 Frank <unk> described Hirst as a " creative historian capable of engaging a wide audience , as well as a public intellectual who delighted , infuriated and provoked " . He contributed many influential opinion pieces and commentaries to leading Australian newspapers and journals . Jeremy Sammut has noted that Hirst was motivated by an independent mind and a distaste for unthinking conformity . He " defied simplistic categorisation as a partisan because his politics were idiosyncratic " . Hirst described himself as an old @-@ fashioned social democrat . To read Hirst is not to encounter a reactionary but " to be delighted as he marshals facts , logic and evidence with <unk> skill and precision to establish the heterodox case , while conveying powerful insights into whatever historical experience or process is discussed " . A common theme in the obituaries cited is that Hirst was fearlessly honest , whatever the subject . As Sammut has noted , he was inspired by a commitment to " the rigorous pursuit of historical truth that drove him to explore the deeper patterns and meanings of the past , and the contemporary implications , that others had missed or misled us about " . 
