The History Program has for many years been a major centre for research in the social, cultural, and political history of Australia and related societies. Over the past few years, it has developed important new focuses on environmental, Indigenous, biography and gender history. Within these broad categories, the Program carries out major work on
- ageing and death,
- health and sickness,
- fire and ice,
- landscape and food,
- work and welfare, social policy, intellectual life and modern gender relations.
This work ranges in scope from microhistories of particular peoples and places to broad ranging comparative histories and macrohistories of global dimensions.
Geographically it covers Australia, Antarctica, Great Britain, the United States, and the Caribbean. Methodologically it covers a broad range, from theoretically and conceptually oriented approaches, to analytical narrative, biography, diachronic and geographical comparison, and quantitative social science history.
The Program's research is firmly rooted in empirical analysis, depending on systematic work in archives, oral history collections, material culture studies, landscape studies, interviews, and other forms of fieldwork. Historical research requires a painstaking approach to the identification, collection and analysis of available evidence, a careful sifting of potentially applicable theoretical approaches, and the refinement of ideas as part of a process of literary crafting.
All members of the History Program have significant international profiles within the historical profession as a result of their success in applying these techniques and their innovative approaches to the study of particular problems and periods. They also make significant contributions to public debate and the formulation of public policy.
