Monash alumnus wins PM's prize for history

July 2009

Monash Arts alumnus Tom Griffiths (PhD 1994) has been named joint winner of the 2008 Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History. Professor Griffiths receives the prize for his book Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica (University of New South Wales Press, 2007).

Described as "Australia's pre-eminent award for excellence in the field" the Prime Minister's Prize recognises outstanding publications which make a significant contribution to the understanding of this nation’s history. It includes a grant of $100,000. The 2008 prize recognises works first published, produced or broadcast in 2007.

Professor Griffiths shares the 2008 award with Robert Kenny, author or The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World (Scribe Publications, 2007).

Tom Griffiths is a Professor of History in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. His winning book draws on his experiences travelling to Antarctica in the summer of 2002-03 with the Australian Antarctic Division.

“I am deeply honoured to be a co-winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History, and especially to share it with Robert Kenny whose book I greatly admire,” Professor Griffiths said.

“This is such an appropriate moment for Australians to reflect on the history of Antarctica and their relationship with it,” he said.

“A world facing the crisis of global warming is anxiously turning its gaze towards an icecap that holds 90 per cent of the globe’s land ice. We have just participated in an exciting International Polar Year (2007-08), and Australia – which claims 40 per cent of Antarctica – has recently established an air link with the continent.

“It is time to look back on a century and more of voyaging, and to assess our physical, intellectual and emotional relationship to Antarctica, and to think about how it might be about to change.”

Read more about Professor Griffith’s book in ‘History on ice’ in the ANU Reporter.