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Australian History

Into the heart of Tasmania: A search for human antiquity by Rebe Taylor

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May 2017, no. 391
Philip Jones reviews 'Into the heart of Tasmania: A search for human antiquity' by Rebe Taylor

The historian Rebe Taylor has a fascination with Australia’s southern islands and their capacity to contain or magnify issues of identity for their indigenous inhabitants, if not for their broader populations ...

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Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the world since 1942 by Allan Gyngell

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May 2017, no. 391
Frank Bongiorno reviews 'Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the world since 1942' by Allan Gyngell

n 2004 the Indonesian foreign minister, Nur Hassan Wirajuda, learned that Australia had established a 1000-mile maritime exclusion zone as part of its asylum-seeker policy ...

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Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga story by Elizabeth Tynan

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March 2017, no. 389
Danielle Clode reviews 'Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga story' by Elizabeth Tynan

Maralinga is a name familiar to most Australians as the site of British nuclear testing in the 1950s. Less familiar are the earlier tests at the Monte Bello Islands off Western Australia and Emu Field in South Australia. All have left a toxic legacy in our history.

Elizabeth Tynan’s finely researched book on the history of Maralinga and its precursors brin ...

From the Edge: Australia’s lost histories by Mark McKenna

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January–February 2017, no. 388
Michael Winkler reviews 'From the Edge: Australia’s lost histories' by Mark McKenna

There is a well-meaning musician who performs intermittently in Central Australia. When he plays his hit song, he tries to augment the lyrics by chanting the ...

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Brian Matthews reviews 'The Story of Australia’s People: The rise and rise of a New Australia' by Geoffrey Blainey

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December 2016, no. 387
Brian Matthews reviews 'The Story of Australia’s People: The rise and rise of a New Australia' by Geoffrey Blainey

The seminar, as far as I can remember, took place in what was then the Melbourne Teachers’ College on Grattan Street. The late-afternoon sunlight slanting through ornate ...

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The Vagabond Papers by John Stanley James

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September 2016, no. 384
John Arnold reviews 'The Vagabond Papers' by John Stanley James

In March 2016 the Royal Historical Society of Victoria hosted a function to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Michael Cannon's The Land Boomers, first issued ...

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'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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