1968 From the Vietnam War to Vietnamese Immigration: Melbourne’s Long “Sixties”

The significance and meanings of notable dates, eras and events are both highly historically-contested and geographically-specific. They are also often intensely personal. While the focus of most of the papers in this symposium is political Рthe ‘events’ of 1968 and the legacies of the protest movements of the 1960s in Australia and elsewhere Рmy introductory paper takes a more social and cultural approach to exploring the various meanings and legacies of ‘the Sixties’.
It does so by documenting a range of issues and events from the ‘long-1960s’ in Melbourne and speculates on their on-going effects on the city and Australian society more generally in the decades since.

Seamus O’Hanlon teaches contemporary and urban history at Monash University. His latest book is City Life: the new urban Australia, which has just been published by NewSouth.