MARGOT OSBORNE (ED.)
The Adelaide Art Scene is much more than an attractive book … This is as much a cultural history as it is an art history, and the range of its authors necessarily means that its multiple voices and perspectives deliver a fascinating depth to a regional history.
Read MoreMARGUERITA STEPHENS with FAY STEWART-MUIR
It would be difficult to overstate the degree to which this book should be considered a monumental achievement. Stephens’ relentless interrogation of enumerate primary sources, and the forensic level of detail combined with cultural insights woven into almost every scene, renders The Years of Terror, Banbu-Deen a monstrous work of academic labour.
Read MoreDARRA GOLDSTEIN
Russia is not Putin, though you’d hardly know it in current reporting. Nor has its culture been formed in isolation from the rest of the world. On the contrary, it has been shaped by its interactions with both the East and the West, influences that have for centuries confounded Russia’s sense of identity. Darra Goldstein tells this story through the lens of food. The Kingdom of Rye is a slender volume packed with the complexities of Russian history.
Read MoreCASSANDRA PYBUS
In her captivating book and a piece of truth-telling par excellence, Pybus uncovers the network of colonial men in Tasmania who used their status and laced it with deception and trickery to obtain the Ancestral remains of Palawa men, women and children, and ship them off to Europe … As Pybus notes, there is still much to be uncovered about these devious practices in Tasmania and elsewhere.
Read MoreSARAH LUKE
Few historians in Australia engage in the world of creative non-fiction … Even fewer have written creative non-fiction for children … Luke’s book is an exemplar of what historians can do to reach diverse audiences, to make history accessible and allow readers to look to history for inspiration.
Read MoreNICK DYRENFURTH & FRANK BONGIORNO
Dyrenfurth and Bongiorno pitch their work to a wide audience: true believers, external critics, those interested in the story of the world’s pioneering social democratic party, and journalists. It is to the authors’ credit that these target groups will all be pleased with this highly readable account of the only Australian political party with a continuous history since colonial times.
Read MoreROSS MCMULLIN
McMullin’s second book about talented men who did not survive the First World War underlines his point that the deaths of these men deprived Australia of potential sporting, professional and civic leaders in the trying years that followed.
Read MoreTERRY KASS
After 40 years as a professional historian, Dr Terry Kass embarked on a labour of love and has produced a volume that will be cited for years to come. This detailed reference book is invaluable for anyone interested in the history of land settlement and the mechanism of surveying in NSW, especially during the peak period when land was being ‘opened up’ for white settlement. This project complements Kass’ earlier work relating to land records and surveying, in particular his 2008 volume, Sails to Satellites, the Surveyors General of NSW (1786-2007).
Read MorePHILIP PAYTON
At first glance this book suggests little relevance to Australian readers, being largely about an English writer and Cornwall, his favourite part of England.
Like most history, however, nothing is that simple.
Read MoreRICHARD NEVILLE AND RACHEL FRANKS (EDS)
A picture collection chosen not for its aesthetic qualities, but for the stories it tells about the people and places of New South Wales, forms the subject of this handsome volume. Building a collection of pictures around their content rather than their creators is an interesting challenge and legacy inherited by the Mitchell Library in Sydney. It’s a delight to find a collection of works wherein the history in the paintings is the headline, rather than the artist, the style, or technique—although these are important and do feature—it’s the stories that reward the viewer here.
Read MoreLA TROBE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Australia is not renowned for producing great thinkers. We do not usually care for such theorists, being fundamentally an active, practical folk. Thus it is a pleasant surprise to find a work that collates all the principal essays and talks of a man who has profoundly inspired not only a host of our public policies and research initiatives, but also much of our current understanding of what ‘Australia’ means.
Read MoreDENIS BYRNE, IEN ANG & PHILLIP MAR
Drawing on transnational approaches, this multi-disciplinary collection of essays explores the history of movement of ‘people, ideas, objects, and money’ between China and Australia that were ‘stimulated by initial acts of migration’. Its focus is the 1840s to 1940s. The book raises important issues about migrant heritage for those in the heritage industry, highlighting the importance of a historical understanding of these places that extends beyond their physical location and the nation-state.
Read MoreALECIA SIMMONDS
If you’re in the habit of falling asleep with a book in bed, I’d suggest you read this one in a chair. It squeezes a huge set of ideas into a large volume of small print and thin margins. Thankfully, it is also beautifully written and full of captivating stories and vignettes.
Read MoreKATE FULLAGAR
The story of the extended encounter between Bennelong and Governor Arthur Phillip has been mined often over the past few decades. This has been part of the historical re-exploration of the British colonisation of Sydney Cove and the responses of local Aboriginal peoples. Can anything new be learned? Resoundingly: ‘yes’ is my answer, having immersed myself in this very readable book.
Read MoreGRAHAM SEAL
This compilation of stories by Graham Seal, a distinguished authority in folklore at Curtin University, presents a captivating tableau of Australia's historical underworld. Furthermore, the alternating shifts between innovation, folly, cruelty, and even altruism create an engaging reading experience.
Read MoreDAVID REEVE
‘I also saw myself in struggle with the people who wanted to make someone or something out of me, while I wanted to remain myself.’ This is Onghokham speaking to his biographer, David Reeve. Ong was trying to explain his reaction to the turmoil of the 1965 coup that overthrew Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president, and the subsequent killings of communists (real and suspected), as well as many more, especially people of Chinese origin. What Ong meant by remaining himself is the subject of this book, a remarkable study in life writing and so much more, including an exploration of the emergence of the discipline of history in Indonesia.
Read MoreKATE AUTY
Bones and other human remains lie on the ground and are buried near the Forrest River northwest of Wyndham, in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. They have lain there since June 1926, when a vigilante squad of 13 white police and civilians, and Aboriginal trackers, killed more than 20 Indigenous people in revenge for the murder of one white man, Frederick Hay, later found to have ‘interfered’ with Aboriginal women. The incident, which closely followed another mass-murder by 2 white men (James St Jack and Leo Overheu), was carried out by a small group of men who believed they could kill without fear of recrimination.
Read MoreJAMES LESH
Values in Cities provides a historical treatment of heritage – as a discourse, a field of practice, a system – across the twentieth century in Australia. The book is an enjoyable and refreshing read. Its narrative is rich with interesting examples that bring Lesh’s analysis within mind’s reach.
Read MoreRAY KERKHOVE
As we head toward a referendum on the Voice to Parliament later in 2023, history looms in the rear vision mirror. The future success of the Uluru Statement of the Heart’s goals of Voice, Truth and Treaty are all deeply linked with how Australians view their past. Growing support for truth-telling in particular is emblematic of a broader shift in the way we understand – or want to understand – the wars of conquest over Aboriginal lands that occurred between 1788 and around 1930. These wars have had little recognition in places of national memory such as the Australian War Memorial, but now these places can’t possibly continue to avoid it.
Read MoreJANE CAREY
As Jane Carey outlines in Taking to the Field, the first half of the twentieth century was a boom era for women working in Australian science. This book does much to recapture their presence, confidence and contributions.
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