During the 1960s, Australia experienced immense social and cultural change as a schism developed between generations: an older generation ravaged by the Great Depression, the Second World War and the Cold War; and a younger one that came of age in a prosperous but seemingly culturally stagnant environment.

Clem Christesen, who remained at the helm of Meanjin from the time he founded it in 1940 until 1974, was caught up in this generational divide but he used the magazine to represent and monitor its effects. He was a long-time propo­nent of the need to question existing institutions and values—and this necessarily implicated Meanjin, as it became an institution in itself during his editorship. The pages of the magazine during this period and in the years immediately, following his retirement provide an important record of the conflict of politics and person­ality in a changing society.