Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

NSW Premier’s History Awards 2023 shortlists announced

Monday, 7 August 2023   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

The State Library of NSW (SLNSW) has announced the shortlists for the 2023 NSW Premier’s History Awards.

The shortlisted titles in each category are:

Australian history prize

  • Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm (Alan Atkinson, NewSouth)
  • Dreamers and Schemers: A political history of Australia (Frank Bongiorno, La Trobe)
  • Political Lives: Australian prime ministers and their biographers (Chris Wallace, NewSouth)

Highly commended: Masked Histories (Leah Lui-Chivizhe, MUP)

General history prize

  • Visions of Nature: How landscape photography shaped settler colonialism (Jarrod Hore, University of California)
  • Under Empire: Muslim lives and loyalties across the Indian Ocean world, 1775–1945 (Michael Laffan, Columbia University)
  • Singing the News of Death: Execution ballads in Europe 1500–1900 (Una Mcilvenna, OUP)

NSW regional and community history prize

  • The Naturalist: The remarkable life of Allan Riverstone McCulloch (Brendan Atkins, NewSouth)
  • He Belonged to Wagga: The Great War, the AIF and returned soldiers in an Australian country town (Ian Hodges, ASP)
  • Whitefella Way (Jon Rhodes, self-published)

Young people’s history prize

  • The Goodbye Year (Emily Gale, Text)
  • Running with Ivan (Suzanne Leal, HarperCollins)
  • The Wearing of the Green (Claire Saxby, Walker Books)

Anzac Memorial trustees military history prize

  • The Scrap Iron Flotilla: Five valiant destroyers and the Australian war in the Mediterranean (Mike Carlton, William Heinemann)
  • Soldiers and Aliens: Men in the Australian Army’s employment companies during World War II (June Factor, MUP)
  • He belonged to Wagga: The Great War, the AIF and returned soldiers in an Australian country town (Ian Hodges, ASP)

Digital history prize

  • Still We Rise (Anna Grieve & John Harvey, Tamarind Tree Pictures)
  • The Australian Wars: Episode 1 (Rachel Perkins, Darren Dale, Jacob Hickey & Don Watson, Blackfella Films)
  • Ayahs and Amahs: Transcolonial journeys (Lauren Samuelsson, University of Newcastle)

Eleven judges considered 186 entries across the six prize categories. The panel is made up of a committee of academics, historians and other sector professionals who have been appointed by the premier, the arts minister or their delegates.

SLNSW state librarian John Vallance said: ‘Libraries and archives provide the raw material for historian’s work. The Premier’s History Awards each year show us how rich are the returns on our investment.’

The prize offers $15,000 in each of the categories, except for the new Anzac Memorial trustees military history prize, which is worth $10,000. The winners will be announced on Thursday, 7 September at SLNSW.

For more information on the awards, and to read the judges’ comments, see the SLNSW website.

 

Category: Awards Local news