Review – Australia’s Great Depression: how a nation shattered by the Great War survived the worst economic crisis it has ever faced

Review – Australia’s Great Depression: how a nation shattered by the Great War survived the worst economic crisis it has ever faced

Joan Beaumont, Australia’s Great Depression: how a nation shattered by the Great War survived the worst economic crisis it has ever faced, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2022. Review by Janet McCalman.   This is the first general history of Australia’s Great Depression that embraces city and the bush, all states and territories, politics, economics, and […]
Book Review – The Genesis of a Policy Defining and Defending Australia’s National Interest in the Asia-Pacific, 1921–57

Book Review – The Genesis of a Policy Defining and Defending Australia’s National Interest in the Asia-Pacific, 1921–57

The Genesis of a Policy – Honae Cuffe, ANU Press, Canberra, 2021 Review by Anna Kent   In the midst of an election campaign, with some nuanced foreign policy debate breaking through into the mainstream media, it is wonderful to read a book that challenges the conventional view on foreign policy history. Honae Cuffe’s book […]
Q&A with Stephen Gapps, author of Gudyarra: The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance – The Bathurst War, 1822–1824.

Q&A with Stephen Gapps, author of Gudyarra: The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance – The Bathurst War, 1822–1824.

Kristyn Harman  interviews Stephen Gapps, author of Gudyarra: The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance – The Bathurst War, 1822–1824 (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2021).   Congratulations on the publication of Gudyarra, Stephen! It’s interesting to see that you’ve chosen to use the Wiradyuri word for ‘war’ as the title for your book. What informed your choice? And […]
Q&A with Isobelle Barrett Meyering, author of Feminism and the Making of a Child Rights Revolution, 1969–1979.

Q&A with Isobelle Barrett Meyering, author of Feminism and the Making of a Child Rights Revolution, 1969–1979.

Jacquelyn Baker interviews Isobelle Barrett Meyering about her new book, Feminism and the Making of a Child Rights Revolution, 1969-1979, which examines the way in which women’s liberationists spearheaded the new wave of child rights activism in the 1970s.   Congratulations on the publication of your book, Isobelle! It makes a significant contribution to the […]
Q&A with Karen Fox, author of Honouring a Nation: A History of Australia’s Honours System

Q&A with Karen Fox, author of Honouring a Nation: A History of Australia’s Honours System

Our Books Editor, Lyndon Megarrity, interviews Karen Fox, author of Honouring a Nation: A History of Australia’s Honours System (Canberra: ANU Press, 2022).   What inspired you to write a history of the Australian honours system? The history of honours is a subject that has intrigued me for a long time. I first became interested […]
Book Review – Symbols of Australia: Imagining a Nation

Book Review – Symbols of Australia: Imagining a Nation

Karen Fox has reviewed Melissa Harper and Richard White, eds., Symbols of Australia: Imagining a Nation (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2021).   Symbols of Australia: Imagining a Nation (NewSouth Publishing, 2021) is a marvellous new addition to our knowledge of Australia’s national imaginings. Encompassing 28 chapters on a range of national symbols, plus an informative and […]
Book Review – Australia & the Pacific: A History

Book Review – Australia & the Pacific: A History

Helen Gardner reviews Ian Hoskins’, Australia & the Pacific: A History  (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2021).    Titles of general histories generally reveal not just the broad parameters of their analysis but also the power relations of a specific historical period.  Australia and the Pacific: A History is an ambitious book which covers Australia’s engagement with […]
Book Review – Gum: The Story of Eucalypts and their Champions

Book Review – Gum: The Story of Eucalypts and their Champions

Cindi Davey (PhD candidate, James Cook University) reviews Ashley Hay’s Gum: The Story of Eucalypts and their Champions (Sydney: NewSouth, 2021).   The study of Australia’s eucalypts takes on a new urgency every time our fire season is particularly intense. Concerns around climate change and the ever-increasing carbon saturation of the global atmosphere also make […]
Book Review – Fighting Australia’s Cold War: The Nexus of Strategy and Operations in a Multipolar Asia, 1945-1965

Book Review – Fighting Australia’s Cold War: The Nexus of Strategy and Operations in a Multipolar Asia, 1945-1965

Peter Edwards has reviewed Fighting Australia’s Cold War: The Nexus of Strategy and Operations in a Multipolar Asia, 1945-1965, edited by Peter Dean and Tristan Moss (ANU Press, 2021).    The Korean War (1950-53) has often been called the forgotten war, but the term applies at least equally to the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960) and the […]
Review of the The Indigenous Voice Co-design Process: Final Report to the  Australian Government

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 […]
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 […]