26 June 1942) is an Australian
==Early life
McQueen was born in [[Brisbane]] to a
==
===
McQueen's first job was as a clerk, third division, at the [[Department of Social Services (1939–1972)|Department of Social Services]] in 1960.<ref>Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 10 March 1960, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/241002458?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref> He left the Commonwealth Public Service soon afterwards to undertake a Bachelor of Arts degree at the [[University of Queensland]] where he graduated with Honours degree in 1965.<ref name="surplusvalue.org.au"/> The 'burly, goatee bearded...freethinker' was suspended from the university in 1962 when he reproduced the opinions of Peter Kenny, an [[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] researcher, in 1962.<ref>The Canberra Times, 26 July 1962, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/131728399?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref> Kenny had argued that the existence of a god was debatable and that homosexuality should be celebrated as much as heterosexuality.<ref>Thurunka, 29 March 1962, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/230410260?searchTerm=peter%20kenny%20morals%20abc</ref> The panel appointed to judge the 'bearded' McQueen found him guilty but declined to punish him.<ref>The Canberra Times, 02 August, 1962, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/131729240?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref>
McQueen was an active participant in the anti-Vietnam War movement in Australia,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://vietnam-war.commemoration.gov.au/conscription/moratoriums-and-opposition.php|title=Australia and the Vietnam War - Conscription - Moratoriums and Opposition|access-date=1 May 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170221181038/http://vietnam-war.commemoration.gov.au/conscription/moratoriums-and-opposition.php|archive-date=21 February 2017}}</ref> campaigning against conscription as chairman of the [[Melbourne]]-based Revolutionary Socialist Group in 1968. His organisational engagement shaped his interest in [[Maoist]] and [[Gramscian]] theory, influencing his subsequent historical work.<ref>Pascoe, R 1979, The Manufacture of Australian History, Oxford University Press, Oxford</ref> He had also been secretary the Vietnam Day Committee in Melbourne when it held a vigil outside the United States Consulate and picketed the Defence Standards Laboratories in 1967.<ref>Tribune, 05 July, 1967, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/237358252?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref><ref>Tribune, 01 November, 1967, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/237358524?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref> From 1966 to 1969 he was employed as a teacher at Glen Waverley High in Victoria.
McQueen’s early academic writing was intent on dispelling the approaches to labour history generated by the Australian Old Left,<ref>Fitzpatrick, B 1944, A Short History of the Australian Labor Movement, Macmillan, Melbourne.</ref><ref>Turner, I 1965, Industrial Labour and Politics: The Labour Movement in Eastern Australia: 1900–1921, Australian National University, Canberra.</ref> especially [[Russel Ward]]'s ''The Australian Legend''.<ref>Ward, R 1958, The Australian Legend, Oxford University Press, Oxford</ref> His critique was first developed in "Convicts and Rebels",<ref name="auto2">McQueen, H 1968, "Convicts and Rebels", Labour History, Vol. 15, pp. 3–30.</ref> in which McQueen contested the Australian [[Whig history]]<ref>Martin, A W 1962/2007, The Whig View of Australian History: And Other Essays, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne.</ref><ref>Connell, R W 1974, "Images of Australia", in D E Edgar (ed.) Social Change in Australia: Readings in Sociology, Cheshire Books, Sydney.</ref> associated with the Old Left.<ref name="auto3">Williams-Brooks, Llewellyn (2016). "Radical Theories of Capitalism in Australia", Honours Thesis, University of Sydney, viewed 20 April 2017, [http://hdl.handle.net/2123/16655]</ref> As he argued:▼
===Academia===
▲
In 1970, he moved to [[Canberra]], where he taught [[Australian history]] as a senior tutor at the [[Australian National University]] from 1970 to 1974.<ref name="surplusvalue.org.au"/> He met and befriended the historian, [[Manning Clark]].<ref name="auto1"/> Soon after starting at the university, McQueen registered his disapproval of the History Department's decision to allow the Faculty of Military Studies at [[Royal Military College, Duntroon]] to join ANU (it was affiliated already with UNSW).<ref>Woroni, 23 June 1970, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140092088?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref> Although many agreed with McQueen's argument that Duntroon did not allow the right to free thought, fundamental to the liberal conception of a university, the department approved the request.
