The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their craft is a very readable exploration of the writing of history in Australia since World War II. Written by highly respected historian, Tom Griffiths, The Art of Time Travel examines the work of fourteen influential historical writers who have developed the way we understand history in Australia. Each chapter focuses on a different … [Read more...] about Review: The Art of Time Travel by Tom Griffiths
Writing
Review: Waging Peace by Anne Deveson
Anne Deveson was a highly regarded journalist, film-maker and human rights activist who died late last year. Her last book was a memoir titled Waging Peace and was published in 2013. Anne Deveson was a groundbreaker in many ways. She helped Australian society grapple with serious issues that people experienced silently such as mental illness, poverty and abuse. As I expected … [Read more...] about Review: Waging Peace by Anne Deveson
Review: The Anzacs by Patsy Adam-Smith
The fog rolled down the river and engulf our house. The cold and damp penetrated the walls and windows. Our only view, an opaque whiteness. Through the stillness, the sound of a lone bugler playing the Last Post reached us from the nearby cemetery. Another old soldier had died. This was the house our family was living in when Patsy Adam-Smith published The Anzacs, her iconic … [Read more...] about Review: The Anzacs by Patsy Adam-Smith
Maybanke Anderson: suffragist and social reformer
Change in a culture often occurs in fits and starts, in confusing whirls of ideas and protest followed by quiet periods where old orthodoxies percolate through society again but in a different guise. Reform digs in its heels. New form orthodoxies flex their muscles and then we find the times of protest, ideas and reform are upon us again. As we cycle through complacency, … [Read more...] about Maybanke Anderson: suffragist and social reformer
It’s About Time
In my last post I wrote about Sue Castrique’s conception of history as drama and how it helped me with how I tackle the writing of my book. I am writing about how Australian soldiers reconciled their experience of World War I with their beliefs, whether they be agnostic, adherents to one of the large Christian denominations or held more unorthodox beliefs for the time. Over the … [Read more...] about It’s About Time
