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

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 […]

Q and A with Stuart Macintyre

In memory of the late Stuart Macintyre, we are re-publishing a Q&A he took part in with the Director of APH, Carolyn Holbrook. This piece was originally published in the AHA ECR blog in 2018, and we reprint it here with the permission of the AHA ECR Representatives. We send our condolences to Stuart’s family, […]

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

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 […]

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 […]

Q&A with Barry Leithhead, author of A Vision for Australia’s Health: Dr Cecil Cook at Work

Cecil Evelyn Aufrere (known as ‘Mick’) Cook was born in Sussex, England in 1897 and moved with his family to Barcaldine in central Queensland at the turn of the twentieth century. Can you describe the main influences on Cook during his upbringing, and how they shaped his subsequent career in public health? Cook’s mother and […]

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. […]

Joanna Cruickshank interviews Kama Maclean about her new book, ‘British India, White Australia’

Kama Maclean’s new book, British India: White Australia, examines the history of the relationship between the two nations. In this interview with Dr Joanna Cruickshank, Kama explains how the treatment of Indian students in Australia during the COVID pandemic bears some resemblance to the difficult experiences of earlier generations of Indians living in Australia under […]

Q&A with Richard Broinowski, author of Under the Rainbow: The Life and Times of E.W. Cole

E.W. Cole, proprietor of Cole’s Book Arcade in Melbourne’s Burke Street Mall, was an amazing man. He condemned the White Australian policy when it was unpopular to do so and had decidedly progressive views about religion. He published the famous Cole’s Funny Picture Books and met his wife through an advertisement he placed in the newspaper. Carolyn Holbrook […]