2007 NSW PREMIER’S HISTORY AWARDS WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Tuesday 9 October 2007

Minister for the Arts Frank Sartor today announced the winners of the 2007 NSW Premier’s History Awards and the 2007 NSW History Fellowship. Mr Sartor said the NSW Government provided $90,000 for the awards, which attracted 199 entries this year.

“The NSW Government is committed to supporting excellence in historical research, writing and presentation,” Mr Sartor said. “This year’s awards attracted an impressive field of talent, with all of the winners opening up new ways of looking at the past.

“The winning entries were drawn from a shortlist that included books, a radio documentary, television drama and a website. Entrants explored a range of subjects from the links between Aboriginal trade routes and spiritual pathways, to the rise and fall of Prussia.”

The History Awards winners, each of whom received $15,000, were:

• The Audio/Visual History Prize: John Hughes for his documentary film, The Archive Project: the Realist Film Unit in Cold War Australia
• The Australian History Prize: Libby Robin for How a Continent Created a Nation
• Community and Regional History Prize: Regina Ganter for Mixed Relations: Asian- Aboriginal Contact in North Australia 
• The General History Prize: Christopher Clark for Iron Kingdom: the Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
• Young People’s History Prize: John Nicholson for Songlines and Stone Axes: Transport, Trade and Travel in Australia
• The John and Patricia Ward History Prize for Use of Archives in Writing History: Klaus Neumann for In the Interest of National Security: Civilian Internment in Australia During World War II.

Historian Tony Moore was awarded the annual NSW History Fellowship, a $20,000 award which enables a NSW historian to research an aspect of the state’s history. Mr Moore will use the fellowship to work on Death or Liberty – Rebels in Exile, the first narrative and analytical history of political prisoners exiled as convicts to Australia.

The New South Wales Premier’s History Awards and the History Fellowship are sponsored
by the New South Wales Government through Arts NSW with the assistance of the History
Council of NSW and State Records NSW.

Media contact: Alex Walker 9228 4700 / 0401 088 155

Click here to download a PDF of the media release and judges’ citations on the winning entries

Photo: Left  to Right: Mr John Nicholson (The Young People’s History Prize); Dr Regina Ganter (The Community & Regional History Prize); Dr Libby Robin (The Australian History Prize); Dr Klaus Neumann (The John & Patricia Ward History Prize); The Hon Frank Sartor (Minister for the Arts); Professor Tom Griffiths (Guest Speaker); Mr Tony Moore (Winner, 2007 NSW History Fellowship); Mr John Hughes (The Audio/Visual History Prize). Photogrpapher: David Jenkins.