The NSW Premier's History Awards honour distinguished achievement in the interpretation of history, through both the written word and non-print media by Australian citizens and permanent residents of Australia.[1]
The State Government of New South Wales, Australia established the Premier's History Awards in 1997, which were devised by members of the History Council of NSW including Max Kelly, Paul Ashton and Shirley Fitzgerald.[2] In 2005 the name of the awards was changed to NSW Premier's History Awards.[3] The awards are presented annually in early September and are managed by the State Library of NSW, in association with Create NSW (former Arts NSW).[4]
The following awards, each of $15,000 are offered:
In 2014, an Australian Military History Prize was announced. Mike Carlton was the winner of this sub-category for his book First Victory (published by Random House).[7]
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Alan Atkinson | Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm | NewSouth Publishing[8] | |
| 2022 | Alexis Bergantz | French Connection: Australia’s Cosmopolitan Ambitions | NewSouth Publishing[9] | |
| 2021 | Grace Karskens | People of the River: Lost Worlds of Early Australia | Allen & Unwin[10] | |
| 2020 | James Dunk | Bedlam at Botany Bay | NewSouth Publishing[11] | |
| 2019 | The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History | NewSouth Books[12] | ||
| 2018 | The Battle Within: POWs in Postwar Australia | NewSouth Publishing[13] | ||
| 2017 | From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories | Melbourne University Publishing[14] | ||
| 2016 | Australia’s Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s | NewSouth Books[15] | ||
| 2015 | Alan Atkinson | The Europeans in Australia | UNSW Press[16] | |
| 2014 | Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War | Allen & Unwin[17] | ||
| 2013 | Janet Butler | Kitty's War: The remarkable wartime experiences of Kit McNaughton | University of Queensland Press[18] | |
| 2012 | Russell McGregor | Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal People and the Australian Nation | Aboriginal Studies Press[19] | |
| 2011 | Savage or Civilised?: Manners in Colonial Australia | UNSW Press[20] | ||
| 2010 | Bain Attwood | Possession: Batman's Treaty and the Matter of History | Melbourne University Publishing[21] | |
| 2009 | Travels in Atomic Sunshine: Australia and the Occupation of Japan | Scribe | ||
| 2008 | Vietnam: The Australian War | HarperCollins | ||
| 2007 | Libby Robin | How a Continent Created a Nation | UNSW Press | |
| 2006 | Aboriginal Victorians: a History Since 1800 | Allen & Unwin | ||
| 2005 | Eileen Chanin and Steven Miller, with an introductory essay by Judith Pugh | Miegunyah Press at Melbourne University Publishing | ||
| 2004 | Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark | The History Wars | Melbourne University Publishing | |
| 2003 | James Bowen and Margarita Bowen | The Great Barrier Reef: History, Science, Heritage | Melbourne University Publishing | |
| 2002 | The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift | HarperCollinsPublishers | ||
| 2001 | Tim Bonyhady | The Colonial Earth | Miegunyah Press at Melbourne University Publishing | |
| 2000 | Peter Spearrit | Sydney's Century: A History | UNSW Press | |
| 1999 | Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape | Melbourne University Publishing | ||
| 1998 | Anne Whitehead | Paradise Mislaid: In Search of the Australian Tribe of Paraguay | University of Queensland Press | |
| 1997 | Invasion to Embassy: Land in Aboriginal Politics in NSW, 1770–1972 | Allen & Unwin |
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Michael Laffan | Under Empire: Muslim Lives and Loyalties Across the Indian Ocean World, 1775–1945 | Columbia University Press | |
| 2022 | Mina Roces | The Filipino Migration Experience: Global Agents of Change | Cornell University Press[22] | |
| 2021 | Luke Keogh | The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the World | The University of Chicago Press and Kew Publishing[23] | |
| 2020 | Kate Fullagar | The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of Empire | Yale University Press[24] | |
| 2019 | Christina Thompson | Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia | Harper | |
| 2018 | Sean Scalmer | On the Stump: Campaign Oratory and Democracy in the United States, Britain, and Australia | Temple University Press | |
