Peel, Mark & Christina Twomey: History of Australia

Peel, Mark & Christina Twomey

A History of Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK, 2011

The treatment is mostly chronological and the target the general reader and students. A robotic voice gives a summary here, there are some extracts of reviews here and another review is accessible here. This last review by Alex McDermott notes some innovative aspects of presentation in the book, for example:

Events are used selectively and well as miniature set pieces, marking transitional moments or serving to illuminate the mentality of a period. Henry O’Farrell’s assassination attempt on the Duke of Edinburgh in 1868, Ben Chifley’s death in 1951, Banjo Paterson driving through Sussex with Rudyard Kipling, and the abovementioned Federation Day parade all mark entrances and exits from chapters, from which themes, arguments, and interpretations are unpacked, showing how effectively narrative can function as analysis when well-deployed.

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