# Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History

The Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History was created by the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard following the Australian History Summit held in Canberra on 17 August 2006. The Summit looked at how the Australian government could strengthen Australian history in the school curriculum. The winner (or winners) receive a gold medallion and a grant worth A$100,000.
The prize is awarded to an individual or a group, for an outstanding publication or body of work that contributes significantly to an understanding of Australian history. The subject of works submitted can include, but are not limited to:
* historical events;
* historical figures (including biographies) and
* work covering a relevant subject.
In 2012, the prize was incorporated into the Prime Minister's Literary Awards.

## Honorees

Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History winners and shortlists :
| Year | Author(s) | Title | Result |
| 2007 | Les Carlyon | The Great War | Winner |
| 2007 | Peter Cochrane | Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy | Winner |
| 2007 | David Branagan | TW Edgeworth David: A Life | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Josephine Flood | The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Tom Griffiths | Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica | Winner |
| 2008 | Robert Kenny | The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World | Winner |
| 2008 | John Fitzgerald | Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Philip Jones | Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Paul Rudd, Stephen Amezdroz, Tony Wright, Wain Fimeri, and Matthew Thomason | Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Martin Butler and Bentley Dean | Contact (a documentary film) | Winner |
| 2009 | Various | First Australians | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Robin Gerster | Travels in Atomic Sunshine: Australia and the Occupation of Japan | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Grace Karskens | The Colony: A History of Early Sydney | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds | Drawing the Global Colour Line | Shortlist |
| 2010 / 2011 | Jim Davidson | A Three-Cornered Life: The Historian W K Hancock | Winner |
| 2010 / 2011 | Peter Stanley | Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny and Murder in the Great War | Winner |
| 2010 / 2011 | James Curran and Stuart Ward | The Unknown Nation; Australia After Empire | Shortlist |
| 2010 / 2011 | Paul Daley | Beersheba: A Journey through Australia’s Forgotten War | Shortlist |
| 2010 / 2011 | Kirsten McKenzie | A Swindler's Progress: Nobles and Convicts in the Age of Liberty | Shortlist |
| 2010 / 2011 | Penny Russell | Savage or Civilised? Manners in Colonial Australia | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Bill Gammage | The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aboriginies Made Australia | Winner |
| 2012 | James Boyce | 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Charles Massey | Breaking the Sheep’s Back | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Russell McGregor | Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal people and the Australian Nation | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Renegade Films Australia Pty Ltd | Immigration Nation: The Secret History of Us | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Ross McMullin | Farewell, Dear People | Winner |
| 2013 | Frank Bongiorno | The Sex Lives of Australians: A History | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Paul Ham | Sandakan | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Jenny Hocking | Gough Whitlam | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Nicole Moore | The Censor's Library | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Joan Beaumont | Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War | Winner |
| 2014 | Hal G. P. Colebatch | Australia's Secret War: How Unionists Sabotaged our Troops in World War II | Winner |
| 2014 | Mike Carlton | First Victory: 1914 | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Michael Pembroke | Arthur Phillip: Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Clare Wright | The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Ross Coulthart | Charles Bean | Winner |
| 2015 | David Horner | The Spy Catchers, Volume 1 of The Official History of ASIO | Winner |
| 2015 | Alan Atkinson | The Europeans in Australia, Volume 3: Nation | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Peter Brune | Descent into Hell | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Anne Henderson | Menzies at War | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Geoffrey Blainey | The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia | Winner |
| 2016 | Sam Lipski and Suzanne D. Rutland | Let My People Go: The Untold Story of Australia and the Soviet Jews, 1959–89 | Winner |
| 2016 | Peter Monteath and Valerie Munt | Red Professor: The Cold War Life of Fred Rose | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Doug Morrissey | Ned Kelly: A Lawless Life | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Robert Stevenson | The War with Germany, Volume III of the Centenary History of Australia and the Great War | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Elizabeth Tynan | Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story | Winner |
| 2017 | Josephine Bastian | A Passion for Exploring New Countries: Matthew Flinders and George Bass | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Neil McDonald | Valiant Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent | Shortlist |
| 2017 | John Murphy | Evatt: A Life | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Charlie Ward | A Handful of Sand: The Gurindji Struggle, After the Walk-Off | Shortlist |
| 2018 | John Edwards | John Curtin's War: The Coming of War in The Pacific, and Reinventing Australia, Volume 1 | Winner |
| 2018 | Judith Brett | The Enigmatic Mr Deakin | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Paul Irish | Hidden in Plain View: The Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Jayne Persian | Beautiful Balts: From Displaced Persons to New Australians | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Tim Rowse | Indigenous and Other Australians Since 1901 | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Meredith Lake | The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History | Winner |
| 2019 | Billy Griffiths | Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Anna Haebich | Dancing in Shadows: Histories of Nyungar Performance | Shortlist |
| 2019 | David Kemp | The Land of Dreams: How Australians Won Their Freedom, 1788–1860 | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Clare Wright | You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Tiffany Shellam | Meeting the Waylo: Aboriginal Encounters in the Archipelago | Winner |
| 2020 | Judith Brett | From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia got compulsory voting | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Marilyn Lake | Progressive New World: How Settler Colonialism and Transpacific Exchange Shaped American Reform | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Susan Lawrence and Peter Davies | Sludge: Disaster on Victoria’s Goldfields | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Scott Patterson | The Oarsmen: The Remarkable Story of the Men Who Rowed from the Great War to Peace | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Grace Karskens | People of the River: Lost worlds of early Australia | Winner |
| 2021 | Michael Bennett | Pathfinders: A history of Aboriginal trackers in NSW | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Mark Dunn | The Convict Valley: The Bloody Struggle on Australia's Early Frontier | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Jason M. Gibson | Ceremony Men: Making Ethnography and the Return of the Strehlow Collection | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Amanda Harris | Representing Australian Aboriginal Music and Dance 1930-1970 | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Christine Helliwell | Semut: The Untold Story of a Secret Australian Operation in WWII Borneo | Winner |
| 2022 | Sheila Fitzpatrick | White Russians, Red Peril: A Cold War History of Migration to Australia | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Mark McKenna | Return to Uluru | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Deirdre O'Connell | Harlem Nights: The Secret History of Australia's Jazz Age | Shortlist |
| 2022 | Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe | Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate | Shortlist |