Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Tuesday 29 October
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
For this Fifth Estate discussion, Sally Warhaft brings together two prominent historians for a conversation about their careers, and how they have each navigated the changing tropes and traditions of Australian history writing. What role do contemporary historians play in shaping the way all Australians remember – and reckon with – the past?
Geoffrey Blainey is the author of more than 40 books, including The Rush That Never Ended, The Story of Australia’s People, and, perhaps most famously, The Tyranny of Distance, which has been in print since 1966. Clare Wright is an eminent academic and broadcaster and the Stella Prize-winning author of The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka and You Daughters of Freedom. Both writers have brought their research to large and enthralled readerships.
How does writing about the past shape the possibilities of the future? On Tuesday 29 October, Blainey and Wright join us to discuss their approaches to writing Australian history: warts, beauty spots and blind spots.
Hill of Content will be our bookseller for this event.
Featuring
Sally Warhaft
Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. She is the host of The Fifth Estate, the Wheeler Centre’s live series focusing on journalism, politics, media, and international relations, and The Leap Year ...
Geoffrey Blainey
Professor Geoffrey Blainey's first book was completed when he was in his early twenties. Since then he has written another thirty-five, including Triumph of the Nomads, The Rush That Never Ended, The Tyranny of Distance and other well known books on Australia's history. His more recent books on global history, including a Short History of the World, have been translated into many foreign languages and published in places as far apart as Brazil, India, Spain and Turkey.
For twenty years he was professor of economic history and then Ernest Scott professor of history at the University of Melbourne, with a term as professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University. He also served the federal government as chairman of the Australia Council, the National Council for the Centenary of Federation, and the Australia-China Council. In New York, in 1988, Blainey received the celebrated Britannica Prize 'for excellence in the dissemination of knowledge for the benefit of mankind'.
Clare Wright
Professor Clare Wright OAM is an award-winning historian, author, broadcaster, podcaster and public commentator who has worked in politics, academia and the media.
Clare ...