Congratulations to historians Peter Stanley and Jim Davidson who were today announced as co-winners of the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History, with their respective books Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny and Murder in the Great War and A Three-Cornered Life: The Historian W K Hancock.
Announcing the awards in Sydney today, School Education Minister Peter Garrett said, "A Three-Cornered Life is an illuminating biography of W.K. Hancock, one of the leading Australian historians of the 20th century. The judges described Davidson’s biography as ‘shrewd in judgement and deft in its literary artistry.’ Bad Characters uses military records to provide a new perspective on the Australian soldier. It reminds us of the reality of military life for servicemen in World War I in what the judges called a ‘salutary corrective to the romanticisation of the digger.’"
From next year the awards will become part of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards.
Bad Characters is available in paperback ($29.95) or ebook ($19.99). Read an extract here.
A Three-Cornered Life: The Historian W K Hancock is available now in hardcover ($59.95).
