Mark McKenna: In Conversation

Join Professor Maria Nugent and Emeritus Professor Mark McKenna to talk about Mark's new book:The Shortest History of Australia (Black Inc., 2025). (Please note that this event will replace Mark McKenna's School of History seminar, originally scheduled for 6 May.) 

In The Shortest History of Australia, Mark McKenna offers a compelling new version of our national story. This is a modern Australia permeated by First Nations history; a multicultural society with an island mindset; a continent of epic beauty and extreme natural events; a country obsessed by war abroad but blind to its founding war at home; and a thriving nation-state still to realise its political independence.

McKenna's wise and humane history reveals the surprising in the familiar, and reframes the past so we can see the present more clearly.

Mark McKenna is one of Australia’s leading historians. His book, Return to Uluru (Black Inc. 2021) was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History. From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories (MUP, 2016) won the NSW Premier’s Prize for Australian History. An Eye for Eternity: The life of Manning Clark (MUP 2011) won five national awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Non-Fiction. He is also the author of Looking for Blackfellas’ Point (UNSW Press),which won the Book of the Year and the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction in the 2003 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. His latest book is The Shortest History of Australia (Black Inc. 2025).