Leadership now: what can history tell us?

James Walter Australians are ‘good at elections’ as Judith Brett has persuasively argued. Our practices of mandatory and preferential voting have saved us from the institutional entrenchment of extremes of opinion that have surfaced in the public domain, and that have pushed parties and politics in, say, the United States, to brinkmanship over positions […]

Review of the The Indigenous Voice Co-design Process: Final Report to the Australian Government

Emeritus Professor Tim Rowse reviews The Indigenous Voice Co-design Process: Final Report to the Australian Government (Canberra: National Indigenous Australians Agency) July 2021 Conservatives who are unsure what position to take on Indigenous constitutional recognition seem to be the intended audience of the Final Report of the Indigenous Voice Co-design Process, released in December […]

International Symposium on Public Health Systems: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University and Australian Policy and History International Symposium on Public Health Systems: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives A virtual conference Tuesday 9 November 2021, Australian Eastern Daylight Time (UTC + 11) Register here (free) About this event Australian Policy and History and the Contemporary Histories Research Group at Deakin University […]

Q&A with Carolyn Collins, author of Save Our Sons: Women, Dissent and Conscription during the Vietnam War

Jacqui Baker interviews Carolyn Collins about her new book Save Our Sons: Women, Dissent and Conscription during the Vietnam War. Congratulations on the publication of your fascinating book, Carolyn! You wrote that you came across Save Our Sons while researching a different topic and time period. What were you researching at the time and how […]

Aide memoire: Swine flu in Australia, 2009-2010

Remember the swine flu? It’s the pandemic that Australia forgot, arguably to our detriment when it came to wrangling COVID-19. In this article, Dr Richard Trembath looks back on the H1N1 swine flu outbreak, and the impact on Australia, and his own family. During these times, there was a pestilence[i] Procopius On 8 May 2009 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Q&A with Lyndon Megarrity, author of Robert Philp and the Politics of Development

Stephen Wilks interviews Lyndon Megarrity, author of Robert Philp and the Politics of Development (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Press, 2022) Congratulations, Lyndon, on your new book. Let’s start with the essential facts – who exactly was Robert Philp and what is he known for? The Scottish-born Robert Philp is known primarily as the co-founder […]

Book Review – Emperors in Lilliput: Clem Christesen of Meanjin and Stephen Murray-Smith of Overland

Richard Trembath reviews Jim Davidson, Emperors in Lilliput: Clem Christesen of Meanjin and Stephen Murray-Smith of Overland, (Melbourne: The Miegunyah Press, 2022). I don’t want to go back to the days of Tony Abbott, but I have always thought that anybody who attempts a biography deserves at least a minor order of knighthood. […]

Book Review – Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, Australia’s first filmmaking team

Sharon Connolly reviews Mandy Sayer, Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, Australia’s first filmmaking team (NewSouth Publishing, 2022). Mandy Sayer’s Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters makes the long wait for a book about the Australian filmmaking team worthwhile. It’s a sparkling account of the sisters’ lives, well researched and timely. Their cinematic careers were brief and peaked […]

Book Review – My Giddy Aunt and her Sister Comedians

Lyndon Megarrity reviews Sharon Connolly, My Giddy Aunt and her Sister Comedians, Upswell Publishing, Perth, 2022. This is a family history revolving around three lively performers with a talent to amuse: the versatile professional whistler, saxophonist, singer, comic and all-round entertainer Gladys Connolly, her equally talented and driven brother Keith, as well as his […]

Book Review – Saving the Reef: The Human Story Behind One of Australia’s Greatest Environmental Treasures

Julie McIntyre reviews Rohan Lloyd, Saving the Reef: The Human Story Behind One of Australia’s Greatest Environmental Treasures (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2022). The title of this superb book has two meanings. Saving the Reef locates environmental campaigns to prevent oil and mineral extraction in the Great Barrier Reef between 1967 and […]

Q&A with Jeff Sparrow, author of Crimes Against Nature

Yves Rees interviews Jeff Sparrow about his recent book Crimes Against Nature (Scribe, 2021). You’ve been writing about leftist politics for several decades, but this is your first incursion into the climate arena. What was the intellectual genesis of this book? I grew up back when activists could still consider environmental issues as a […]

Book Review – State and Society in Papua New Guinea, 2001-2021

Nicholas Ferns reviews R.J. May’s State and Society in Papua New Guinea, 2001-2021 (Canberra: ANU Press, 2022). Over the past several decades, Ronald May has established himself as one of the most authoritative voices on Papua New Guinean politics. He is a prolific writer on a variety of topics, ranging from Papua New Guinean […]

Book Review – ‘Now is the Psychological Moment’: Earle Page and the Imagining of Australia

Zachary Gorman reviews Stephen Wilks’ ‘Now is the Psychological Moment’: Earle Page and the Imagining of Australia (ANU Press, Canberra, 2020). The fact that it has taken this long for long-serving Treasurer and brief Prime Minister Earle Page to receive a full-length political biography is testament to the understudied nature of Australian political history, […]

Q&A with Kath Kenny, author of Staging a Revolution

Jacquelyn Baker interviews Kath Kenny, author of Staging a Revolution: When Betty Rocked the Pram (Perth: Upswell, 2022). Congratulations on the publication of Staging a Revolution, Kath! Your book tells the story of Betty Can Jump—a play produced by the Carlton Women’s Liberation Group and performed at the Pram Factory in 1972—and follows five […]

Pandemics remind us that Australia is a Federation, but we are quick to forget

By Dr Carolyn Holbrook As we well remember, COVID incited a high degree of tension between the Commonwealth and the states. The former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce probably put it best when he said: For a while there we went from a federation back to little colonies again. I was waiting for Queensland […]

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