Anna Clark

the sluice gates come down? At the end of the day on the 1st of October.

And if you don't know what to vote for, well, we've got historian Anna Clark later in the program giving her selection.

So some

clues there.

You've got till the 1st of October to vote, but some more thoughts and recommendations, Cassie.

Yes, and you may well have heard we have been asking writers and historians and thinkers for their suggestions of their favourite books.

And today we're going to hear from Anna Clarke.

Now, she's a professor of history at the University of Technology, Sydney, and the author of numerous books, most recently Making Australian History, which is a history of Australian history, and also The Catch, Australia's Love Affair with Fishing, which is a history of Australian fishing.

Welcome to Rear Vision.

Today on the show, in support of ABC Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books campaign, we'll deep dive into the process of history, exploring the people, events and attitudes, and dare I say it, books, that have shaped our historical understanding of the place we call Australia.

Now, the first voice we heard from was Anna Clarke at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Professor Clarke argues that the revision of history is not only natural, it's essential.

History is fundamentally evidence-based and if new evidence emerges or new archives are found or new questions are asked of this huge expanse of time that we call the past, then of course we need to revise our interpretations and our understandings.

And that's really important.

It shows how dynamic and enduring historical debate is because it does really concern, you know, issues of national importance and the history wars are kind of just one way that that erupts in our culture.

Historians Michelle Arrow, Tim Rouse and Anna Clarke.

I'm wondering how long there have been so many stakeholders invested in commercial fishing.

So I've come to see historian Anna Clark.

Anna is an associate professor at the Center for Public History at UTS and the author of The Catch: The Story of Fishing in Australia.

So what does Anna see when she looks at Julie's photo?

In 1963, the historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote a famous book called The Rush That Never Ended about the mining industry in Australia.

It's a triumphal story of unchecked progress.

But in her book The Catch, Anna Clark talks about the fishing industry working in boom-bust cycles.

So what does a fishing boom look like, and its flip side, a fishing bust?