Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Blainey i(A30904 works by) (a.k.a. Geoffrey Norman Blainey)
Also writes as: G. Blainey
Born: Established: 1930 Melbourne, Victoria, ;
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Educated at the University of Melbourne, Blainey is known as one of Australia's most significant and popular historians. His well-known books include The Tyranny of Distance (1966), Triumph of the Nomads (1975), A Shorter History of Australia (1994), Black Kettle and Full Moon (2003), A Short History of the World (2000), A Short History of the 20th Century (2005) and A Short History of Christianity (2011).

Professor Blainey held chairs in economic history and then in plain history at the University of Melbourne for many years, and for some of those years he chaired the Australia Council. He has served on many Commonwealth government agencies, including the Australian War Memorial, the Literature Board, the Australian Heritage Commission and the Australia-China Council. After his retirement he became a regular contributor to the Australian and Melbourne's Herald-Sun.

Professor Blainey was awarded the Order of Australia in 1975, and is one of the few Australians whose biography appears in Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 2012, his A Short History of Christianity was shortlisted in the Non-Fiction category of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards and was the second placegetter in the Australian Christian Book of the Year Award.

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Geoffrey Blainey was included in the Bulletin's '100 Most Influential Australians' list in 2006.

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Story of Australia's People Volume 1: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia Melbourne : Penguin , 2015 8300874 2015 single work single work criticism

The vast continent of Australia was settled in two main streams, far apart in time and origin.

'The first came ashore some 50,000 years ago when the islands of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea were one. The second began to arrive from Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. Each had to come to terms with the land they found, and each had to make sense of the other. '

'The long Aboriginal occupation of Australia witnessed spectacular changes. The rising of the seas isolated the continent and preserved a nomadic way of life, while agriculture was revolutionising other parts of the world. Over millennia, the Aboriginal people mastered the land's climates, seasons and resources.'

'Traditional Aboriginal life came under threat the moment Europeans crossed the world to plant a new society in an unknown land. That land in turn rewarded, tricked, tantalised and often defeated the new arrivals. The meeting of the two cultures is one of the most difficult and complex meetings in recorded history. '

'In this book Professor Geoffrey Blainey returns first to the subject of his celebrated works on Australian history, Triumph of the Nomads (1975) and A Land Half Won (1980), retelling the story of our history up until 1850 in light of the latest research. He has changed his view about vital aspects of the Indigenous and early British history of this land, and looked at other aspects for the first time.' (Source: Publisher's website)

2016 longlisted CHASS Australia Prizes Australia Book Prize
2016 joint winner Prime Minister's Literary Awards The Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History With Sam Lipski and Suzanne D. Rutland's Let My People Go: The Untold Story of Australia and the Soviet Jews 1959-89.
y separately published work icon Triumph of the Nomads : A History of Ancient Australia South Melbourne : Macmillan , 1975 Z1181357 1975 single work non-fiction
1976 highly commended National Book Council Award for Australian Literature
y separately published work icon The Rush That Never Ended : A History of Australian Mining Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 1963 Z1631959 1963 single work non-fiction
1964 winner ASAL Awards ALS Gold Medal
Last amended 10 Jan 2017 16:13:27
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