User:David H. Barrett

The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.

Although I trained in print journalism, a severe and terminal case of ethics meant I never practised. Instead, through a lucky break involving a dead great aunt, an inheritance and a Macintosh computer, I became a book editor and designer. I worked for some fifteen years in academic publishing, editing and designing books in the fields of art, anthropology, politics, history - in general, the humanities. In 2004 I began a new career teaching high school English and history, but have also taught geography, agriculture and mathematics.

My interests are eclectic and range from how many Shakespeares wrote those plays (I still like to think one, but I'm keeping an open mind) to the role of Bob Menzies in maintaining Cold War paranoia for decades in Australia. If Petrov had defected a couple of months later ...

I'm a fan of knowledge and the beauty of the written word, and have great faith in humanity - and no amount of peoples' inhumanity to people can shake that faith!

And if any extraterrestrial beings are reading this after our species has become extinct, maybe I was wrong on that last point ...

Notes to self ...

Ideas for future articles include:

• Republicanism in Australia
• Various articles on broad-brushstroke areas of Australian history (e.g. settlement, federation, world wars, Cold War era) plus more specific related articles
• Aboriginal history from settlement to the present, plus related articles (e.g. the Freedom Rides, National Sorry Day, Aboriginal Day of Mourning 1938, etc.)

More to come.