Receptions of the book were mixed. Terry Irving in reviewing A New Britannia, highlighted the work's theoretical legacy, but also the need to produce a more developed theoretical engagement. He stated that A New Britannia "Will provoke angry discussion, but I hope it will also provoke the new left to develop the methodology necessary to write a new history".<ref>Irving, T 1970, "Head-Standing", Bulletin, 12 Dec, pp. 55–57</ref> This observation would influence the development of another hallmark of the Australian New Left, [[Class Structure in Australian History]].<ref>Irving, T & Connell, R 1979, Class Structure in Australian History, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne.</ref><ref>Williams-Brooks, Llewellyn (2016). "Radical Theories of Capitalism in Australia", Honours Thesis, University of Sydney, viewed 20 April 2017</ref> The [[Papua New Guinea Post-Courier]] said, 'Mr Humphrey McQueen is a very angry young man, and there is plenty of justification for this in Australia.'<ref>Papua New Guinea Post-Courier, 18 December 1970, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/250250200?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref> The [[Canberra Times]] said, 'In order to encompass such a wide range McQueen has obviously left gaps in his argument, but this matters little... He is concerned to show that the projection of radicalism and nationalism into socialism and anti-imperialism is mythical. This he does, as others have done, but will such attacks ever kill the myth?'<ref>The Canberra Times, 12 December 1970, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110443365?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref> [[Rowan Cahill]] in [[Tribune (Australian newspaper)|Tribune]] said, 'The trouble is when you dash around frantically from one battlefield to another, like as not you'll end up shooting the wrong people. I believe this is what he has done... McQueen notes that revolutionaries in power have sometimes distorted history in order to stay there; I add the note that in attempting to search out a strategy for coming to power we have to be careful that something similar is not also done.'<ref>Tribune, 16 December 1970, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/237507574?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref> The journalist W.A. Wood in Tribune attacked the book calling McQueen 'Mr Justice McQueen'.<ref>Tribune, 19 May 1971, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/237868128?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref>
▲In 1970, McQueen wrote ''A New Britannia'', an historical analysis of the emergence and development of the Australian labour movement. It influentially<ref name="auto1"/> argued that the history of the Australian labour movement, from colonisation to [[Australian federation]] (1788-1901), should be understood as an extension of [[Imperialism]]<ref>Lenin, V I 1899/1964, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, Progress Publishers, Moscow.</ref> within the [[British Empire]]. The argument challenged existing account of the labour movement emerging from the Australian Old Left, which had mythologised the nation-building and democratic nature of the movement. In seeking to challenge accounts of Australian history presented in the Old Left, McQueen established the grounds to contest the Whig tradition in Australian scholarship.<ref name="auto3"/> He identified that British imperialism cannot be separated from the experience of capitalism in Australia, and that Australian identity should be reconsidered in light of the role that racism and [[Patriarchy]] had played in development of the Australian labour movement.<ref name="auto3"/> Together with an application of British New Left theorists, [[Perry Anderson]]<ref>Anderson, P 1964, "The Origins of the Present Crisis", New Left Review, Vol. 23, viewed 16 September 2016, {{cite web |url=https://newleftreview.org/I/23/perry-anderson-origins-of-the-present-crisis |title=Perry Anderson: Origins of the Present Crisis. New Left Review I/23, January-February 1964 |access-date=20 April 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170420151214/https://newleftreview.org/I/23/perry-anderson-origins-of-the-present-crisis |archive-date=20 April 2017}}.</ref> and [[Tom Nairn]],<ref>Nairn, T 1964, "The Nature of the Labour Party", New Left Review, Vol. 27, No. 38, viewed 29 September 2016, {{cite web |url=https://newleftreview.org/I/27/tom-nairn-the-nature-of-the-labour-party-part-i |title=Tom Nairn: The Nature of the Labour Party (Part I). New Left Review I/27, September-October 1964 |access-date=20 April 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170420160707/https://newleftreview.org/I/27/tom-nairn-the-nature-of-the-labour-party-part-i |archive-date=20 April 2017}}.</ref> the approach redefined the nature of Australian historical enquiry, which would prove to be influential in the discipline of history.<ref name="auto1"/>
In 1971, McQueen wrote a review against [[Christopher Hitchens]] calling his work on Marx 'acceptable as a fourth year honours
essay but it would not be remarkable even as that' and 'it would be useful for a student with no more than an hour to prepare for a tutorial on the subject.'<ref>Woroni, 06 September, 1971, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140092995?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref> McQueen said of his teaching style, 'History is a study of the development of
society — the society as a whole ... the bourgeoisie have isolated and categorized scholarship in such a way as to eliminate the study of the interaction of all social factors, environment, politics and economics... my course is designed to restore histor-y to a study of society as a whole.'<ref>Woroni, 09 March, 1972, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140093515?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref>
McQueen called for a boycott of the 1972 election because the ALP under [[Gough Whitlam]] would be 'even more imperialist
in its policy towards South East Asia.'<ref>Woroni, 11 October 1972, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140093417?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref> [[Mungo Wentworth MacCallum|Mungo McCallum]] said McQueen was 'a middle-class academic putting forward views, on the ideal society but without suggesting realistic proposals to attain it.' McQueen was charged along with 8 undergraduates for encouraging people to defy the draft, but charges was later dropped.<ref>Canberra Times, 16 December 1972, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110625865?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref> Along with his long-time friend, Bruce McFarlane and others, he contributed to a five-part series on Marx aired by ABC Radio Two in 1973 which became a book.<ref>Tribune, 16 January 1973, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/236856243?searchTerm=humphrey%20mcqueen</ref>
==Independent career==
By 1978, McQueen had left ANU and had shifted away from his earlier work as he became increasingly influenced by Maoism.<ref>Bongiorno, "Two Radicals"</ref> This led McQueen to depart from ''A New Britannia'' and the Gramscian New Left, a process he described in the 2004 edition. McQueen believed in a fusion between the philosophical and economic Marx, which was a midway between the two competing interpretations of Marxism that had preoccupied radicals since the 1920s.<ref>Long, Malcolm 1973, Marx and Beyond, Australian Broadcasting Commission, Sydney.</ref> McQueen's fourth book was ''Social Sketches of Australia'' (1978), a social history of Australia since the late nineteenth century. Continuing on from early work, Social Sketches was a correction to the secondary source focus of ''A New Britannia'', focusing instead on primary sources and the perspectives of minorities.<ref>Piccini, Jon 2011, “Reading Humphrey McQueen’s A New Britannia in De-colonial Times,” Overland 224, pp. 12-20.</ref>
McQueen's work since the 1970s has been varied, ranging from historiographical works to art history and the importance of British slavery to the development of capitalism.
==Personal life==
McQueen was married to Judy McQueen.
==Bibliography==
{{Australian socialism}}
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[[Category:People educated at Marist College Ashgrove]]
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