| 2017 | Sandra Wilson, Robert Cribb, Beatrice Trefalt & Dean Aszkielowicz | Japanese War Criminals: The Politics of Justice after the Second World War | Columbia University Press | |
| 2016 | Ann McGrath | Illicit Love: Interracial Sex and Marriage in the United States and Australia | Nebraska University Press[25] | |
| 2015 | Warwick Anderson & Ian R Mackay | Intolerant Bodies: A Short History of Autoimmunity | Johns Hopkins University Press[26] | |
| 2014 | John Gascoigne | Encountering the Pacific in the Age of Enlightenment | Cambridge University Press[27] | |
| 2013 | Saliha Belmessous | Assimilation and Empire: Uniformity in the French and British Colonies, 1541–1954 | Oxford University Press | |
| 2012 | Tim Bonyhady | Good Living Street: The Fortunes of My Viennese Family | Allen & Unwin[28] | |
| 2011 | Shane White, Stephen Garton, Stephen Robertson and Graham White | Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem Between the Wars | Harvard University Press | |
| 2010 | Lisa Ford | Settler Sovereignty: Jurisdiction and Indigenous People in America and Australia, 1788–1836 | Harvard University Press | |
| 2009 | The Collectors of Lost Souls: Turning Kuru Scientists into Whitemen | Johns Hopkins University Press | ||
| 2008 | Michael A. McDonnell | The Politics of War: Race, Class and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia | University of North Carolina Press | |
| 2007 | Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 | Harvard University Press | ||
| 2006 | Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Dictatorship 1915–1945 | Allen Lane/Penguin Books | ||
| 2005 | Sally Neighbour | In the Shadow of Swords: on the trail of terrorism from Afghanistan to Australia | Harper Collins Publishers | |
| 2004 | Citizen Labillardière: A Naturalist's Life in Revolution and Exploration 1755–1834 | The Miegunyah Press at Melbourne University Publishing | ||
| 2003 | David Garrioch | The Making of Revolutionary Paris | University of California Press | |
| 2002 | Ruth Wajnryb | The Silence: How Tragedy Shapes Talk | Allen & Unwin | |
| 2001 | Rowena Lennox | Fighting Spirit of East Timor: The Life of Martinho da Costa Lopes | Pluto Press Australia | |
| 2000 | Anna Lanyon | Malinche's Conquest | Allen & Unwin | |
| 1999 | Reading the Holocaust | The Text Publishing Company | ||
| 1998 | Marsden Hordern | King of the Australian Coast: the Work of Phillip Parker King in the Mermaid and Bathurst 1817–1822 | Melbourne University Press | |
| 1997 | Patricia Jalland | Death in the Victorian Family | Oxford University Press |
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Ian Hodges | He Belonged to Wagga: The Great War, the AIF and returned soldiers in an Australian country town | Australian Scholarly Publishing |
| 2022 | Kate Holden | The Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land, and a Killing at Croppa Creek | Black Inc. Books[29] |
| 2021 | Matthew Colloff | Landscapes of Our Hearts: Reconciling People and Environment | Thames & Hudson Australia[30] |
| 2020 | Callum Clayton-Dixon | Surviving New England: A History of Aboriginal Resistance and Resilience Through the First Forty Years of Colonial Apocalypse | Nēwara Aboriginal Corporation[31] |
| 2019 | Jon Rhodes | Cage of Ghosts | Darkwood[32] |
| 2018 | Paul Irish | Hidden in Plain View: The Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney | NewSouth Publishing |
| 2017 | Peter Hobbins, Ursula K Frederick & Anne Clarke | Stories from the Sandstone: Quarantine Inscriptions from Australia’s Immigrant Past | Arbon Publishing |
| 2016 | Tanya Evans | Fractured Families: Life on the Margins in Colonial New South Wales | University of New South Wales Press[33] |
| 2015 | The Luck of the Irish : How a Shipload of Convicts Survived the Wreck of the Hive to Make a New Life in Australia | Allen & Unwin[34] | |
| 2014 | Coast: A History of the New South Wales Edge | NewSouth[35] | |
| 2013 | The Mind of a Thief | Queensland University Press | |
| 2012 | Deborah Beck | Set in Stone: A History of the Cell Block Theatre | UNSW Press |
| 2011 | Stephen Gapps | Cabrogal to Fairfield City: A History of a Multicultural Community | Fairfield City Council |
| 2010 | Pauline Curby | Randwick | Randwick Municipal Council |
| 2009 | David Bollen | Up on the Hill: A History of St Patrick's College | UNSW Press |
| 2008 | Dianne Johnson | Sacred Waters: the story of the Blue Mountains Gully Traditional Owners | Halstead Press |
