The New South Wales Premier's History Awards, also known as the NSW History Awards, honour distinguished achievement in the interpretation of history, through both the written word and non-print media by Australian citizens and permanent residents of Australia.
History The State Government of New South Wales, Australia established the Premier's History Awards in 1997, which were devised by members of the History Council of NSW including Max Kelly, Paul Ashton and Shirley Fitzgerald. In 2005 the name of the awards was changed to the NSW Premier's History Awards. The awards are presented annually in early September and are managed by the State Library of New South Wales, in association with Create NSW (formerly Arts NSW).
Categories In 2025 a prize of was set for each of the following awards, with a total prize pool of .
Australian History Prize The Australian History Prize is awarded for a major work of non-fiction on Australian history. In 2014, an Australian Military History Prize was announced. Mike Carlton was the winner of this sub-category for his book First Victory (published by Random House).
Year Winners Work Publisher2026Apron-Sorrow / Sovereign-TeaWakefield Press2025Darren Rix and Craig CormickWarra Warra WaiScribner Australia2024Alecia SimmondsCourting: An Intimate History of Love and the LawLa Trobe University Press, with Black Inc2023Alan AtkinsonElizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth FarmNewSouth Publishing2022Alexis BergantzFrench Connection: Australia's Cosmopolitan AmbitionsNewSouth Publishing2021Grace KarskensPeople of the River: Lost Worlds of Early AustraliaAllen & Unwin2020James DunkBedlam at Botany BayNewSouth Publishing 2019 Meredith Lake The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History NewSouth Books 2018 Christina Twomey The Battle Within: POWs in Postwar Australia NewSouth Publishing 2017 Mark McKenna From the Edge: Australia's Lost Histories Melbourne University Publishing 2016 Stuart Macintyre Australia's Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s NewSouth Books 2015 Alan Atkinson The Europeans in Australia UNSW Press 2014 Joan Beaumont Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War Allen & Unwin 2013 Janet Butler Kitty's War: The remarkable wartime experiences of Kit McNaughton University of Queensland Press 2012 Russell McGregor Indifferent Inclusion: Aboriginal People and the Australian Nation Aboriginal Studies Press 2011 Penny Russell Savage or Civilised?: Manners in Colonial Australia UNSW Press 2010 Bain Attwood Possession: Batman's Treaty and the Matter of History Melbourne University Publishing 2009 Robin Gerster Travels in Atomic Sunshine: Australia and the Occupation of Japan Scribe 2008 Paul Ham Vietnam: The Australian War HarperCollins 2007 Libby Robin How a Continent Created a Nation UNSW Press 2006 Richard Broome Aboriginal Victorians: a History Since 1800 Allen & Unwin 2005 Eileen Chanin and Steven Miller, with an introductory essay by Judith Pugh Degenerates and Perverts: The 1939 Herald Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art Miegunyah Press at Melbourne University Publishing 2004 Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark The History Wars Melbourne University Publishing 2003 James Bowen and Margarita Bowen The Great Barrier Reef: History, Science, Heritage Melbourne University Publishing 2002 Nadia Wheatley The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift HarperCollinsPublishers 2001 Tim Bonyhady The Colonial Earth Miegunyah Press at Melbourne University Publishing 2000 Peter Spearrit Sydney's Century: A History UNSW Press 1999 K.S. Inglis Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape Melbourne University Publishing 1998 Anne Whitehead Paradise Mislaid: In Search of the Australian Tribe of Paraguay University of Queensland Press 1997 Heather Goodall Invasion to Embassy: Land in Aboriginal Politics in NSW, 1770–1972 Allen & Unwin
General History Prize The General History Prize is awarded for a major work of non-fiction on international history.
