Completely revised and updated.
Geoffrey Blainey is one of Australia's most significant and popular historians. He has written some thirty-six full-length books including The Tyranny of Distance, Triumph of the Nomads, Black Kettle and Full Moon, A Short History of the 20th Century, and the bestselling A Short History of the World. Professor Blainey held chairs in economic history and then in plain history at the University of Melbourne for twenty-one years. He was a delegate to the 1998 Constitutional Convention and also chaired various Commonwealth government bodies, including the Australia Council, the Literature Board, the Australia-China Council, and the National Council for the Centenary of Federation. He is one of the few Australians whose biography appears in Encyclopaedia Britannica. Humphrey Bower is a gifted and versatile actor. Since obtaining a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature at Oxford University, he has worked extensively in theatre, television and audiobook narration. Humphrey won the prestigious Audie Award (US) for his performance of The Family Frying Pan by Bryce Courtenay, and was shortlisted for an Audie Award for his performances of Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan and Brother Fish by Bryce Courtenay. Humphrey's sensitive and intelligent readings are highly regarded and he is well-known for his capacity to perform a variety of accents.
"Part of Blainey's magic is that his words float off the page.
Here, too, are the puzzles, oddities and off-beat comparisons of
his restless, quirky intelligence, constantly astonished and
endlessly engaging."
*The Age*
"The present shape and direction of Australian history writing will
now be altered for a long while to come."
*Quadrant*
"Geoffrey Blainey offers an enjoyable overview of Australian
history. Humphrey Bower's Australian accent is endearing for those
who love all things Aussie. His presentation is measured and clear,
with longish pauses between words. Blainey occasionally uses
vocabulary that may not be familiar to Americans (for example, a
"sultana" is a kind of raisin), but that doesn’t present an
impediment. Unlike other well-known histories of
Australia—including Manning Clark's A SHORT HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA
and Robert Hughes's THE FATAL SHORE—Blainey's focuses on recent
events. He also spends considerable time on events that followed
WWII. As is always the case with the analysis of recent history,
bias shows. Blainey seems well to the right of center on many
Australian political issues."
*AudioFile Magazine*
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