AustLit

'On 21 September 2018 Emeritus Professor Eric Richards died suddenly of a heart attack while in London, aged seventy-eight. This was as sad as it was shocking for his family, colleagues and friends. It was hard to believe that a man of such fitness and vigour, both physical and intellectual, could leave us so unexpectedly. Eric will be remembered as one of the great Australian historians of the last fifty years and one of the great gentlemen of our profession.' (Introduction)

'In this splendid book, Billy Griffiths investigates a historical revolution that occurred in Australia in the second half of the twentieth century – the dramatic discovery by archaeologists that this continent had a deep Aboriginal history, and the accompanying assertion by Aboriginal people of their status and rights as the nation’s first peoples – which saw the country’s Aboriginal past shift from the periphery of the nation’s story to its centre.'  (Introduction)

'On opening Serving Our Country I immediately turned to the index, looking for mentions of ‘frontier conflict’ and ‘Alfred Hearps’. I found ‘frontier wars’, but not poor Alfred Hearps: more on the significance of those subjects presently.'  (Introduction)

'Two very big books about two rich and varied lives, linked by their successive terms as headmaster of Geelong Grammar School (GGS). James Ralph Darling served three decades and retired somewhat jaded by education but reluctant to relinquish authority; Thomas Ronald Garnett set himself twelve years in harness, stuck to his limit, then built himself an entirely new career as one of Australia's greatest gardeners and garden writers. Darling in retirement was no slouch, serving as possibly the best-ever chair of the ABC, fending off attacks on its independence from political (but mostly conservative) critics and interferers, and standing up for quality public broadcasting and high standards in cultural and civic life. Hence if the setting is the same red-brick gleaming towers by Corio Bay, the men, their lives and the marks they made as educators and public figures were very different.' (Introduction)

'As Sue Taffe notes at the outset of this book, Mary Montgomerie Bennett has been the focus of more than thirty scholarly books or articles, yet she remains something of an enigma. The adoring daughter of a pastoralist who dispossessed Aboriginal people in north Queensland, Bennett became a passionate and tireless advocate for the rights of Aboriginal people relatively late in life. From a historical perspective, Bennett stands out among white humanitarians of the period for her rejection of paternalism, her explicit denunciation of Aboriginal child removal and the policies that encouraged it, and her willingness to support Aboriginal political organisations.'   (Publication summary)