Volatile era

Historian John Nicholson has never written about war or sport – two of the pillars of Australian identity – yet he remains our leading writer of history for young people. I reviewed Songlines and Stone Axes (ABR, April 2007), the first book in a five-volume series of trade, transport, and travel within Australia. The book won the Young People’s History Prize in the 2007 New South Wales Premier’s History Awards, recognition that should ensure a wider audience. Songlines and Stone Axes revealed the extensive symbolic and material exchange within and between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, blending patient research of scholarly journals with a firm sense of what will catch a younger reader’s interest and imagination. The book requires readers to re-examine their understanding of Australia’s first people, and reflect again on the country that Europeans entered.