| 2007 | Regina Ganter | Mixed Relations: Asian Aboriginal Contact in North Australia | University of Western Australia Press |
| 2006 | Maria Nugent | Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet | Allen & Unwin |
| 2005 | Joe Hajdu | Samurai in the Surf: the arrival of the Japanese on the Gold Coast in the 1980s | Pandanus Books |
| 2004 | Patricia Crawford and Ian Crawford | Contested Country: A History of the Northcliffe Area, Western Australia | University of Western Australia Press |
| 2003 | Erik Eklund | Steel Town: The Making and Breaking of Port Kembla | Melbourne University Publishing |
| 2002 | John Bailey | The White Divers of Broome: the true story of a fatal experiment | Pan Macmillan Australia |
| 2001 | Carolyn Wadley Dowley | Through Silent Country | Fremantle Arts Centre Press |
| 2000 | Sherry Morris | Wagga Wagga: A History | Bobby Graham Publishers for Wagga Wagga City Council |
| 1999 | Janet McCalman | Sex and Suffering: Women's Health and a Women's Hospital: the Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, 1856 – 1996 | Melbourne University Press[36] |
| 1998 | Grace Karskens | The Rocks: Life in Early Sydney | Melbourne University Press |
| 1997 | Christopher Cunningham | The Blue Mountains Rediscovered | Kangaroo Press |
(known as the Children's History Prize until 2002)
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Emily Gale | The Goodbye Year | Text Publishing |
| 2022 | Shaa Smith, Neeyan Smith, Uncle Bud Marshall, with Yandaarra including Sarah Wright, Lara Daley and Paul Hodge | The Dunggiirr Brothers and the Caring Song of the Whale | Allen & Unwin[37] |
| 2021 | Archie Roach | Tell Me Why for Young Adults | Simon & Schuster[38] |
| 2020 | Pierre-Jacques Ober, Jules Ober, and Felicity Coonan | The Good Son: A Story from the First World War, Told in Miniature | Candlewick Press[39] |
| 2019 | Alison Lloyd and Terry Denton | The Upside-down History of Down Under | Penguin |
| 2018 | Simon Mitchell | The Fighting Stingrays | Penguin Random House Australia |
| 2017 | Maralinga’s Long Shadow: Yvonne’s Story | Allen & Unwin | |
| 2016 | James Roy and Noël Zihabamwe | One Thousand Hills | Omnibus Books, Scholastic Australia[40] |
| 2015 | Ruth Starke and Robert Hannaford | My Gallipoli | Penguin Books Australia[41] |
| 2014 | Australians All | Allen & Unwin[42] | |
| 2013 | Pennies for Hitler | HarperCollins Publishers | |
| 2012 | Stephanie Owen Reeder | Amazing Grace: An Adventure at Sea | National Library of Australia |
| 2011 | Kirsty Murray | India Dark | Allen & Unwin |
| 2010 | Jackie French | The Night They Stormed Eureka | HarperCollins |
| 2009 | Anthony Hill | Captain Cook's Apprentice | Penguin |
| 2008 | Robert Lewis and Tim Gurry | Australians in the Vietnam War | Ryebuck Media |
| 2007 | John Nicholson | Songlines and Stone Axes | Allen & Unwin |
| 2006 | Pamela Freeman | The Black Dress: Mary MacKillop's Early Years | Black Dog Books |
| 2005 | Allan Baillie | My Story: Riding with Thunderbolt, the diary of Ben Cross, Northern NSW, 1865 | Scholastic Press: an imprint of Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd |
| 2004 | David Hollinsworth | They Took the Children | Working Title Press in association with Scholastic Australia |
| 2003 | Alan Tucker | My Story: The Bombing of Darwin, The Diary of Tom Taylor | Scholastic Press, Scholastic Australia |
| 2002 | Papunya School | Papunya School Book of Country and History | Allen & Unwin |
| 2001 | No award | ||
| 2000 | Gael Jennings and Roland Harvey (illus.) | Sick As: Bloody Moments in the History of Medicine | Roland Harvey Books |
| 1999 | No award | ||
| 1998 | Bruce Scates and Raelene Frances | Women and the Great War | Cambridge University Press |
| 1997 | Jennifer Lawless, Kate Cameron and Carmel Young | Unlocking the Past: Preliminary Studies in the Ancient World | Nelson ITP |
(known as The Audio/Visual History Prize until 2009 and the Multimedia Prize until 2019)
| Year | Creator | Title | Publisher | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Rachel Perkins, Darren Dale, Jacob Hickey and Don Watson | The Australian Wars, Episode 1 | Blackfella Films | |
| 2022 | Katherine Biber, Loretta Parsley | The Last Outlaws | Impact Studios, the University of Technology Sydney[43] | |
| 2021 | Laurence Billiet | Freeman | General Strike and Matchbox Pictures[44] | |
