Both strategic and commercial motives guided the British government’s choice of New South Wales as a convict colony.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called for a re-examination of Australia’s history in a new book that insists the nation has broken with its convict past to become one of the “freest, fairest ...

In 1856, when the Victorian government imposed a large tax on each Chinese newcomer, the Chinese ingeniously thwarted it by landing at Robe in South Australia and walking, in large parties, roughly ...

Santilla Chingaipe’s new book brings a fresh and urgent perspective to bear on Australian history. But in countering misrepresentations she overlooks existing scholarship. Along with British and Irish ...

To be an Australian is to have won “the lottery of life”, former prime minister Tony Abbott writes in his fascinating and ...

Tasmania's convict heritage was officially recognized by UNESCO last month, when 11 Australian convict sites, five of which are located in the southernmost state of Tasmania, were added to the UNESCO ...

I first read John Hirst (1942-2016) as an undergraduate in the late 1990s as part of a subject on 19th-century Australian history. We discussed convict history and explored contrasting views about its ...

This is the book that should never have been needed. Until quite recently it was taken for granted that Australia was a ...