Two writers have been jointly awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History 2008.
The Prize is awarded for outstanding publications which contribute significantly to the understanding of our nation's history.
Tom Griffiths has been awarded joint first place for Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica, along with Robert Kenny for The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World.
The winners were chosen from 62 nominations, demonstrating the exceptional strength of Australian historical research and the extent to which Australian history continues to inspire many of our talented writers, researchers and producers.
In addition to the joint winners, a further three nominations were shortlisted:
• John Fitzgerald for Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia;
• Philip Jones for Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers; and
• Paul Rudd, Stephen Amezdroz, Tony Wright, Wain Fimeri and Matthew Thomason for Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery.
The joint winners and the short-listed nominees have each made a major contribution to the study of Australian history.
The Prize is Australia's pre-eminent award for excellence in the field. The winners each receive an embossed gold medallion and will share a tax free grant of $100,000.
The Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History will continue in 2009.
Advisory Committee Judging Comments
Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica by Tom Griffiths, University of New South Wales Press, 2007
Slicing the Silence is a highly original and beautifully crafted book, which is a model for communicating complex historical research in engaging and widely accessible ways. Griffiths blends his own experiences of journeying to Antarctica with those of the explorers and scientists who went before him - so producing a multi-layered history of human interactions with the polar environment of the South. Slicing the Silence offers a broader, international view of Australian engagement with the wider world, and addresses the new global era of trans-national histories which span disciplines and continents within Australian spheres of human engagement. Griffiths strikingly manages to convey the embodied experience of the place, to make the reader wonder how they themselves might cope with the snow, the cold and the silence. It is an eminently readable and highly enjoyable book which will meet the test of scholars and general readers - a rare combination. The book opens up a new dimension of the Australian past and present; and which also, combined with its sheer literary merit, already has claims to become a ‘classic' in the body of modern Australian historical writing.
The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World by Robert Kenny, Scribe Publications, 2007
The Lamb Enters the Dreaming is a creatively conceived and evocatively written book which offers a genuinely original way of exploring the hidden chapters (or invisible world) of cultural encounters on the Australian frontier. It explores the history of ideas behind each culture's ‘belief systems' and challenges much orthodoxy through a profound reconsideration of how Indigenous people and Europeans thought about each other; and of the continuities which actually existed between aspects of their metaphysical systems of religious belief. By tracing such a subtle and yet huge issue through the life of one individual - an Aboriginal man, Nathanael Pepper, who converted to Christianity in 1860 - the author takes great risks and yet triumphs in writing an account which elevates the local and the specific to the universal. The Lamb Enters the Dreaming is a scholarly yet accessible book, elegantly written and powerfully argued. Kenny is meticulous in his use of existing sources: but he also goes beyond that and shows how historical imagination is not the enemy of accuracy. The Lamb Enters the Dreaming provides a new way of looking at a crucial aspect of Australian colonial history in a way that is truly original, surprising and profound.
Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers by Philip Jones, Wakefield Press, 2007
Ochre and Rust is an elegantly written and illustrated book which tells a history of frontier encounters through material objects, mainly those now housed in the South Australian Museum. Drawing on the multiple disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, archaeology and the humanities, and their interaction with Indigenous records, the book provides new insights by dealing with perceptions and stories from both sides of the frontier. The novelty is not so much in any particular discovery but in its mode of narrative: working out widely from a particular artefact and providing a deep reflection on cross cultural encounters. It is acutely perceptive, balanced and informative. The book unfolds like a museum on the page, guiding readers into an exploration of complex ideas about cultural adaptation, exchange and the history of collecting. While not denying that the frontier was a place of violence and dispossession, Jones also recognises that it produced cultural exchange and adaptation in both Indigenous and European cultures. Ochre and Rust is a highly accessible and exciting approach to Australian history.
Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia by John Fitzgerald, University of New South Wales Press, 2007
Big White Lie is an important study of the experiences of Chinese Australians under the White Australia Policy. Of particular importance is the way that it foregrounds Chinese Australian experiences, rather than white experiences or perceptions of the Chinese in Australia. Fitzgerald chronicles the story of Chinese Australian communities on their own terms, working closely with archival documents produced by (rather than about) the Chinese Australian community. It traces the lineage of families across countries and centuries and their connections to business, religious and social networks that would be unknown to most Australians. Fitzgerald convincingly debunks the claim that Chinese Australians did not embrace supposedly unique ‘Australian values'. The experiences of Chinese Australians have been examined by a range of previous studies, but have never been analysed using such a diversity of sources and approaches. Big White Lie is a genuinely fresh ‘take' on this aspect of the Australian story, and is extremely valuable for this reason. It should stimulate further research in the field and explode stereotypes.
Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery, Paul Rudd, Stephen Amezdroz, Tony Wright, Wain Fimeri, Matthew Thomason, Film Australia, 2007
Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery is a remarkably impressive, four part, documentary television series that tells the story of the life and voyages of Captain James Cook for a broad audience. The series combines a high-quality visual style with a gripping narrative and historical rigour. The producers of this series have succeeded in making a highly engaging, sophisticated, and extremely accessible historical documentary. The writers have come to grips with the latest Cook scholarship, and they use archival materials (such as maps and journals) with power. A particular strength is the judiciously chosen interviews with all the leading current international Cook scholars, together with interactions with indigenous community leaders who draw out the ‘conquest' side of the voyages with poignant power. Adept use of the “Endeavour” replica gives the viewer a special sense of actually travelling with the great mariner. Captain Cook shows that it is possible to take on a large and difficult topic and present it in a way that never ‘talks down' to the audience. Indeed, Captain Cook shows how well a visual medium can be used to convey historical research and materials. High-quality historical documentaries, such as this major work, strongly point to new ways of presenting history in the community through the latest advances in the visual arts and technologies.