Frank Bongiorno

Bongiorno was born in Nhill, Victoria, and received an undergraduate honours degree from the University of Melbourne and doctorate from the Australian National University (ANU). He lectured at ANU in 1994, was a research officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 1995, and lectured at Griffith University in 1996. He then was an Australian Research Council postdoctoral in 1997, was Smuts Visiting Fellow in Commonwealth Studies at the University of Cambridge and Mellon Visiting Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin in 1997–1998, and returned to his ARC fellowship from 1998 to 2000. Bongiorno subsequently lectured at the University of New England from 2000 to 2007, King's College London from 2007 to 2011 and at ANU as an associate professor from 2011 to 2016 before being promoted to professor. Between 1996 and 2011, Bongiorno devoted himself to reviewing, editing and writing, publishing an impressive number of academic articles. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Australian Academy of the Humanities.[1][3][4] He been a frequent contributor to Inside Story, The Conversation and The Monthly.[3][5] Bongiorno was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2019 Australia Day Honours in recognition of his "significant service to tertiary education in the field of history."[6]

Bongiorno's first book, The People's Party: Victorian Labor and the Radical Tradition 1875–1914 was positively reviewed by The Australian, which described it as a "solid historical work", as was his second, A Little History of the Australian Labor Party, which was described as "fascinating" and "plainly expressed".[7][8]

Bongiorno achieved greater recognition with his third book, The Sex Lives of Australians: A History, described as "serious" but "lively and engaging" by the Daily Telegraph, "highly readable, serious history about our most intimate yet most culturally sensitive selves" by the Canberra Times, while Sydney Morning Herald wrote that it "affords Australian sexuality a much-needed centrality in terms of explaining and understanding the evolution of our society and of our culture" and The Advertiser wrote that "[Bongiorno] barges into the bedrooms of our forebears to show us a rarely seen side of their lives".[9][10][11][12] It was short-listed for the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Awards and won the ACT Book of the Year award. It was later reported that his book had been the judges' recommendation for the Prime Minister's awards, but had been personally overturned by Kevin Rudd as "unacceptable".[13][14][15]

Bongiorno's fourth book, The Eighties: The Decade That Transformed Australia was described by The Australian as "meaty and entertaining" and by The Age as a "rattling account, quick-cut and filmic, of contrasting, often overlapping, events: high and low culture, the big moments nestling in the finer long-forgotten detail". Author Tom Keneally described it as an "elegantly written and imaginative recounting of the time", historian Clare Wright as having "narrative flair and an eagle-eye for vulgar detail", while conservative columnist Gerard Henderson labelled it a "one-sided dumb history".[16][17][18][19][20] The Eighties also won the ACT Book of the Year award.[1]