'For some time now, Elizabeth Macarthur has taken form in the work of scholars as an individual distinct from the ‘domestic life’ that has long been recognised as fundamental to the powerful ‘public’ role of John and the Macarthur family in Australian settler colonial history. Here Atkinson shifts the spotlight away from these two individuals to examine the dynamic partnership they produced as a couple, which enabled both to ‘achieve’ in the terms of settler society. Their collaboration was rare, Elizabeth being among the few educated settler women in the colony, and this brought a host of advantages to John beyond domestic comforts and even complex management of their farm in his absence. As Atkinson shows, the man with a wife in the colony had an additional range of transnational sociabilities with both women and men that were critical to establishing new relationships of trust in an unfamiliar locale and sustaining others across the globe. These may have been all the more significant for this couple, since John was widely regarded by contemporaries as challenging or, more politely, restless. Atkinson sets the Macarthurs’ partnership in this wider fabric of connections that supported them, but equally constrained and bound them to old frameworks, ideas and ties.' (Introduction)
'If the failure of the recent Voice referendum teaches us anything, it is that there is still a very long way to go before non-Aboriginal Australians really grasp, at a fundamental personal level, the nature of the historical injustices that Aboriginal Australians have faced. This new widely acclaimed book by Bundjalung historian Shauna Bostock promises to change all that.' (Introduction)
'Ross McMullin received great acclaim for his 2012 Farewell Dear People, which told the lives of ten young Australians of outstanding potential who were selected to exemplify the ‘lost generation’ of World War I: that is, those young men whose pre-war potential meant that their deaths in battle constituted a profound loss not only for their family but for the Australian nation. The book was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History and the National Cultural Award. Life So Full of Promise: Further Biographies of Australia’s Lost Generation is, as its title indicates, a sequel to this success.' (Introduction)
'Writing Australian History On-Screen: Television and Film Period Dramas “Down Under” is a vital and lively edited collection that explores Australian history/histories through period productions from the early 1960s to the late 2010s. The essays take a largely thematic approach to their texts, framing them within what editors Jo Parnell and Julie Anne Taddeo describe as ‘a cultural-historical-sociological angle’ in order ‘to plumb the depths of Australian history in such a way that reveals the human factor behind and within that story’ (1). The contributors interrogate key moments and mythologies of Australian history, highlighting issues that continue to have relevance for contemporary Australia. In doing so the writers uniformly demonstrate a keen awareness of the crucial role of film and televisual texts in better understanding an evolving sense of Australian national identity.' (Introduction)
