AustLit

'I am ashamed to recall that when our high-school history class in the late 1970s was set K.S. Inglis’s The Australian Colonists (1974), I – and I don’t think I was alone – didn’t quite know what to do with a text that focused on ‘ceremonies, monuments and rhetoric’, one that began as a study on 26 January 1788 but worked back as an historical enquiry from 25 April 1915.' (Introduction)

'In 2016 Ken Inglis, under pressure from two of his oldest friends, Jay Winter and Bill Gammage, 'relented' to their idea of a 'laconic' colloqium on his life and work.' (Introduction)

'Ken Inglis (1929–2017) was one of Australia's best known and most innovative historians. In part based on a colloquium held in Melbourne in 2015, this tribute to him is an exceptional book. It fulfills its task of attempting to explain his life and work, but it does much more in telling us about Australian life between the 1930s and 2000s, particularly about the humanities and social sciences in leading universities between the late 1940s and today. There are twenty two chapters and useful biographical materials, as well as a seventeen-page bibliography of Inglis’ written work, including his journalism. The authors are as good a group as could be assembled and together elucidate his life and set it into context. Inglis was a very Australian historian, although influenced by British and American history and methods. The chapters bring this out nicely as they explore Inglis, whom Bill Gammage fittingly describes in his Introduction as a laconic Australian.'  (Introduction)