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Australian History

'How do we live with ourselves? The Australian national conscience' by Alan Atkinson

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September 2016, no. 384

When Australian federation was being planned and its implications first worked through, various men and women with agendas of their own set themselves ...

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Armenia, Australia and the Great War by Vicken Babkenian and Peter Stanley

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September 2016, no. 384
Joy Damousi reviews 'Armenia, Australia and the Great War' by Vicken Babkenian and Peter Stanley

The Armenian Genocide, which claimed an estimated 1.5 million lives, began in 1915. It continues to cause controversy today and is a hotly contested event; ...

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Making the Australian Quilt 1800–1950

NGV Australia
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25 July 2016
'Making the Australian Quilt 1800–1950' (NGV Australia)

With a needle on cloth, Mary Jane Hannaford preserved her sharp observations of people as stout appliquéd figures set amidst interpretative renditions of Australian animals. Late in life she embroidered favourite verses and slyly captioned her pictures in quilts for her family. Close to one hundred ...

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The Lucky Country? Reinventing Australia by Ian Lowe

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August 2016, no. 383
Peter Christoff reviews 'The Lucky Country? Reinventing Australia' by Ian Lowe

When The Lucky Country was published in 1964, its cover – Albert Tucker's painting of a hat-wearing, stony-faced, beer-swilling Aussie gambler – captured its ...

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Anzac Day Then and Now edited by Tom Frame

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June–July 2016, no. 382
Seumas Spark reviews 'Anzac Day Then and Now' edited by Tom Frame

I hazard a guess that more books are published on Anzac – the day, the legend, the myth – than on any other subject in Australian history. The least of these ...

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Unnecessary Wars by Henry Reynolds

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June–July 2016, no. 382
Peter Stanley reviews 'Unnecessary Wars' by Henry Reynolds

In 1885 the Singleton MHA and Militia officer Albert Gould reflected that, New South Wales having sent a contingent to fight for the empire in the Sudan, 'we shall be ...

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Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War: Australia's Greek immigrants after World War II and the Greek Civil War by Joy Damousi

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June–July 2016, no. 382
Alistair Thomson reviews 'Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War: Australia's Greek immigrants after World War II and the Greek Civil War' by Joy Damousi

When we talk about the importance of Australia's remembered wartime past, we mostly think of home-front experiences or Australians who went away ...

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Waterfront: Graft, Corruption and Violence: Australia’s Crime Frontier From 1788 to Now by Duncan McNab

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May 2016, no. 381
Simon Caterson reviews 'Waterfront: Graft, Corruption and Violence: Australia's crime frontier from 1788 to now' by Duncan McNab

The Australian way of life has been much influenced by the proximity of most of the population to the coast. While we often think of the sunny side of that existence in terms of the beach, certain shadier aspects of the Australian experience have been shaped at the docks.

'Australia's major ports have been the birthplace of the nation, home to the tight-knit ...

GAY SYDNEY: A HISTORY: A HISTORY by Garry Wotherspoon

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May 2016, no. 381
Robert Reynolds reviews 'Gay Sydney: A history' by Garry Wotherspoon

Historian Garry Wotherspoon's history of gay Sydney was first published in 1991 as City of the Plain. Over the years it became a classic text, perhaps the classic text, of Australian gay male history. I have a well-worn copy myself with copious notes in the margins and dog-eared pages. A quarter of a century later, Wotherspoon has revisited the ori ...

The Media and the Massacre, Port Arthur 1996-2016 by Sonya Voumard

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April 2016, no. 380
Carol Middleton reviews 'The Media and the Massacre, Port Arthur 1996-2016' by Sonya Voumard

In 2009 Sonya Voumard read about a legal claim brought by Martin Bryant's mother, Carleen, against journalists Robert Wainwright and Paola Totaro, accusing them of using her personal manuscript, letters, and family photos without her permission in their book Born or Bred? Martin Bryant: The Making of a Mass Murderer. Struck by the complex ethics of the case ...

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