The Shortest History of Australia Paperback

The history of Australia has been written before – but not like this.

In The Shortest History of Australia, Mark McKenna offers a compelling new version of our national story. This is a modern Australia permeated by First Nations history; a multicultural society with an island mindset; a continent of epic beauty and extreme natural events; a country obsessed by war abroad but blind to its founding war at home; and a thriving nation-state still to realise its political independence.

McKenna's wise and humane history reveals the surprising in the familiar, and reframes the past so we can see the present more clearly.

'Remarkable ... a deeply humane account of who we are and how we came to be' —Larissa Behrendt

'A deeply imaginative, beautifully written and individual book' –Robert Manne

'Original, eloquent and moving – a revelatory journey into the past we thought we knew' –Tom Griffiths

'Mark McKenna's Shortest History of Australia found a new way to trace this continent of ours. With every page, the kaleidoscope shifted and a new way of seeing emerged.' –Australian Book Review

'This is a sensitive and scrupulous account that says the cliches about Australian history are failures of imagination.' —The Age

'One of our most rigorous yet morally engaged historians...conceptually rich as well as a masterclass in concision'. —The Best Books of 2025, The Saturday Paper

• Shortlisted for The Age Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2026