INGA CLENDINNEN

Inga Clendinnen was one of Australia's greatest writers and thinkers. This selection covers the full scope of her writing, from Tiger's Eye to Aztecs, from Boyer Lectures to essays on all manner of topics. The rich array is introduced by acclaimed historian James Boyce, who traces Clendinnen's life and evolving thought.

Boyce writes that Clendinnen's ‘ability to write serious history for a general readership was unrivalled in this country Her writings are an enduring testament to the truth that while we might “live within the narrow moving band of time we call the present the secret engine of our present is our past, with its plastic memories, its malleable moralities, its wreathing dreams of desirable futures”.'

Inga Clendinnen's international profile is significant. Reading the Holocaust was awarded the New York Times' Best Book of the Year in 1999, her books have been published in many editions around the world, and in 2016 she was awarded the US$1 million Dan David Prize.

James Boyce is a multi-award-winning Australian historian. His first book, Van Diemen's Land, was described by Richard Flanagan as ‘the most significant colonial history since The Fatal Shore'. 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia was The Age's Book of the Year, while Born Bad: Original Sin and the Making of the Western World was hailed by The Washington Post as ‘an exhilarating work of popular scholarship'. His most recent book, Imperial Mud: The Fight for the Fens, was a Geographical Magazine Book of the Month.