Trigger warnings: death, mentions of the treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people throughout Australia's post-1788 history.

I don't know exactly what I thought this book would be, but it wasn't this. I think I thought maybe it would be an examination of what historians do and how they do it??? And instead, I got what's essentially a series of mini-biographies about fourteen historians, authors, and archaeologists who've been significant or influential in Australian history. 

Some chapters were utterly fascinating and I was hooked to the page - I think Grace Karskens' chapter was probably my favourite, but that could be because I majored in historical archaeology in undergrad and so I'm very familiar with her work. Other chapters were incredibly dry and a hard slog to get through. Some chapters seemed to barely focus on the historian in question, which was somewhat unsettling - Inga Clendinnen's chapter seemed to focus more on Kate Grenville than anything. 

But, like, a guy I went through postgrad with gets name dropped a bunch of times, so that provided an unexpected moment of excitement...