Book Review – The Red Witch: A biography of Katherine Susannah Prichard

Joan Beaumont reviews Nathan Hobby’s The Red Witch: A biography of Katherine Susannah Prichard, Melbourne University Publishing, 2022, 451 pp. ISBN 9780522877380 By any measure Katherine Susannah Prichard (KSP) was a remarkable woman, full of contradictions. Most notably, she was a renowned and prolific author. After starting her career as a journalist in Melbourne, […]

Book Review – Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia

Anthony O’Donnell reviews Daniel Mulino’s Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia, La Trobe University Press, 2022 i + xii; 372pp What do we talk about when we talk about ‘the Australian welfare state’? For some, it’s almost a contradiction in terms. We have a minimalist, means-tested, flat-rate system of income supports that […]

Book Review – Wizards of Oz: How Oliphant and Florey Helped Win the War and Shape the Modern World

Peter Hobbins reviews Brett Mason’s Wizards of Oz: How Oliphant and Florey Helped Win the War and Shape the Modern World (Sydney: NewSouth, 2022), ISBN 9781742237459 (PB), $34.99. Dyadic biographies are – quite literally – many-headed beasts. Attempting to integrate the personalities and trajectories of two historical protagonists runs the risk of forced comparisons, […]

Q&A with Michelle Arrow, editor of Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution

Jacquelyn Baker interviews Michelle Arrow, editor of Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2023). Congratulations on the publication of this book, Michelle! It is, in part, the product of the Women and Politics Conference, which was held at Old Parliament House in 2019. Can you explain to our readers why the […]

Book Review – Taking to the Field: A History of Australian Women in Science

James Keating reviews Jane Carey’s Taking to the Field: A History of Australian Women in Science (Melbourne: Monash University Press, 2023). In 1977 the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) held a symposium on ‘Women in Science’. Rather than accepting what many contemporaries considered a truth self-evident—that science had […]

Book Review – Boundary Crossers: The Hidden History of Australia’s Other Bushrangers

Alana Piper reviews Meg Foster’s Boundary Crossers: The Hidden History of Australia’s Other Bushrangers (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2022). 9781742237527. 240pp. RRP $34.99. Meg Foster’s intricately researched monograph, Boundary Crossers: The Hidden History of Australia’s Other Bushrangers, took me back to the childhood road trips my family would take along the east coast of Australia. […]

Book Review – The Australians at Geneva: Internationalist Diplomacy in the Interwar Years

Joan Beaumont reviews James Cotton’s The Australians at Geneva: Internationalist Diplomacy in the Interwar Years, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2022). ISBN 9780522878998 (paperback) 9780522879001 (e-book). The League of Nations has been something of a poor relation in the historiography of Australian foreign policy. Traditionally, it has been tarred with its utter failure to check […]

Book Review – Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm

Matthew Allen reviews Alan Atkinson’s Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm (Kensington, NSW: NewSouth, 2022). Alan Atkinson has been writing about the Macarthurs, on and off, throughout his academic life. His MA thesis focussed on John and the family’s role in the early colony, his PhD on James’ political career, while Camden […]

Book Review – The Australian History Industry

Deborah Lee-Talbot reviews Paul Ashton and Paula Hamilton, The Australian History Industry, (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2022). The Australian History Industry is an ambitious book that covers the intersecting and often competing sectors that produce the various elements of this nation’s history. This book builds on earlier volumes that touch on this topic, […]

Q&A with Marion Stell, author of The Bodyline Fix

Jacquelyn Baker interviews Marion Stell about her recent book, The Bodyline Fix: How Women Saved Cricket (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2022). The book details the first international women’s Test cricket series between Australia and England in 1934-35, which followed the controversial Bodyline men’s series in 1932-33. Congratulations on the publication of this […]

Bookshelf