John Thompson

John Thompson is a historian and writer now living in Sydney after a long career at the National Library of Australia in Canberra. He holds a doctorate in history from the Australian National University and has written for various journals. He is a frequent reviewer for Australian Book Review. The author of The Patrician and the Bloke: Geoffrey Serle and the Making of Australian History (2006), he co-edited (with Brenda Niall) The Oxford Book of Australian Letters (1998). His anthology Documents that Shaped Australia was published in 2010.

John Thompson reviews 'Mr JW Lewin: Painter & Naturalist' by Richard Neville

July–August 2012, no. 343 • 09 July 2012

Rich in achievement, the artist and naturalist John William Lewin died in Sydney on 27 August 1819; he was forty-nine. With public funds, a stone was erected over his grave in the city’s new cemetery in Devonshire Street. While the inscription referred to Lewin’s official status as the town coroner, its discursive text lamented the loss ‘to this country of an Eminent Artist in his line of Na ... (read more)

John Thompson reviews 'Memoirs of a Young Bastard' edited by Hilary McPhee with Ann Standish

April 2012, no. 340 • 01 April 2012

With Tim Burstall’s death in 2004, Australia lost a key figure in the rebirth of a distinctive and energetic national film industry. While critics disdained his rough ocker populism, Burstall’s Stork (1971), Alvin Purple (1973), and Petersen (1974) were significant commercial successes and demonstrated the viability of a product willing to show Australians to themselves. Burstall argued that a ... (read more)

John Thompson reviews 'The West and the Map of the World: A Reappraisal of the Past' by Matthew Richardson

November 2010, no. 326 • 15 November 2011

Placed on a coffee table – its likely destination – this handsome book will have its greatest appeal to the idle browser. With its generous illustrations of remarkably beautiful early and antique maps of the world, Matthew Richardson’s book provides an elegant showcase for some singular treasures of early world mapping to be found principally in the collections of the State Library of Victor ... (read more)

John Thompson reviews 'The Business of Nature: John Gould and Australia' by Roslyn Russell

June 2011, no. 332 • 24 May 2011

When the English zoologist John Gould died in London in February 1881, he was renowned for his scientific and descriptive studies, principally of birds – those found in his native Britain, the Himalayas, Europe, Australia, North America, and New Guinea – but also of Australian mammals. In the course of his self-made career, Gould produced forty-one large volumes, handsomely illustrated with 30 ... (read more)

John Thompson reviews 'Into the Light: 150 Years of Cultural Treasures at the University of Sydney' edited by David Ellis

March 2011, no. 329 • 01 March 2011

With the centrepiece of its glorious Edmund Blacket building and its noble quadrangle, the University of Sydney is Australia’s oldest and grandest institution of higher learning – an adornment both to its city and to the nation since its foundation in 1852. Less well known, even in Sydney, is that the university is home to a remarkable accumulation of cultural and scientific treasures – some ... (read more)