The tenets of Crawford's school were meticulous attention to research and scholarship, combined with a broadly liberal and progressive outlook, underpinned by the belief that Australian history was worthy of serious academic effort.
During the Cold War period of the early 1950s he was attacked as a "fellow traveller" and a "pink professor," charges which he generally ignored.
Stuart MacIntyre wrote on his death: "He elevated the contribution of history by his imaginative leadership in stimulating his staff and students to rewrite the past, and to assist positively in reshaping Australian national life and culture.
"[1] Crawford's publications include The Study of History: A Synoptic View (1939), Ourselves and the Pacific (1941), The Renaissance and Other Essays (1945), Australia (1952), An Australian Perspective (1960) and A Bit of a Rebel (1971).
In 2005 Fay Anderson published a biography, An Historian's Life: Max Crawford and the Politics of Academic Freedom (Melbourne University Press).