The Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) is Australia’s largest and longest-running social sciences and humanities project. Set up in 1957, it has been publishing short accounts of significant and…
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Australian history
Displaying 321 - 340 of 368 articles
Australia has long had an obsession with migration law and national boundaries. Currently, it appears in the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill…
The flood of coverage of the centenary of Gallipoli and the first world war profoundly shapes the way we think of Australia’s history; but we suppress other violent events in our own country that also…
Australian’s museums, galleries and other cultural institutions must adopt more of a digital strategy with their collections if they are to remain relevant with audiences. Only about a quarter of the collections…
The culture wars that dominated the narrative during John Howard’s prime ministership have returned with the ascension of his self-described “political love child”, Tony Abbott. While Abbott is sometimes…
The Melbourne Museum’s World War I: Love & Sorrow exhibition, which opens this weekend, explores the various experiences of Victorians in the Great War, and the war’s effects on them. Museums have…
Matthew Flinders, who died just over 200 years ago, is widely credited with giving this country its name: Australia. Flinders preferred Australia to the more commonly used Terra Australis as he thought…
Nicholas Clements, The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania (2014, University of Queensland Press). In the heat of commemoration of Australians’ involvement in the first world war, it’s timely…
Almost exactly 98 years ago, the Fromelles legend goes, the 5th Australian Division was thrown into battle by stupid British generals and slaughtered. Overnight, 5500 men were killed or wounded: supposedly…
Later this year, we expect to see draft recommendations from a parliamentary committee on recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian constitution and ensuring there is…
Most social scientists in Australian universities are left-leaning in their politics and so they highlight the inequalities and oppressions of Australian society. When they came to study migrants in modern…
Why is AFL the main sport in Victoria and the other southern States while New South Wales and Queensland follow rugby? That’s long been a vexed question, but we may now be closer to an answer. In Melbourne…
The federal budget reignited debate over federal-state relations with a decision to cut some $80 billion in funding for the state responsibilities of schools and hospitals over the coming years. But how…
Victorian cyclists have achieved amazing success on the national and international stage, as I outlined last week. Victorian riders were the first Australians to compete in, win and wear the most prized…
The annual Giro d'Italia bike race starting tomorrow signifies a peak time on the world professional cycling calendar, with the European Spring Classic races just finished, and the rest of the Grand Tours…
When Canberra celebrated another birthday last month it was spared the barrage of criticism that accompanied its centenary celebrations last year. In the lead-up to that big event, gratuitous insults flooded…
On Anzac Day, Australia remembers its war dead, with one tragic exception. Australia is apparently disinclined to acknowledge the fact or the importance of frontier conflicts. What’s the nexus between…
Tasmania’s Black War (1824-31) was the most intense frontier conflict in Australia’s history. It was a clash between the most culturally and technologically dissimilar humans to have ever come into contact…
Evidence of the first people to settle in Australia can be found in the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area, in western New South Wales, informally referred to as Australia’s Rift Valley. Hundreds of archaeological…
It’s no secret that Australia fares much better in Summer Games than the Winter Games: Aussie athletes have won 485 medals in Summer Olympics, while the winter counterpart has yielded a much more modest…
Top contributors
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Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
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Professor in Public History, University of Technology Sydney
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Professor of History and Professor of Public Engagement, La Trobe University
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Professor Emeritus of Media and Culture, Griffith University, Griffith University
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Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University
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Professor of History, Macquarie University
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Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, Convenor: Indigenous Land & Justice Research Group, UNSW Sydney
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Research Professor in the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, UNSW Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University
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Kate Burridge is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Linguistics, Monash University
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ARC Laureate Fellow, Monash University, Director of Global Encounters Program., Monash University
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Senior Lecturer in History, La Trobe University
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Associate Professor in History, University of Tasmania
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Wesfarmers Chair of Australian History, The University of Western Australia
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Emeritus Professor, Monash University
