Since its early history, Australia has seen the Pacific as a vast, empty region where foreign powers threatened its security. This focus has undermined our effectiveness in the region.
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Articles on Australian history
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The river wasn’t merely a physical entity – it was a symbol of spiritual and cultural significance, serving as the life force which flows through Country.
Australians could once claim compensation for injuries arising from a broken engagement. Today, the responsibility for romantic injury has been individualised and feminised, its pain trivialised.
The heated debate around the Voice referendum demonstrated Australian history is still up for grabs. So Kate Fullagar’s new book, Bennelong and Phillip, is both critical and timely.
There’s been a long-standing debate over whether dingoes started out wild or domesticated. One thing is clear – they had a close relationship with First Peoples.
Fifty years ago today, after a prolonged and controversial period of construction, the Sydney Opera House was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.
Voice supporters are not looking for division, but rather a desire to play a role in the future of a nation that accepts it’s our country, too.
For over 100 years, the Victorian school curriculum has failed to give generations of students the chance to learn about Indigenous political movements.
In its early years, the Australian Women’s Weekly was careful to balance is political perspective, but played a role in raising awareness of important issues.
So showy and ubiquitous, jacarandas can be mistaken for natives, but they originate in South America, and were introduced to Australia in the 19th century.
Killing for Country does brilliantly for one group of families what a robust, locally grounded truth-telling process might do for the whole nation.
The medieval is part of the mosaic of modern Australia. Our nation’s heritage on this island continent is full of it: in aesthetics, institutions, laws, languages, identities, moralities.
What did Australians do online in the 1990s? Shared bioinformatics data, made cyberfeminist zines, cruised the information superhighway …
While most repeat referendums fail, it is possible to succeed if the referendum proposal is altered or untethered from an unpopular element.
Donald Horne’s genius was his ability to capture on the page a personal intellectual journey that reflected one the nation was also taking.
This new comedic musical is not just a dramatisation of the events of 1975, it is also an attempt to understand our maddening political culture.
Across the continent, diverse, adaptable fishing practices, recipes and rituals were a cornerstone of Indigenous life at the time of first contact – and many remain so to this day.
When Doris Taylor became paralysed, her mother was advised to put her in a Home for Incurables. Instead, Doris helped elect a reforming South Australian premier and founded a national institution.
Clare Wright has spent ten years researching the history of these groundbreaking petitions. Though few Australians have heard of them, she writes, we can learn much from the story of their creation.
Aboriginal people in 1951 framed cultural practice as labour and as a tool for advocacy for Aboriginal rights stretching across the continent.
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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Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University
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Research Professor in the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, UNSW Sydney
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ARC Laureate Fellow, Monash University, Director of Global Encounters Program., Monash University
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Professor of Linguistics, Monash University
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Lecturer in History, La Trobe University
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Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney
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Wesfarmers Chair of Australian History, The University of Western Australia
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Historian and Heritage Consultant, La Trobe University
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Head of Knowledge, Australian National Maritime Museum and Honorary Affiliate, University of Sydney
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Professor of History, Macquarie University
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Joanna Mendelssohn is a Friend of The Conversation.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
