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 […]

Speakers, Deputies and the Clerks: the Revealing Light of Biography?

The Biographical Dictionary of the House of Representatives shines a historical light on the men and women who have served as Speaker, Deputy Speaker, or Clerk of the House since Federation. This includes providing a better idea of what sorts of individuals have typically filled these offices and how the speakership, instead of adopting Westminster […]

Book Review: Long Half-life: The Nuclear Industry in Australia

Jessica Urwin reviews Ian Lowe’s new book, Long Half-life: The Nuclear Industry in Australia (Melbourne: Monash University Press, 2021), $34.99, 248 pp. The long half-life of radioactive materials has presented a fundamental challenge to generations of scientists, politicians, and national and global communities alike. With a half-life of up to 4.5 billion years for uranium-238, […]

Is Expertise A Dirty Word?

Richard Trembath argues that as higher education grapples with cutbacks, constraints and remote learning, it also has to counter anti-intellectualism. ‘Plato is credited with offering the first account of what we mean by knowledge, which was in three parts: you know something, he thought, if you hold it to be true, if it is true […]

Recalling ANZUS, 1951 – lessons?

Professor David Lowe marks the 70th Anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty, asking what we can learn from the treaty for building and sustaining strong co-operative relationships with near neighbours, including Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and countries of the South Pacific. September 1 marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of the ANZUS Treaty in 1951. […]

We Must Support, Not Alienate, Our Vulnerable Refugee Communities During Lockdown

Dr Jessica Stroja argues that Australian governments need to be doing more to support refugee communities during lockdown. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact life around the world, Greater Sydney finds itself in the midst of an extended lockdown that was promoted by an outbreak of the COVID Delta strain that was first reported […]

Q & A with Alexis Bergantz, author of French Connection

In this author Q&A, Bethany Keats interviews Alexis Bergantz about his latest book, French Connection According to the blurb, this is a “little known” history. Why hasn’t it been told before? Why is it worth telling now? For a long time ‘the French’ have been written about as part of an older historiography of […]

Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Mushroom Cloud over Japan

“For Coronavirus to occur like this at the 75th juncture of the [remembrance of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki] should be ringing alarm bells” SH, Peace Baton Member, Nagasaki, 2020. Recently the world observed the closing ceremony of the ‘2020’ Olympics. The Olympics occurred despite many calls from within and without Japan to […]

Author Q&A with Catherine Fisher

Bethany Keats interviews Catherine Fisher, the author of Sound Citizens: Australian Women Broadcasters Claim their Voice, 1923–1956 (ANU Press) Why has it taken so long to acknowledge the complex history of women in broadcasting in Australia? Like much of women’s history, the contributions of women to broadcasting have been largely ignored as they were not […]

Book Review – The New Academic: How to Write, Present and Profile Your Amazing Research to the World

Joshua Black reviews a new book by Simon Clews, The New Academic: How to Write, Present and Profile Your Amazing Research to the World. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2021. There are three questions that can trigger a deep panic on the part of a PhD candidate. The first is “when are you going to finish?” The […]

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