Cultural abundance, economic scarcity: cultural studies, economics, and contemporary Australian history

Abstract

Economic related topics and themes are scant within contemporary Australian historiography. Although economic subjects have been covered extensively in the past, and although they are not entirely absent, they seem either dated or marginalised. To rectify this, this article promotes the emerging ‘history of capitalism’ field, which seeks to not only apply the prevailing methods of cultural history to economics, but to also revise them by reconnecting subjectivity and objectivity. It is argued that this is a very powerful and important approach, which allows historians to demystify economics and to challenge the ideas advanced by niche specialists and ideologues.