Ann Curthoys

How to write history that people want to read

John Docker

The title question becomes a rabbit-hole through which we tumble in search of an answer, encountering everyone from Herodotus to Humphrey Bogart along the way. Is History Fiction? is an invaluable guide on how to weld creative thinking and sound research into meaningful history, and how to understand the different arguments that have abounded throughout time regarding the nature of history. More than a book of theory about theory, this innovative work is an asset to the undergraduate classroom and the research seminar alike. Is History Fiction? will be a welcome aid for teaching historical writing and examining an age-old question. Is History Fiction? is a must-read for undergraduate and graduate students and scholars from the humanities and social sciences, or anyone grappling with the enduring issues that have shaped the theory and practice of recording history.

Is History Fiction?

In 1965, 29 students from Sydney University set out on a road trip through northwestern NSW, to challenge the ingrained discrimination and racism that was a largely unacknowledged feature of NSW country towns. The trip was marked by confrontation, intense street debates, some physical violence and much courage from local Aborigines.

A freedom rider remembers

Freedom Ride

Alexandra Ludewig

Shino Konishi

This book is a biographical history of Rottnest Island, a small carceral island offshore from Western Australia. Rottnest is also known as Wadjemup, or ‘the place across the water where the spirits are’, by Noongar, the Indigenous people of south-western Australia. Through a series of biographical case studies of the diverse individuals connected to the island, the book argues that their particular histories lend Rottnest Island a unique heritage, in which ​Indigenous, maritime, imperial, colonial, penal, and military histories intersect with histories of leisure and recreation. Tracing the way in which Wadjemup/Rottnest Island has been continually re-imagined and re-purposed throughout its history, the text explores the island’s carceral history, which has left behind it a painful community memory. Today it is best known as a beach holiday destination, a reputation bolstered by the ‘Quokka selfie’ trend, the online posting of photographs taken with the island’s cute native marsupial. This book will appeal to academic readers with an interest in Australian history, Aboriginal history, and the history of the British Empire, especially those interested in the burgeoning scholarship on the concept of ‘carceral archipelagos’ and island prisons.

A Biographical History of Wadjemup/Rottnest Island

The Lives and Legacies of a Carceral Island

The relationship between history and fiction has always been a controversial one. Can we ever know that a historical narrative is giving us a true account of what actually happened? Provocative and fascinating, this book is an original and insightful examination of the ways in which history is - and might be - written. It traces History's double...

Ann McGrath

Writing history can take an author on a journey through time, across the globe and into the lives of others. This book offers great advice to writers, such as: * how much research is necessary? * when should you start writing? * should you structure your work chronologically or thematically? * how do you write a compelling narrative? Drawing upon the deep experience of two historians who have written many histories themselves, How to Write History that People want to Read explains how to succeed in writing exciting historical narratives. It explores why some historical writing is not so engaging, and why some of it is as good as any writing you will ever read. With many practical tips about how to research and write history in many different genres, Ann Curthoys and Ann McGrath provide moral support and experienced mentoring company for all historians involved in the often-lonely process of researching and writing. Perfect for historians of all levels, this book is an indispensable guide to writing history.

How to Write History that People Want to Read

Frances Peters-Little

This book examines the emotional engagements of both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous people with Indigenous history. The contributors are a mix of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous scholars, who in different ways examine how the past lives on in the present, as myth, memory, and history. Each chapter throws fresh light on an aspect of history-making by or about Indigenous people, such as the extent of massacres on the frontier, the myth of Aboriginal male idleness, the controversy over Flynn of the Inland, the meaning of the Referendum of 1967, and the policyand practice of Indigenous child removal.

Myth, Memory and Indigenous Australia

Passionate Histories

Ann Genovese

Alexander Reilly

"Aboriginal people have been able to use the courts to try to seek redress, particularly when political options have been limited. To do this they have had to use historical arguments, and as such history and historians have had to enter the courtroom. This highly original book brings together one of Australia's leading historians with two younger legal scholars to examine the ways in which history and the law have interacted in Australia. Far from being an abstract discussion, the book examines hundredsof federal court cases, interviewing judges, litigants, claimants and historians."--Provided by publisher.

History, Law and Indigenous People

Rights and Redemption

Marilyn Lake

This volume brings together historians of imperialism and race, travel and modernity, Islam and India, the Pacific and the Atlantic to show how a 'transnational' approach to history offers fresh insights into the past. Transnational history is a form of scholarship that has been revolutionising our understanding of history in the last decade. With a focus on interconnectedness across national borders of ideas, events, technologies and individual lives, it moves beyond the national frames of analysis that so often blinker and restrict our understanding of the past. Many of the essays also show how expertise in 'Australian history' can contribute to and benefit from new transnational approaches to history. Through an examination of such diverse subjects as film, modernity, immigration, politics and romance, Connected Worlds weaves an historical matrix which transports the reader beyond the local into a realm which re-defines the meaning of humanity in all its complexity. Contributors include Tony Ballantyne, Desley Deacon, John Fitzgerald, Patrick Wolfe and Angela Woollacott.

Ann Curthoys

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