The first volume in this series, Beverley Kingston’s A History of New South Wales, was published in 2006. Since then another five have appeared, including a book on Tasmania by Henry Reynolds and another on Victoria by Geoffrey Blainey. Cambridge University Press may be proceeding with its ‘History of Australian States’ series at a leisurely pace, but it has secured some leading lights among Australian historians to write it.

This history of South Australia, the sixth in the series, has been co-written by two colleagues in the University of Adelaide’s Department of History. Paul Sendziuk and Robert Foster have complementary areas of expertise: Sendziuk’s work has been in the history of twentieth-century Australia with a focus on immigration, disease, and public health, while Foster has published extensively on South Australia’s Indigenous history.