Book Review – The Shrinking Nation: How we got here and what can be done about it

Book Review – The Shrinking Nation: How we got here and what can be done about it

Christopher Waters reviews Graeme Turner’s The Shrinking Nation: How we got here and what can be done about it (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2023).   In the last fifteen years several books have been published which start from the position that Australia has run off the rails as a nation over the last […]
Book Review – Australia’s Pivot to India

Book Review – Australia’s Pivot to India

Liam Detering reviews Andrew Charlton’s Australia’s Pivot to India, (Collingwood: Black Inc, 2023).   Australia and India’s relationship has shown signs of maturation over the last decade after a history of false starts in the relationship between the two countries. Therefore, Andrew Charlton’s Australia’s Pivot to India, comes at a timely juncture in the Australia-India […]
Book Review – Killing for Country: A Family History

Book Review – Killing for Country: A Family History

Jonathan Richards reviews David Marr’s Killing for Country: A Family History (Melbourne: Black Inc Books, 2023).   Racial violence is a touchy subject in settler-colonies (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States) because some non-Indigenous people seem more concerned by the accusation than the action. Perhaps this can be explained by lived experience: the […]
Book Review – Double Nation: A History of Australian Art

Book Review – Double Nation: A History of Australian Art

Emerita Professor Catherine Speck reviews Ian McLean’s Double Nation: A History of Australian Art, (London: Reaktion Books, 2023), 303pp.   Ian McLean’s new history of Australian art, Double Nation, a companion volume to his 2016 book Rattling Spears: A History of Indigenous Australian Art, is a refreshing and engaging read. He hasn’t attempted to do […]
Book Review – My Father’s Shadow

Book Review – My Father’s Shadow

Professor Emerita Joan Beaumont reviews Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo’s My Father’s Shadow: A Memoir, (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2023). ISBN 9781922979186   Samuel Goldbloom (1919-1999) was a prominent figure in Australian left-wing politics during the Cold War decades. A professed socialist, he was also a covert and deeply loyal member of the Communist Party. Other radicals […]
Book Reviews – Revealing Secrets and The Factory

Book Reviews – Revealing Secrets and The Factory

Peter Edwards reviews John Blaxland and Clare Birgin’s Revealing Secrets: An Unofficial History of Australian Signals Intelligence & The Advent of Cyber (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2023) and John Fahey’s The Factory: The Official History of the Australian Signals Directorate, Volume 1, 1947 to 1972 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2023).   The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), […]
Q&A with Jordana Silverstein, author of Cruel Care: A History of Children at Our Borders

Q&A with Jordana Silverstein, author of Cruel Care: A History of Children at Our Borders

Jacquelyn Baker interviews Jordana Silverstein about her book, Cruel Care: A History of Children at Our Borders (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2023).   Congratulations on the publication of Cruel Care, Jordy! I learnt so much about the history of Australia’s immigration policies and found it difficult to put down. The back cover of your book […]
2023 HTAV Annual Conference – Dr Carolyn Holbrook Keynote Recording

2023 HTAV Annual Conference – Dr Carolyn Holbrook Keynote Recording

History Education for the Citizens of the Future Dr Carolyn Holbrook, Deakin University Keynote Recording The discipline of History has always been concerned with educating the citizens of the future. For the first decades of Australian nationhood, this largely consisted of inculcating young Australians in the virtues of British imperial liberalism—the kind of citizenship education […]
Book Review – Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country

Book Review – Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country

James Watson reviews Ryan Cropp’s Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country (Collingwood: La Trobe University Press, 2023)   Did Donald Horne have anything meaningful to say? It’s a harsh question of a man who wrote more than two dozen books, edited multiple literary journals at once, and published countless articles, essays, and reviews; […]
Book Review – Everything you need to know about the Voice

Book Review – Everything you need to know about the Voice

Tim Rowse reviews Megan Davis and George Williams’s Everything you need to know about the Voice (NewSouth Publishing 2023).   This book is a sequel to the authors’ Everything you need to know about the Uluru Statement from the Heart (2021). The ‘Voice’ sequel includes much that was in the ‘Statement’ book: a history of […]
The Myths and Meaning Behind Long Tan Day in Australia – and in Vietnam

The Myths and Meaning Behind Long Tan Day in Australia – and in Vietnam

By Mia Martin Hobbs   On 18 August 1966, D Company of 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR) clashed with National Liberation Front (NLF) forces in a rubber plantation near the village of Long Tan. Seventeen Australians and one New Zealander were killed, and twenty-four soldiers were wounded, marking the highest single-day loss of life […]
History Education for the Citizens of the Future – HTAV Conference, Melbourne 27 July 2023

History Education for the Citizens of the Future – HTAV Conference, Melbourne 27 July 2023

*This is an edited version of a speech delivered by Dr Carolyn Holbrook to the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria annual conference in Melbourne on 27 July 2023.   History teachers hold a special place in my heart.   Like many of you, I was drawn to study history because I had the privilege of […]