Geoff Harcourt
Hugh died last Saturday at the age of 91 after a long illness. I had known him since 1958 when I first came to Adelaide where he was the much-admired Professor of History. In later years we became firm friends, though I continued to regard him with awe and admiration. He was a giant intellect, easily Australia’s most deep and progressive thinker, and a remarkably kind and humane man who lived up to his ideals in many practical ways.
Having established an excellent History department, he resigned from his chair so that he could write. The first product of this new phase was The Political Sciences, published by Routledge in 1969, and named in the Times Literary Supplement as a work of ‘near genius’. It contains a most profound analysis of the inseparability of analysis and ideology in the social sciences.
He published privately his ground-breaking book, Ideas for Australian Cities in 1970, which then became a bestseller. Housing and Government, his Boyer Lectures, were published in 1974. His Cambridge University Press book, Capitalism, Socialism and the Environment (1976), was so far ahead of its time that it has not received the attention it should have. His volumes of essays analyse vital social, political and economic issues in Australian society. His ‘anti-Samuelson’ economics textbook, Economics: A New Introduction (1999), presents to students a viable alternative to mainstream economics.
Most of all, he was a loving and lovable person, always extraordinarily generous and supportive to his many friends and admirers (overlapping sets), and lovingly supportive and proud of his children. He and Pat had many years of deep love and support for one another. I doubt that we shall see his like again.
Geoff Harcourt is Emeritus Reader in the History of Economic Theory, Cambridge, Emeritus Fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge, Professor Emeritus, Adelaide, Visiting Professorial Fellow, UNSW Australia.
Suggested citation
Harcourt, Geoff, 'Hugh Stretton 1924–2015', Evatt Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, December 2015.<https://evatt.org.au/hugh-stretton-1924-2015>