Review | The Carbon Club

Jeff Hole reviews Marian Wilkinson’s recent book The Carbon Club: How a network of influential climate sceptics, politicians and business leaders fought to control Australia’s climate policy, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2020 Anyone interested in the question of whether business interests wield too much influence over politicians and policy in Australia should read The Carbon […]

PhD Scholarship Opportunity | A Conceptual History of National Security in Australia Since 1901

We are seeking a PhD candidate to work with Professor David Lowe and Dr Carolyn Holbrook from Deakin University and Professor Eckart Conze from Philipps University Marburg in Germany as part of a project that examines the history of national security in Australia. The project aims to determine what the concept of national security has […]

Review: Biting the Clouds

Jacqueline D’Arcy reviews Biting the Clouds, a recent publication by Fiona Foley. Biting the Clouds: a Badtjala perspective on the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, 1897, by Fiona Foley, UQP When one thinks of Fraser Island (K’gari), images of white sands, dingoes, and, more recently, bush fires, come to mind. […]

Q&A with Jenny Hocking, author of The Palace Letters

In our latest author Q&A, Jacquelyn Baker interviews Emeritus Professor Jenny Hocking about The Palace Letters, which describes her long and extraordinary campaign to gain access to the correspondence between the Australian Governor General Sir John Kerr and Queen Elizabeth II in the prelude to the dismissal of the Whitlam government on 11 November 1975. […]

Celebrating the knowledge production of Aboriginal women: Jacquelyn Baker reviews the 20th anniversary edition of Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s ‘Talkin’ up to the white woman’.

In our latest book review, Jacquelyn Baker reviews the 20th anniversary edition of Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s Talkin’ up to the white woman: Indigenous women and feminism (University of Queensland Press). By Jacquelyn Baker 2020 has already been dubbed a historic year. As the new year ticked over, record-breaking bushfires continued to burn throughout New […]

Angie Sassano reviews ‘Indigenous Self-Determination in Australia’, edited by Laura Rademaker and Tim Rowse

In our latest article, Deakin University PhD Candidate Angie Sassano reviews a new collection about the history of Indigenous self-determination edited by Laura Rademaker and Tim Rowse. By Angie Sassano Despite the shift to self-determination in Indigenous policy making in 1973, Australia has faltered, with critics such as Megan Davis (2016) claiming self-determination has […]

Gwyn McClelland reviews Lesley Blume’s ‘Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World’

Dr Gwyn McClelland’s review of Lesley Blume’s Fallout describes how the US government sought to cover up the horrific effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Blume tells us the story of journalist John Hersey’s scoop in the New Yorker in August 1946, which signalled the beginning of a propaganda contest about the […]

The media and Indigenous political aspirations: Michael Dillon reviews Amy Thomas, Andrew Jakubowicz & Heidi Norman’s ‘Does the media fail Aboriginal political aspirations?’

What role does the media play in perpetuating social and economic disadvantage among Indigenous peoples in Australia? Michael Dillon reviews Amy Thomas, Andrew Jakubowicz & Heidi Norman’s survey of media reporting of key political moments, Does the media fail Aboriginal political aspirations? While Dillon agrees with the authors’ conclusions about the inadequacy of media coverage, […]

In Godwin We Trust: Debunk[er]ing the Hitler/Trump Analogy

Academics have been busy in the last few years calling out ham-fisted analogies between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, and the contemporary United States and 1930s Germany. It’s easy to laugh at clumsy historical references, but harder to make informed judgements about the validity or otherwise of these references. In our latest article, Dr Mathew […]

After COVID-19: Reviews of ‘Upturn’ and ‘What Happens Next?’

The Austrian economic historian’s Walter Scheidel’s 2017 book, The Great Leveler, argues that gross inequality is the natural state of human affairs. This structure is only interrupted by events such as mass war, revolution, state failure and pandemic disease. Does COVID-19 present an opportunity to halt growing inequality and reset our economic and social order? These […]

Australian Soldier Atrocities in Afghanistan: Why We Should Not Be Surprised

By Dale Blair The allegations of atrocities committed by Australian special forces in Afghanistan may be shocking, but they suggest continuity rather than rupture with our military past. In this article, Dr Dale Blair outlines Australia’s past involvement in war crimes, and the exalted status of Australia’s soldiers and official patronage that have obscured the […]

Managing the Federation During a Pandemic: Spanish Influenza and COVID-19

Global health pandemics, it would seem, make us reach for local remedies and cling to local identities. As state borders have closed and parochialism has increased, COVID-19 has made Australians more aware of their federal system of government than they have been for a long time. In this piece about the 1919 Spanish influenza outbreak, […]

Ever-present possibilities and the status quo.

This piece is part of the Urgent Histories forum which has been organised by the Australian Historical Association. Klaus Neumann has written an engaging response to the articles in this forum, which can be found in History Australia. Humankind needs to tackle climate change. Urgently. Historians may want to reconsider their professional practices in light of this […]

Australia Awards, where to now?

Like the rest of the international education sector in Australia, the Australian government development scholarships program, the Australia Awards, have been thrown into chaos by Covid-19. Does this moment of uncertainty offer an opportunity for the scholarships to reset? Background The Australian government has been offering scholarships to international students in the region since 1948. […]

Book Review | Australian Women Pilots: Amazing True Stories of Women in the Air

Prudence Black has reviewed Australian Women Pilots: Amazing True Stories of Women in the Air, a new book by Kathy Mexted. The aviation industry has one of the world’s poorest workplace gender balances; it also tends to be very traditional and risk adverse. Up until COVID 19 air traffic across the world was growing at […]

Book Review – Distant sisters: Australasian women and the international struggle for the vote, 1880–1914

Deborah Lee-Talbot reviews James Keating’s recent book, Distant sisters: Australasian women and the international struggle for the vote, 1880–1914. In an article about New Zealand/Aotearoa’s new parliament on Monday 19 October 2020, the Guardian offered the provocative subheading that ‘Many older, white, male members have been swept from power’. The new parliament included ‘several people of colour, […]

Australia in the Indian Ocean: Why More Needs to be Done

In our first opinion piece of 2021, Dr Niro Kandasamy considers Australia’s relationship with Sri Lanka and argues that we need to take a more active and engaged role in the strategically vital Indian Ocean region. By Niro Kandasamy Earlier this year, Prime Minister Scott Morrison committed to strengthening Australia’s ties to states in the […]

Leading America and Biden’s new/old foreign policy: The exclusive new democracy club, trade-bloc or alliance?

By Digby Wren Australia faces unprecedented regional trade and security challenges in the aftermath of the Trump presidency and a continuing pandemic calamity. The Morrison government has been in lockstep with the Trump administration’s ‘Strategic Adversary’ approach to China. How will President-elect Joe Biden’s approach differ from his predecessor’s and how can the Morrison government’s […]

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