Peter Cochrane

Peter John Cochrane FAHA (born 15 April 1950) is an Australian historian and writer. In 2007, his book Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy shared the inaugural Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History with Les Carlyon's The Great War.[1]

For the British infantry officer, see Peter Cochrane (soldier).

Peter Cochrane
Born (1950-04-15) 15 April 1950
Melbourne, Victoria
AwardsFellowship of Australian Writers Award for Nonfiction (1992)
Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History (2007)
Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2013)
Academic background
Alma materLa Trobe University (BA [Hons])
University of Adelaide (PhD)
ThesisIndustrialisation and Dependence: Australia, 1919–1939 (1977)
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity of Sydney (1982–96)
University of Adelaide (1979–80)
Main interestsAustralian history
Notable worksSimpson and the Donkey (1992)
Colonial Ambition (2007)

Early life and career

Cochrane was born in Melbourne in 1950. He completed an honours degree at La Trobe University in 1974 and a doctorate at the University of Adelaide in 1978. After working for a couple of years in the Parliamentary Library of South Australia and as a tutor at the University of Adelaide, he published his first book Industrialisation and Dependence: Australia's Road to Economic Development, 1870–1939 in 1980.[2]

Cochrane worked as a Lecturer in History at the University of Sydney between 1982 and 1996. He published Simpson and the Donkey: The Making of a Legend, which won a Fellowship of Australian Writers Award for Nonfiction.[3] Tom Curran criticised Cochrane's version of the story of John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey in a 1996 article in Quadrant.[4]

Later works

Cochrane published two books in 2001, a history of the National Library of Australia and Australians at War a companion book to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation series of the same name.[5]

In 2004, Cochrane published a collection of photos from the First World War called The Great War: 1916–1918.[6] He published a book of photographs from the 1941 Siege of Tobruk in 2005.[7]

Cochrane published Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy, which told the story of the introduction of responsible government to New South Wales. It was funded by the New South Wales Government to mark the 150th anniversary of that event.[8] Colonial Ambition shared the inaugural Prime Minister's Prize for History with Les Carlyon's The Great War.[9]

Cochrane's Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, 1914–18 was published in 2018.[10]

In November 2019 Cochrane's The Making of Martin Sparrow was shortlisted for the Voss Literary Prize.[11]

References
  1. "The Australian, "Two books share PM's history prize", 20 June 2007". Archived from the original on 23 June 2007. Retrieved 20 June 2007.
  2. National Library of Australia "Papers of Peter Cochrane"
  3. National Library of Australia "Papers of Peter Cochrane"
  4. Tom Curran Quadrant November 1996, Vol. 40 Issue 11, p22, 3p
  5. Peter Stanley "A Narrow, Neo-parochial History" Australian Historical Studies April 2003 Volume 34, Issue 121-page 163
  6. ABC Landline "The Western Front 1916–1918" 27 June 2004
  7. ABC Shop Archived 16 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  8. Sydney Morning Herald Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy 15 December 2006
  9. "The Australian, "Two books share PM's history prize", 20 June 2007". Archived from the original on 23 June 2007. Retrieved 20 June 2007.
  10. Cochrane, Peter (2018), Best we forget : the war for white Australia, 1914-18, The Text Publishing Company, ISBN 978-1-925603-75-0
  11. "Voss Literary Prize 2019 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 19 November 2019. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
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