| 2020 | Noëlle Janaczewska, Ros Bluett and Russell Stapleton | Experiment Street — the true history of a city lane | ABC Radio National The History Listen[45] | |
| 2019 | Guardian Australia | The Killing Times | Guardian Australia and the University of Newcastle Colonial Massacres Research Team | |
| 2018 | Warwick Thornton and Brendan Fletcher | We Don't Need a Map | Barefoot Communications | |
| 2017 | Adam Clulow | The Amboyna Conspiracy Trial | Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media | |
| 2016 | Victoria Midwinter Pitt and Alan Erson | Afghanistan: Inside Australia’s War | Essential Media & Entertainment[46] | |
| 2015 | Dan Goldberg and Margie Bryant | Brilliant Creatures | Mint Pictures & Serendipity Productions[47] | |
| 2014 | Michelle Arrow, Catherine Freyne and Timothy Nicastri | Public Intimacies: The 1974 Royal Commission on Human Relationships | ABC Radio National Hindsight[48] | |
| 2013 | Scott Hill and Jacqui Newling | The Cook and the Curator: Eat Your History | Sydney Living Museums | |
| 2012 | Catherine Freyne and Phillip Ulman | Tit for Tat: The Story of Sandra Wilson | Hindsight, ABC Radio National | |
| 2011 | Sonia Bible | Recipe for Murder | Stray Dog Pictures Pty Ltd for Jumping Dog Productions | |
| 2009 | Rachel Landers and Dylan Bowen | A Northern Town | Pony Films | |
| 2008 | Paul Rudd, Matthew Thomason, Wain Fimeri and Anthony Wright | Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery | Film Australia, Cook Films, Ferns Productions, South Pacific Films, December Films, ABC | |
| 2007 | John Hughes | The Archive Project: The Realist Film Unit in Cold War Australia | Early Works – ABC TV | |
| 2006 | Ten Canoes | Vertigo Productions/Adelaide Festival of Arts | ||
| 2005 | Trevor Graham | Hula Girls | (Electric Pictures Pty Ltd, 2005) | |
| 2004 | Tom Murray in collaboration with the Dhuruputjpi and Yilpara communities | Dhakiyarr vs the King[49] | Film Australia | |
| 2003 | Marée Delofski | The Trouble With Merle | Film Australia in association with SeeView Pictures | |
| 2002 | Anita Heiss and Terri McCormack | Barani: Sydney's Aboriginal History (website)[50] | City of Sydney Web Team and History Program in conjunction with CyberDreaming, 2002 | |
| 2001 | Michael Cummins | Thomson of Arnhem Land | Film Australia in association with John Moore (director/producer), Martin Thiele (archival researcher) and Michael McMahon (producer) | |
| 2000 | Martin Thomas | This is Jimmy Barker | ABC Radio Audio Arts | |
| 1999 | Michelle Rayner | Passes and Pathways | ABC Radio National | |
| 1998 | Trevor Graham (director & co-producer) | Film Australia | ||
| 1997 | Bill Bunbury | Unfinished Business, episodes 1–6 Hindsight, | ABC Radio |
Sponsored by the Anzac Memorial Trustees, this prize was first awarded in 2023.
This prize was first awarded in 2002 to encourage the use of archives in the writing of history. The State Record established the prize in recognition of the contribution to history and archives of NSW by John and Patricia Ward.[51] [52]
| Year | Author | Title | Publisher | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Christina Twomey | Australia's Forgotten Prisoners: Civilians Interned by the Japanese in World War Two | Cambridge University Press | |
| 2007 | Klaus Neumann | In the Interest of National Security: Civilian Internment in Australia | National Archives of Australia | |
| 2006 | Gwenda Tavan | The Long, Slow Death of White Australia | Scribe Publications Pty Ltd | |
| 2005 | Tony Roberts | Frontier Justice: a history of the Gulf Country to 1900 | UQP | |
| 2004 | Bain Attwood | Rights for Aborigines | Allen & Unwin | |
| 2003 | David Kent and Norma Townsend | The Convicts of the Eleanor: Protest in Rural England; New Lives in Australia | The Merlin Press Ltd. [UK] and Pluto Press Australia | |
| 2002 | Thom Blake | A Dumping Ground: A History of the Cherbourg Settlement | UQP |
The centenary award was created as a one-off presentation, the prize being sponsored by the NSW Centenary of Federation Committee. This award was for a "major work" relating to the Australian Federation period focussing on the political, social and cultural issues of Australia at that time.[53]
Winner
Shortlisted
| Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Peter Botsman | The Great Constitutional Swindle: a citizen's view of the Australian Constitution | Pluto Press, Australia |
| Helen Irving | The Centenary Companion to Australian Federation | Cambridge University Press |