Russell McGregor

Adjunct Professor of History, James Cook University

My latest book, Idling in Green Places: A Life of Alec Chisholm, has been shortlisted for the 2020 National Biography Award. Like Alec Chisholm, I'm a keen birder, which inspires my current research into the history of birding in Australia.
Two of my previous books won prestigious prizes, including the NSW Premier's Prize for Australian History, and were shortlisted for others, including the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History. After publishing extensively on the history of racial ideas and Aboriginal policy, most of my recent work has been on environmental history.
Since retirement in 2014, I've been an Adjunct Professor of History in the College of Arts, Society and Education at James Cook University. As well as scholarly pursuits in that capacity, I’m also enjoying the pleasures and challenges of writing for a wider audience.

Experience

2014–present

Adjunct professor, James Cook University

Education

1993

James Cook University, PhD

Publications

2016

Environment, Race and Nationhood in Australia: Revisiting the Empty North, Palgrave Macmillan, New York
2011

Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal People and the Australian Nation, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra
1997

Imagined Destinies: Aboriginal Australians and the Doomed Race Theory, 1880-1939, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne

Professional Memberships

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
Australian Historical Association

Research Areas

Historical Studies (2103)

Honours

NSW Premier's Prize for Australian History, 2012, for Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal People and the Australian Nation; this book was also shortlisted for the 2012 Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History. WK Hancock Prize for History, 1998, for Imagined Destinies: Aboriginal Australians and the Doomed Race Theory. David Scott Mitchell Fellow, State Library of New South Wales, 2016.