Cirrus@Austlit

'Historical detective work reveals more of the life of the city’s best-known brothel-keeper'

'This is a fine collection of essays. Each has something to offer the reader: historical knowledge, an entertaining story, inspiration to act. Jenny Hocking calls it ‘Political history at its best’ (ii), and it is hard to disagree – though perhaps it should be ‘histories’. Hocking describes the collection as ‘superbly curated’ by Michelle Arrow, rather than edited. And, indeed, the experience of reading this book is rather like walking through an exhibition of objects, brought together but inherently separate.' (Introduction)          

'A historian tries to hear the voices of lost children'

'Australian scholars have written some excellent biographies, and Judith Brett's The Enigmatic Mr Deakin is amongst the best of them. It stands tall alongside recent triumphs like Jill Roe's Stella Miles Franklin and Mark McKenna's An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark. Like Roe and McKenna, Brett draws her readers into a sympathetic understanding of a complex and often contradictory subject. And beyond that, to a new appreciation of the society that shaped him and was shaped by him. Not since Allan Martin's Henry Parkes has an Australian biography captured so well the spirit of the age.'  (Introduction)

'History Australia is the official journal of the Australian Historical Association ... [It] aims to reflect the concerns, to publish the research product, and to increase the professional self-awareness of all those historians currently making and applying history in the nation and the community. It publishes refereed articles, debates, reviews of historical works, and news items.'

(Source: History Australia, vol.2 no.2, June 2005)

'Paul Carter's The road to Botany Bay does not claim to be Aboriginal history. But it has some pointed things to say about the ways that Aboriginal history has been and is being written in Australia. In concluding Carter proposes as a better way what he calls "an aboriginal history of space", which might "evoke their historical experience without appropriating it to white ends" (p. 350). A consideration of the role given to Aborigines in the book is instructive both about the writing of Aboriginal history in general, and about Carter's enterprise in particular.'  (Introduction)