The University of Sydney figures prominently in this book, but not exclusively. Monash is there, of course, and the ANU makes flitting appearances, especially the Aquarius Arts Festival of 1971 when students came from all around Australia to "discover" the campus. But the ANU bred its own brand of radicalism, as I'm sure did almost every Australia university during the 60's. So close to federal parliament, we had regular visits, talks and debates from and with Jim Cairns and others on the left. Don Dunstan preached - there is no other word - against the appalling electoral gerrymander in his home state to a very large and sympathetic ANU crowd on the Library lawn. We even had Pierre Trudeau.

The moratorium movement in Canberra and the ever-present conscription lottery radicalised many ANU students. There was some agitation for student-led educational reform even if most of our lecturers were sympathetic but cautious. A mixed bag on the campus, of course. It is one of the great strengths of this book that the authors recognise and embrace the idea that individuals came to radical politics and lifestyles through a wide variety of paths and influences.

The method here is to take 20 individual lives and to explore, with each person, their path to the "aha" moment that changed them forever. Some of those telling their stories are well-known and well-loved, others, perhaps, a little more obscure. For each the path was difficult, contested, and life-affirming.

The reader may be interested and surprised at the role religion plays in so many of these lives. For Peter Manning at Sydney, president of the Democratic Labor Party club, which he revived at the university, the influence of legendary Catholic priest, Father Ted Kennedy, is crucial. Catholics, we are told, had a greater distance to travel "because Catholicism is so much more all-encompassing", but the journey for all those from conservative religion to bold new assertions of rejection of authority, and search for new meaning and new values, is equally fascinating.

Vietnam is a catalyst for so many as is to be expected. New students at ANU in 1968 were solemnly warned by the Vice-Chancellor, Sir John Crawford, that the university would have no hesitation at all in handing over draft-dodgers to the police. As he announced this he lost, and would not regain, his audience. Yet it was two years before the first moratorium march took place here or elsewhere.

Another strength of this wonderful book is the important role family played in the making of the radicals discussed here. Jozefa Sobski, whose first 10 years of life were played out in migrant hostels with her Ukrainian/Polish parents and family, moved from an intense and emotional Catholicism to a rejection of her religion and an interest in left organisations and ideas. She fought violently with her father at home, whose horror of Communism was equally intense as her Catholicism had been, until they both called a truce to "shut up, because it just distressed the rest of the family".

Other families were more accepting of the growth and development of the young radicals. Robbie Swan's parents were conservative and status quo, but when he faced serious jail time the family rallied in unity around him giving him much loving support.

Feminism is seen as an emerging and important movement with mention of the Women's Electoral Lobby, the importance to female readers of Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch and regular publications such as Mejane and Refractory Girl. But there is much more to say about feminism - perhaps in a later book?

Race and racism play an important part in this book. Many readers will suffer great shame in learning how pervasive racism was. Gary Foley was a bright student at Macksville High School with an exciting future in front of him. Yet, at the end of his Fifth Form year, the headmaster called the indigenous boy to his office to tell him "not to come back next year, Foley". The eager student, obviously, was shocked and distressed, asking why not. The headmaster replied: "We - don't - want - your - type - here".

Read Gary Foley's chapter with care, it is so utterly uplifting. Now a distinguished professor of History at Melbourne's Victoria University, the expelled student eventually achieved his potential and his ambitions.

In one of the best lines in the book, Nadia Wheatley writes: "It is a crime that thirty years of historical research and writing that Gary Foley might have done was denied to Australian readers because of the racism of a small town schoolteacher".

Foley's good mate Gary Williams was not radicalised as so many were by the Vietnam war, which he dismissed as a "whitefellas' war", but he did fully understand the underlying racism of the South African Springbok's rugby tour. Many readers will recall the calamitous scenes at Manuka oval, surely Manuka's worst day, when New South Wales Police's notorious 21 Division took on Canberra protestors.

Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen declared a month-long state of emergency and hapless prime minister Billy McMahon ordered the RAAF to fly the footballers around Australia. Sport and politics don't mix, the conservatives chanted mindlessly.

Yet the authors largely ignore the conservatives, so crammed is Radicals with the aims, aspirations, hopes and achievements of those showing a way to a better, more fairer Australia.

Robert Menzies is frequently mentioned but more as an image of the horror and boredom of the Australia over which he presided, rather than as a person in his own right. Some readers may be amused that Robbie Swan's parents named him for Menzies, but he seems to have easily lived that down.

The range and richness of this book, the hope that it may arouse in those who read it, will invigorate and inspire many readers. Yet the remembrance of an Australia that is long gone may sadden some. The authors have included short biographies of each participant at the end of this long book.

That section, too, is inspiring. All have kept the faith. Most have enjoyed long, happy and successful lives. Many are still working for causes about which they are passionate. Others, like David Marr and Geoffrey Robertson, are still writing and still influencing readers around the world.

But let the authors have the last word in this important and enjoyable book: "For all of us the Sixties were about idealism, aspiration and determination. The settled verities of the fifties were being challenged in the streets and the lecture theatres. We were determined to change the world - and we did . . . we liked to think we had a go ...anyway we had fun along the way."