RAINA MACINTYRE

Vaccine Nation provides authoritative summaries of the preventive value of immunisation against a wide range of illnesses … Given this seemingly incontrovertible evidence, MacIntyre believes that facts will save us.

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PETER KIRKPATRICK

Kirkpatrick’s work is both accessible and elegant as he traverses a diverse literary landscape to offer a completely original interpretation of our shared history of poetry. Critically, this history is woven into many other histories of people, places and cultural moments.

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BRUCE MOORE

Researchers Sue Butler and Vanessa Mack set out in the early 1970s, just after work began on the Macquarie Dictionary (first published in 1981), to find out how people used and manipulated English. They asked prisoners is residence at Parramatta Gaol to produce a list documenting language usage behind the facility’s walls … This is the first time that the Parramatta Jail Glossary has been published, in its entirety, as a stand-alone text.

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EDITED BY SUSAN ARTHURE, STEPHANIE JAMES, DYMPHNA LONERGAN AND FIDELMA MCCORRY

This is the second of two volumes to emerge from ISAANZ24 (Irish studies in Australia and New Zealand conference series)… This volume aims to ‘shed new light on the women among the Irish Australian diaspora, a group whose stories are often more difficult to locate in archives and public documents’ (p. x). It is basically a form of ‘rescue’ history, saving individual lives from the ‘condescension of history’…

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EDITED BY JADE LILLIE AND KATE LARSEN WITH CARA KIRKWOOD AND JAX BROWN

The strength of this book lies in its breadth. Much like the diverse communities represented in its 32 chapters, The Relationship is the Project demonstrates the principles it describes. Featuring the foundational tenets of community-engaged work, but going beyond these, the chapters explore important questions including working with First Nations communities, cultural safety, intersectionality and self-determination.

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DAVID TOPP

Rain of terror; menace of drought. What happens when a drought-prone city is built on a flood plain? … Topp’s 2024 publication explores the history of major riverine flooding in Brisbane, focusing on the devastating floods of 2011 and the more recent ‘rain bomb’ of 2022. Bravely, Brisbane Breached is as broad in its remit as the wide-ranging matters that plague flood management today, reflecting diverse topics that span flood mitigation and water security to politics, policy, and urban planning. Topp’s knowledgeable handle on many of these matters makes for a compellingly varied read…

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GERALDINE FELA

Oral history interviews … with 33 nurses form the core of this work, and an immediately noticeable strength is the range of nurses Fela interviewed … Oral history, with its unique ability to bring the past into the present in the process of interview, sees Fela’s narrators share the fears, the poignant moments, the woe and anguish – and the laughter … that has sat tightly inside across decades, never forgotten.

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MARGOT OSBORNE (ED.)

The Adelaide Art Scene is much more than an attractive book … This is as much a cultural history as it is an art history, and the range of its authors necessarily means that its multiple voices and perspectives deliver a fascinating depth to a regional history.

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MARGUERITA STEPHENS with FAY STEWART-MUIR

It would be difficult to overstate the degree to which this book should be considered a monumental achievement. Stephens’ relentless interrogation of enumerate primary sources, and the forensic level of detail combined with cultural insights woven into almost every scene, renders The Years of Terror, Banbu-Deen a monstrous work of academic labour.

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DARRA GOLDSTEIN

Russia is not Putin, though you’d hardly know it in current reporting. Nor has its culture been formed in isolation from the rest of the world. On the contrary, it has been shaped by its interactions with both the East and the West, influences that have for centuries confounded Russia’s sense of identity. Darra Goldstein tells this story through the lens of food. The Kingdom of Rye is a slender volume packed with the complexities of Russian history.

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CASSANDRA PYBUS

In her captivating book and a piece of truth-telling par excellence, Pybus uncovers the network of colonial men in Tasmania who used their status and laced it with deception and trickery to obtain the Ancestral remains of Palawa men, women and children, and ship them off to Europe … As Pybus notes, there is still much to be uncovered about these devious practices in Tasmania and elsewhere.

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SARAH LUKE

Few historians in Australia engage in the world of creative non-fiction … Even fewer have written creative non-fiction for children … Luke’s book is an exemplar of what historians can do to reach diverse audiences, to make history accessible and allow readers to look to history for inspiration.

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NICK DYRENFURTH & FRANK BONGIORNO

Dyrenfurth and Bongiorno pitch their work to a wide audience: true believers, external critics, those interested in the story of the world’s pioneering social democratic party, and journalists. It is to the authors’ credit that these target groups will all be pleased with this highly readable account of the only Australian political party with a continuous history since colonial times.

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ROSS MCMULLIN

McMullin’s second book about talented men who did not survive the First World War underlines his point that the deaths of these men deprived Australia of potential sporting, professional and civic leaders in the trying years that followed.

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TERRY KASS

After 40 years as a professional historian, Dr Terry Kass embarked on a labour of love and has produced a volume that will be cited for years to come. This detailed reference book is invaluable for anyone interested in the history of land settlement and the mechanism of surveying in NSW, especially during the peak period when land was being ‘opened up’ for white settlement. This project complements Kass’ earlier work relating to land records and surveying, in particular his 2008 volume, Sails to Satellites, the Surveyors General of NSW (1786-2007).

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PHILIP PAYTON

At first glance this book suggests little relevance to Australian readers, being largely about an English writer and Cornwall, his favourite part of England. 

Like most history, however, nothing is that simple.

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RICHARD NEVILLE AND RACHEL FRANKS (EDS)

A picture collection chosen not for its aesthetic qualities, but for the stories it tells about the people and places of New South Wales, forms the subject of this handsome volume. Building a collection of pictures around their content rather than their creators is an interesting challenge and legacy inherited by the Mitchell Library in Sydney. It’s a delight to find a collection of works wherein the history in the paintings is the headline, rather than the artist, the style, or technique—although these are important and do feature—it’s the stories that reward the viewer here. 

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DENIS BYRNE, IEN ANG & PHILLIP MAR

Drawing on transnational approaches, this multi-disciplinary collection of essays explores the history of movement of ‘people, ideas, objects, and money’ between China and Australia that were ‘stimulated by initial acts of migration’. Its focus is the 1840s to 1940s. The book raises important issues about migrant heritage for those in the heritage industry, highlighting the importance of a historical understanding of these places that extends beyond their physical location and the nation-state.

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ALECIA SIMMONDS

If you’re in the habit of falling asleep with a book in bed, I’d suggest you read this one in a chair. It squeezes a huge set of ideas into a large volume of small print and thin margins. Thankfully, it is also beautifully written and full of captivating stories and vignettes.

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