1. Introduction / Doug Munro and John G. Reid -- Autobiographies of Historians. 2. Writing history/writing about yourself: what's the difference? / Sheila Fitzpatrick -- 3. Walvin, Fitzpatrick and Rickard: three autobiographies of childhood and coming of age / Doug Munro and Geoffrey Gray -- 4. The female gaze: Australian women historians' autobiographies / Ann Moyal -- Nation-Defining Authors. 5. 'A gigantic confession of life': autobiography, 'national awakening' and the invention of Manning Clark / Mark McKenna -- 6. Ceci n'est pas Ramsay Cook: a biographical reconnaissance / Donald Wright -- Discipline-defining authors. 7. Intersecting and contrasting lives: G.M. Trevelyan and Lytton Strachey / Alastair MacLachlan -- 8. An ingrained activist: the early years of Raphael Samuel / Sophie Scott-Brown -- 9. Pursuing the antipodean: Bernard Smith, identity and history / Sheridan Palmer -- Collective Biography. 10. Australian historians networking, 1914-1973 / Geoffrey Bolton -- 11. Country and kin calling? Keith Hancock, the National Dictionary Collaboration, and the promotion of life writing in Australia / Melanie Nolan -- 12. Imperial women: collective biography, gender and Yale-trained historians / John G. Reid -- 13. Concluding reflections / Barbara Caine.

Includes contributions from leading scholars in the field from both Australia and North America, this collection explores diverse approaches to writing the lives of historians and ways of assessing the importance of doing so. Beginning with the writing of autobiographies by historians, the volume then turns to biographical studies, both of historians whose writings were in some sense nation-defining and those who may be regarded as having had a major influence on defining the discipline of history. The final section explores elements of collective biography, linking these to the formation of historical networks. A concluding essay by Barbara Caine offers a critical appraisal of the study of historians' biographies and autobiographies to date, and maps out likely new directions for future work.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Doug Munro is a Wellington-based biographer and historian, and an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Queensland. John G. Reid is a member of the Department of History at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Senior Fellow of the Gorsebrook Research Institute.

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