Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

A History of Australia by Mark Peel and Christina Twomey

by
April 2012, no. 340

A History of Australia by Mark Peel and Christina Twomey

Palgrave Macmillan, $49.95 pb, 320 pp

A History of Australia by Mark Peel and Christina Twomey

by
April 2012, no. 340

‘The product under consideration is Shist.’ So began New Zealand historian Keith Sinclair’s discussion of short histories in 1968. His irreverent diminutive is still occasionally heard among professional historians of a certain age. It is less often recalled that Sinclair was defending the worth of the short history against those who might think ‘Shist beneath their dignity’. After all, Sinclair was himself the author of a fine short history of New Zealand, and he was contributing to a collection of essays in honour of W.K. Hancock, who had arguably produced the most distinguished – and certainly the most influential – short history of Australia up to that time.

Frank Bongiorno reviews 'A History of Australia' by Mark Peel and Christina Twomey

A History of Australia

by Mark Peel and Christina Twomey

Palgrave Macmillan, $49.95 pb, 320 pp

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.