Year Winners Work Publisher2026Errol Flynn: The true story of Australia’s Hollywood iconAllen & Unwin2025Robyn ArianrhodVector: A surprising story of space, time, and mathematical transformationUniversity of Chicago Press2024Katharine E. McGregorSystemic Silencing: Activism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in IndonesiaUniversity of Wisconsin Press2023Michael LaffanUnder Empire: Muslim Lives and Loyalties Across the Indian Ocean World, 1775–1945Columbia University Press2022Mina RocesThe Filipino Migration Experience: Global Agents of ChangeCornell University Press2021Luke KeoghThe Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the WorldThe University of Chicago Press and Kew Publishing2020Kate FullagarThe Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of EmpireYale University Press2019Christina ThompsonSea People: The Puzzle of PolynesiaHarper 2018 Sean Scalmer On the Stump: Campaign Oratory and Democracy in the United States, Britain, and Australia Temple University Press 2017 Sandra Wilson, Robert Cribb, Beatrice Trefalt & Dean Aszkielowicz Japanese War Criminals: The Politics of Justice after the Second World War Columbia University Press2016 Ann McGrath Illicit Love: Interracial Sex and Marriage in the United States and AustraliaNebraska University Press 2015 Warwick Anderson & Ian R Mackay Intolerant Bodies: A Short History of Autoimmunity Johns Hopkins University Press 2014 John Gascoigne Encountering the Pacific in the Age of Enlightenment Cambridge University Press 2013 Saliha Belmessous Assimilation and Empire: Uniformity in the French and British Colonies, 1541–1954 Oxford University Press 2012 Tim Bonyhady Good Living Street: The Fortunes of My Viennese Family Allen & Unwin 2011 Shane White, Stephen Garton, Stephen Robertson and Graham White Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem Between the Wars Harvard University Press 2010 Lisa Ford Settler Sovereignty: Jurisdiction and Indigenous People in America and Australia, 1788–1836 Harvard University Press 2009 Warwick Anderson The Collectors of Lost Souls: Turning Kuru Scientists into Whitemen Johns Hopkins University Press 2008 Michael A. McDonnell The Politics of War: Race, Class and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia University of North Carolina Press 2007 Christopher Clark Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 Harvard University Press 2006 R. J. B. Bosworth Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Dictatorship 1915–1945 Allen Lane/Penguin Books 2005 Sally Neighbour In the Shadow of Swords: on the trail of terrorism from Afghanistan to Australia Harper Collins Publishers 2004 Edward Duyker Citizen Labillardière: A Naturalist's Life in Revolution and Exploration 1755–1834 The Miegunyah Press at Melbourne University Publishing 2003 David Garrioch The Making of Revolutionary Paris University of California Press 2002 Ruth Wajnryb The Silence: How Tragedy Shapes Talk Allen & Unwin 2001 Rowena Lennox Fighting Spirit of East Timor: The Life of Martinho da Costa Lopes Pluto Press Australia 2000 Anna Lanyon Malinche's Conquest Allen & Unwin 1999 Inga Clendinnen Reading the Holocaust The Text Publishing Company 1998 Marsden Hordern King of the Australian Coast: the Work of Phillip Parker King in the Mermaid and Bathurst 1817–1822 Melbourne University Press 1997 Patricia Jalland Death in the Victorian Family Oxford University Press
NSW Community and Regional History Prize The NSW Community and Regional History Prize is awarded for a major work of non-fiction that makes a significant contribution to understanding of any aspect of the history of New South Wales.
Year Winners Work Publisher2026Views to Die ForTrafalgar Publishing2025Alana PiperYirranma Place: Stories of a Darlinghurst cornerNewSouth Publishing2024Shauna BostockReaching Through Time: Finding my family's storiesAllen & Unwin2023Ian HodgesHe Belonged to Wagga: The Great War, the AIF and returned soldiers in an Australian country townAustralian Scholarly Publishing2022Kate HoldenThe Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land, and a Killing at Croppa CreekBlack Inc. Books2021Matthew ColloffLandscapes of Our Hearts: Reconciling People and EnvironmentThames & Hudson Australia2020Callum Clayton-DixonSurviving New England: A History of Aboriginal Resistance and Resilience Through the First Forty Years of Colonial ApocalypseNēwara Aboriginal Corporation2019 Jon Rhodes Cage of Ghosts Darkwood 2018 Paul Irish Hidden in Plain View: The Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney NewSouth Publishing 2017 Peter Hobbins, Ursula K Frederick & Anne Clarke Stories from the Sandstone: Quarantine Inscriptions from Australia's Immigrant Past Arbon Publishing2016 Tanya Evans Fractured Families: Life on the Margins in Colonial New South Wales University of New South Wales Press 2015 Babette Smith The Luck of the Irish : How a Shipload of Convicts Survived the Wreck of the Hive to Make a New Life in Australia Allen & Unwin 2014 Ian Hoskins Coast: A History of the New South Wales Edge NewSouth 2013 Patti Miller The Mind of a Thief Queensland University Press 2012 Deborah Beck Set in Stone: A History of the Cell Block Theatre UNSW Press 2011 Stephen GappsCabrogal to Fairfield City: A History of a Multicultural Community Fairfield City Council 2010 Pauline CurbyRandwick Randwick Municipal Council 2009David BollenUp on the Hill: A History of St Patrick's College UNSW Press2008Dianne JohnsonSacred Waters: the story of the Blue Mountains Gully Traditional Owners Halstead Press2007Regina GanterMixed Relations: Asian Aboriginal Contact in North AustraliaUniversity of Western Australia Press2006Maria NugentBotany Bay: Where Histories Meet Allen & Unwin2005Joe HajduSamurai in the Surf: the arrival of the Japanese on the Gold Coast in the 1980s Pandanus Books2004Patricia Crawford and Ian CrawfordContested Country: A History of the Northcliffe Area, Western Australia University of Western Australia Press2003 Erik Eklund Steel Town: The Making and Breaking of Port Kembla Melbourne University Publishing2002 John BaileyThe White Divers of Broome: the true story of a fatal experimentPan Macmillan Australia2001Carolyn Wadley DowleyThrough Silent CountryFremantle Arts Centre Press2000Sherry MorrisWagga Wagga: A HistoryBobby Graham Publishers for Wagga Wagga City Council1999Janet McCalmanSex and Suffering: Women's Health and a Women's Hospital: the Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, 1856 – 1996Melbourne University Press1998Grace KarskensThe Rocks: Life in Early Sydney Melbourne University Press1997Christopher CunninghamThe Blue Mountains RediscoveredKangaroo Press
Young People's History Prize The Young People's History Prize (known as the Children's History Prize until 2002) is awarded for a work that increases the understanding and appreciation of history by children and/or young adults.