Book Review – History Wars: The Peter Ryan – Manning Clark Controversy

Book Review – History Wars: The Peter Ryan – Manning Clark Controversy

Joshua Black has reviewed the new publication by Doug Munro, History Wars: The Peter Ryan – Manning Clark Controversy. Canberra: ANU Press, 2021. At a public talk in Melbourne in 2011, historian Mark McKenna reflected on the challenges of writing a biography about a man whose own narratives often proved so empirically unfaithful. He was […]
Book Review – What is History, Now? How the past and the present speak to each other

Book Review – What is History, Now? How the past and the present speak to each other

Deborah Lee-Talbot has reviewed a new book edited by Helen Carr and Suzannah Lipscomb. Helen Carr and Suzannah Lipscomb (eds), What is History, Now? How the past and the present speak to each other, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2021. Most of us know the benefits that come from the experience of a good meal, especially […]
Book Review – Leading from the North

Book Review – Leading from the North

Our book editor Lyndon Megarrity has reviewed a new book – Leading from the North. Ruth Wallace, Sharon Harwood, Rolf Gerritsen, Bruce Prideaux, Tom Brewer, Linda Rosenman and Allan Dale (eds), Leading from the North: Rethinking Northern Australia Development, ANU Press, Canberra, 2021. Since Federation, Tropical Australia has enjoyed a few brief moments in the […]
Book Review – Private Ryan and the Lost Peace

Book Review – Private Ryan and the Lost Peace

Review of Private Ryan and the Lost Peace: A Defiant Soldier and the Struggle Against the Great War by Douglas Newton. In October 1916 Australian soldier Private Ted Ryan was in England, recuperating from wounds and shellshock after a stint on the Somme. As he prepared to return to the battlefield he railed against the […]
Book Review – Upheaval: Disrupted lives in journalism

Book Review – Upheaval: Disrupted lives in journalism

Carolyn Collins reviews Upheaval: Disrupted lives in journalism edited by Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson. UNSW Press, 368pp, rrp $39.99. There was a time, and it doesn’t seem that long ago, when Saturday mornings used to start with the heavy thud of a small tree landing in my driveway. Back then newspapers were hefty in all […]
Book Review: Long Half-life: The Nuclear Industry in Australia

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, […]
Q & A with Alexis Bergantz, author of French Connection

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 […]
Author Q&A with Catherine Fisher

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

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

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 […]
Marama Whyte reviews Elizabeth Becker’s ‘You Don’t Belong Here’

Marama Whyte reviews Elizabeth Becker’s ‘You Don’t Belong Here’

Dr Marama Whyte reviews Elizabeth Becker’s new book about three women who reported on the Vietnam War, You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War (Carlton: Black Inc., 2021).    There are countless places in Australian society where women have been told—explicitly or implicitly—that they don’t belong. The news media has […]
Graeme Davison reviews Elizabeth Farrelly’s ‘Killing Sydney’

Graeme Davison reviews Elizabeth Farrelly’s ‘Killing Sydney’

In our latest article, Emeritus Professor Graeme Davison reviews Elizabeth Farrelly’s, Killing Sydney: The Fight for a City’s Soul.     Elizabeth Farrelly is Sydney’s resident prophetess, its staunchest champion and fiercest critic. She is its eyes and ears, its questioning mind, tender heart and steely public conscience. For thirty years, as a columnist in […]