Book Details

A History of Australia

Six volume set

Manning Clark

Manning Clark’s dramatic account of white Australian history, voted the most influential work of Australian non-fiction by 68 per cent of leading Australians in August 1999.

Opinion

‘The most important and influential book of our era’
Courier-Mail poll, 1997

A History of Australia is the most influential work of Australian non-fiction, according to 68 per cent of leading Australians. (Poll of the Century, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, 1999)

About this Title

The first volume of Manning Clark’s A History of Australia appeared in 1962 and for the following two and a half decades Australian readers witnessed Clark unfold his dramatic account of white Australian history.

Today the six-volume history is one of the masterpieces of Australian writing. It is also one of the most passionately debated visions of Australian history, in which the struggle to realise an Australian nation is played out on an epic scale.

About the Author

Born in Sydney in 1915, Manning Clark won scholarships to Melbourne Grammar School and the University of Melbourne. He later attended Balliol College, Oxford, and in the early 1940s taught history at schools in England and Australia. He was senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, and later Professor of History in the School of General Studies, Australian National University. In 1972 he became the first Professor of Australian History. He held honorary doctorates awarded by the Universities of Melbourne, Newcastle and Sydney. In June 1975 Clark was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in recognition of his monumental A History of Australia. He was named Australian of the Year for 1980. Manning Clark died in May 1991.

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978-0-522-84235-7