Cirrus@Austlit

'Nobody looks very comfortable. There are four faces, angled inelegantly, only one inclined to engage with the camera, the attached bodies mostly submerged in a hot, foaming tub. There are two men and two women. The picture is from an age before digital cameras were everywhere, so the image hasn't been altered and as far as I know exists only in slowly fading semi-gloss hard copy. It is a scene more awkward than salacious: only one drink is in evidence and the expressions of the four twenty-somethings reflect self-consciousness more than any release of inhibitions. Everyone is wearing bathers and there's nothing scandalous to see here. As one of that group, I remember the night wryly.'  (Publication summary)

Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past since 1788 is an exciting new text that meets an unusual gap in the literature of Australian history. It presents students with an in-depth, multi authored collection of articles, documents and short essays that are structured around the major themes discussed in most history courses.

Each theme in Making Australian History contains a collection of primary and secondary sources, including chapters by current leading scholars, reprints of publications from previous decades that have proven seminal in the historiographical debate or research of each theme, photographs or artwork, and short feature articles on matters of human interest.

Making Australian History gives students the unique opportunity to study a range of articles and commentary on such themes as the Anzac legend, the convict stain, gold and federation, white Australia, Australians at war, myth, environmentalism and sustainability, ideology and politics. Publisher's blurb.