Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
Bain Attwood has published extensively in the history of colonialism. His sole authored books include The Making of the Aborigines (1989), Rights for Aborigines (2003), Telling the Truth About Aboriginal History (2005), Possession: Batman's Treaty and the Matter of History (2009), Empire and the Making of Native Title: Sovereignty, Property and Indigenous People (2020), and William Cooper: An Aboriginal Life Story (2021). He is jointly responsible for Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines’ League (2004) and The 1967 Referendum: Race, Power and the Australian Constitution (2007). He has edited or co-edited several collections of essays, including Protection and Empire: A Global History (2017). He collaborated with Anne Scrimgeour to create a major website on the Pilbara Aboriginal strike: https://pilbarastrike.org/. He has held fellowships at the Australian National University (2001-03) and Cambridge University (2007-08), and the Harvard Chair of Australian Studies (2014-15). Bain has also undertaken work for the National Museum of Australia and written on indigenous history for newspapers. His ninth monograph, 'A Bloody Difficult Subject': Ruth Ross, te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Making of History, was published in 2023. He is currently working on a project about denial and Australia's black history, funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
Supervision interests
I welcome students wishing to undertake theses in the fields of indigenous history, history and memory, and public history.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Education/Academic qualification
History, PhD, La Trobe University
1981 → 1984
Award Date: 3 May 1985
History, MPhil, University of Auckland
1977 → 1978
Award Date: 2 Mar 1979
BSocSc, University of Waikato
1974 → 1976
Award Date: 1 Apr 1977
Research area keywords
- History and Memory
- Indigenous history
Projects
- 6 Finished
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Difficult Histories: An Australian Case Study
Attwood, B. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI))
1/02/22 → 29/02/24
Project: Research
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William Cooper and the Struggle for Rights: A Life Story
Attwood, B. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI))
1/07/20 → 1/06/21
Project: Research
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A History of the Pilbara Aboriginal Strike as Event, Experience and Myth
Attwood, B. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI))
ARC - Australian Research Council
7/01/13 → 31/12/19
Project: Research
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Dispossession, history and restorative justice: a comparative study of three settler societies
Attwood, B. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI))
ARC - Australian Research Council
2/01/08 → 31/12/13
Project: Research
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SMUTS Visiting Fellowship in Commonwealth Studies 2007 - 2008
Attwood, B. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI))
1/10/07 → 30/06/08
Project: Research
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The Jewish Holocaust, Indigenous people, and the politics of recognition: a cautionary tale
Attwood, B., 2024, Reckoning with History: Essays on Uses of the Past. Kesselring, K. J. & Neufeld, M. (eds.). 1st ed. Montreal Canada: McGill Queens University Press, p. 203-227 25 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (Book) › Research › peer-review
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'A Bloody Difficult Subject': Ruth Ross, te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Making of History
Attwood, B., 2023, 1st ed. Auckland New Zealand: Auckland University Press. 288 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book › Research › peer-review
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The Waitangi tribunal and the public life of history
Attwood, B., 2023, Professional Historians in Public: Old and New Roles Revisited. Bevernage, B. & Raphael, L. (eds.). 1st ed. Berlin Germany: Walter de Gruyter, p. 141-159 19 p. (The Politics of Historical Thinking; vol. 5).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (Book) › Research › peer-review
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William Cooper: An Aboriginal Life Story
Attwood, B., 2 Nov 2021, Carlton Vic Australia: The Miegunyah Press. 277 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book › Research › peer-review
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Empire and the Making of Native Title: Sovereignty, Property and Indigenous People
Attwood, B., 2020, Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. 432 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book › Research › peer-review