Griffith

• Donald had written an essay called “Mind, body, age” that vigorously burst from the page with life, while addressing death.
• Being out of the loop, no longer an active participant in the cultural life of his beloved Sydney, hurt him.
• In his accomplished and insightful biography Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country, Ryan Cropp puts the man in his context and, without a heavy hand, helps us understand his motivating psychology.
• Good biographies can be like that – Robert Caro is still finishing the biographical series on Lyndon Johnson he started 50 years ago.
• Read more:
  Donald Horne's 'lucky country' and the decline of the public intellectual

The Lucky Country

• Horne is best known as the author of The Lucky Country – a book that seemed to capture the zeitgeist when it was published, reluctantly, by Penguin in 1964.
• The issues explored in The Lucky Country changed with new versions, but the critique remained: Australia got by on luck; it was held back by second-rate leaders who lacked vision, imagination and even a realistic assessment of its place in the world.
• The Lucky Country, which owes more to his journalism than the more ambitiously polished writing in The Education of Young Donald, was a two-way mirror, revealing the nation to itself and him to it.
• Read more:
  An armchair, a desk and 4000 books: the Horne family study gets a second life

Changing contexts

• Cropp shows he has mastered the historian’s essential skill of avoiding this trap, while keeping the narrative moving with fresh and lively writing.
• One striking contrast is between Horne’s confidence in Hayek’s wartime anti-bureaucratic, libertarian ethos, and Gough Whitlam’s rejection of it.
• He was bored and wrote many letters to his mother (like so many others now preserved in archival boxes).
• Times change, contexts shift, and responses by thoughtful people are recalibrated.

Intellectual tradition

• His teachings and methods helped shape a Sydney intellectual tradition that still echoes today.
• For those untouched by this tradition it was mystifying, but for those like Horne, Murray Sayle, Paddy McGuinness and many others, it provided an enduring framework that had the benefit of flexibility.
• The cynical, libertarian realist became, by the late 1960s, more optimistic and more open to what Cropp characterises as “opportunities for civic renewal”.
• The discipline of a biography, even one as grounded in public events as this, is that it demands a singular focus.

The cultural conversation

• The coincidence of the publication of Horne’s Observer, funded by Frank Packer, and Tom Fitzgerald’s Nation in the late 1950s spoke to the need to aerate the national political and cultural conversation.
• Cropp conveys a sense of this through the slightly limited prism of Horne’s worldview, with its emphasis on business, religion, Asia and politics.
• Cropp has captured a full life, well lived, that was a tribute to the importance of paying attention and making a difference.

• Washington, D.C., Aug. 01, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UNCF (United Negro College Fund) leadership is pleased to announce the promotion of Larry A. Griffith to executive vice president for programs and student services.
• “Thanks to the outstanding leadership of Larry Griffith, UNCF has become the nation’s largest provider of scholarships to students of color.
• UNCF annually awards more than 10,000 scholarships worth about $70 million, and supports more than 60,000 students in its programs, services and member institutions.
• Griffith previously served as senior vice president for UNCF programs and student services.

• TEMPE, Ariz., April 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Moov , the world's largest and fastest growing marketplace for used semiconductor equipment, today announced that Nicholas Griffith has been promoted to the newly created role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
• Griffith has been at the helm of Moov's technology and product leadership since joining the company as Head of Technology in 2020.
• Under Griffith, Moov has vastly expanded its client-facing cloud platform, enabling manufacturers to manage, transact, and contract aftermarket services for used equipment.
• In his new role as CTO, Griffith will continue to play an integral part of the executive leadership team at Moov, including leading Moov's technology and product organizations and overseeing all R&D at Moov.

• "It was FoGP that 'discovered' P-22 and introduced him to the world," Hans added, describing a 2011-initiated FoGP-sponsored scientific study, the Griffith Park Connectivity Study , which explored connectivity in and out of Griffith Park and the nearby Santa Monica Mountains.
• He came to represent the wilderness that still exists in Griffith Park and how wild animals can co-exist with human beings in an urban setting.
• Griffith Park is part of that distinct kaleidoscope of Los Angeles habitats and wildlife where each plant and animal – like P-22 – plays an important role.
• FoGP is committed to ensuring that Griffith Park, a public park and Los Angeles' largest Historic-Cultural Monument, remain open, natural, and free to all residents of Los Angeles.