A History of South Australia

A History of South Australia investigates South Australia's history from before the arrival of the first European maritime explorers to the present day, and examines its distinctive origins as a 'free' settlement. In this compelling and nuanced history, Paul Sendziuk and Robert Foster consider the imprint of people on the land - and vice versa - and offer fresh insights into relations between Indigenous people and the European colonisers. They chart South Australia's economic, political and social development, including the advance and retreat of an interventionist government, the establishment of the state's distinctive socio-political formations, and its relationship to the rest of Australia and the world. The first comprehensive, single-volume history of the state to be published in over fifty years, A History of South Australia is an essential and engaging contribution to our understanding of South Australia's past.

1. An imaginary dominion, 1802–35; 2. Foundations, 1836–45; 3. Settling and unsettling, 1846–56; 4. Creating a nation, 1857–87; 5. Making a state, 1888–1913; 6. War and peace, 1914–35; 7. Industrialisation and the Playford legend, mid-1930s to 1965; 8. War and society in the Playford era, 1939–65; 9. The Dunstan 'decade', 1965–79; 10. Triumph of the market, 1980–2001; 11. Age of anxiety, 2002–present.

Paul Sendziuk is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Adelaide. He has expertise in the histories of twentieth century Australia, immigration, disease and public health. He is the author of Learning to Trust: Australian Responses to AIDS (2003), and, with Robert Foster, the co-editor of Turning Points: Chapters in South Australian History (2012).
Robert Foster is an Associate Professor in the History Department of the University of Adelaide. He has published extensively in the field of South Australia Indigenous history, and is co-author of Out of the Silence: The History and Memory of South Australia's Frontier Wars (2012).