AustLit

'In Mallee Country, a formidable team of historians combines the methods and insights of their respective fields of expertise to craft a sophisticated and nuanced account of the continent's southern mallee lands and its peoples from deep time to the present. Their history maps the making of “mallee country” across semi-arid Western Australia, South Australia, and Victoria, a diverse region of mallee eucalypts transformed by dryland wheat farming. The name of this vast region derives from the Wemba Wemba people of northwestern Victoria, whose term “mali” described the multi-stemmed form of eucalypt that arises from a large lignotuber that sustains the tree during drought and fire.'  (Introduction)

'In Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin: The Making of the Modern Labor Party, Liam Byrne imagines the early Australian Labor Party (ALP) as an organisation of “creative tension”, where policy was determined by ideological contests between socialists and moderate reformers, both sides sharing a commitment to progressive change and transformation through parliamentary action. Byrne wants the Labor Party today to rediscover and revive this culture, this capacity “to host alternative worldviews of commitment to social change within the structures of the party” (p. 171). His book is positioned as a contribution to contemporary debates within the ALP about the party's purpose and direction.'  (Introduction)

'Ken Inglis (1929–2017) was one of Australia's best known and most innovative historians. In part based on a colloquium held in Melbourne in 2015, this tribute to him is an exceptional book. It fulfills its task of attempting to explain his life and work, but it does much more in telling us about Australian life between the 1930s and 2000s, particularly about the humanities and social sciences in leading universities between the late 1940s and today. There are twenty two chapters and useful biographical materials, as well as a seventeen-page bibliography of Inglis’ written work, including his journalism. The authors are as good a group as could be assembled and together elucidate his life and set it into context. Inglis was a very Australian historian, although influenced by British and American history and methods. The chapters bring this out nicely as they explore Inglis, whom Bill Gammage fittingly describes in his Introduction as a laconic Australian.'  (Introduction)