Australian Lives: An Intimate History

By Anisa Puri and Alistair Thomson

‘The Australian Generations Oral History Project will be an important resource for historians of the future – and Australian Lives provides a fine introduction to it.’ Jeff Sparrow

This project and all of its valuable and varied outputs should become a treasure trove for social, public, and oral historians for decades to come.' The Public Historian (40:4)

‘…a valuable resource for anyone interested in the personal and social history of our country.’ Max Oliver,  Books+Publishing

‘Life is long. When you’re forty-eight, there’s been a lot of stuff that’s happened (laughs). It’s got elements of comedy and there are elements of heartache and drama and thriller and it’s got so many things in it.’ Rhonda King, born 1965

‘I really like the idea that in maybe a hundred years someone could listen and hear about my life to learn about what living in 2012 or 2013 was like. Think that’s really cool.’ Adam Farrow-Palmer, born 1988

Australian Lives: An Intimate History illuminates Australian life across the 20th and into the 21st century: how Australian people have been shaped by the forces and expectations of contemporary history and how, in turn, they have made their lives and created Australian society. From oral history interviews with Australians born between 1920 and 1989, fifty narrators reflect on their diverse experiences as children and teenagers, in midlife and in old age, about faith, migration, work and play, aspiration and activism, memory and identity, pain and happiness. In Australian Lives you can read and in the e-version of the book listen to the comedy, heartache and drama of ordinary Australians’ extraordinary lives. As our interviewee Kim Bear (born 1959) explains, ‘Stories are a great way to inform people about what it is to be human. Even if you say one thing that resonates … there’s that connection made.’ 

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