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Boom - The Underground History of Australia, from Gold Rush to GFC

2013 - Winner

Winner

In Boom, Knox reveals the history of mining as the Australian story, for better or worse. Insightful, compellingly readable and full of extraordinary characters, it shows how mining and miners have shaped our history and gripped our imagination through boom and bust.

The independent judging panel, Alan Cameron AO, Richard Fisher AM and Narelle Hooper, noted that, given its economic significance as well as its impact on migration, very few historians have placed much emphasis on mining and the influence which it has had on the way in which Australia has evolved.

Alan Cameron AO, chair of the judging panel commented: “It would be odd if in the middle or at near end, depending on your point of view, of the longest mining boom in Australia’s history, we did not have a book about mining on our shortlist – and here it is. Boom is an ambitious and important book which sets out to put mining into context as a critical part of the Australian story since white settlement.”

About the author

Malcolm Knox is the former literary editor and award-winning cricket writer of the Sydney Morning Herald (where he broke the Norma Khouri story, for which he won one of his two Walkley Awards). His novels include The Life and the Ned Kelly Award-winning A Private Man, and his many non-fiction titles include Bradman's War, shortlisted in the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, The Greatest: The players, the moments, the matches 1993–2008 and The Captains: The story behind Australia's second most important job.