Tom Griffiths

Thomas Rhys Griffiths (born 1957) is an Australian historian. he is W K Hancock Professor of History in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. He is also the author of many prize-winning books and essays, notably his 2016 work The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft.

Early life and education Thomas Rhys Griffiths, was born in 1957. His parents had scientific training and also enjoyed and studied culture, and his family home had an extensive collection of books. and said that it was only in his second and third years at university that he really "fell in love with history", thanks to Dening, Donna Merwick, and Pat Grimshaw, whom he described as "literary-minded historians".

In 2008 he was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at the University of Copenhagen, followed by an appointment as adjunct professor of climate research at the university, from 2009 until 2013.

In 2020 he wrote an essay about climate change, called "Born in the ice age, humankind now faces the age of fire – and Australia is on the frontline", published as part of the anthology Fire, Flood and Plague, edited by Sophie Cunningham.

Other activities Griffiths gave a speech at the launch of the book of essays about historian Ken Inglis, titled "I Wonder": The Life and Work of Ken Inglis (edited by Peter Browne and Seumas Spark) at Readings Carlton on 10 March 2020.

Recognition and honours Writing Griffiths' books and essays have won a range of awards, including the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction, the Eureka Science Book Prize, the Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate, and the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History.

The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft won the 2017 Ernest Scott Prize for History and the 2017 ACT Book of the Year Award. 2014: Officer of the Order of Australia, on the Queen's Birthday Honours List, for "distinguished service to tertiary education, particularly social, cultural and environmental history, and through popular and academic contributions to Australian literature"

Personal life On Australia Day 2025, when asked to choose "an essential Australia Day read... crucial to understanding our culture and history", Griffiths selected Truth: the third pillar, and "Voice and Treaty", from the Uluru Statement from the Heart, to show the true history of the colonisation of Australia. He also mentioned two poems by Indigenous poets: Natalie Harkin's "Archival-Poetics" and Ambelin Kwaymullina's "Living on Stolen Land", and a recently published work, Näku Dhäruk: The Bark Petitions, by historian Clare Wright. Koori history : sources for Aboriginal studies in the State Library of Victoria (editor, 1989) Prehistory to Politics: John Mulvaney, the Humanities and the Public Intellectual (co-author, with Tim Bonyhady, 1992) Secrets of the forest : discovering history in Melbourne's Ash Range (1992) Science in high places : the cultural significance of scientific sites in the Australian Alps : final report (co-author, with Libby Robin, 1994) Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia (1996) Ecology and empire : environmental history of settler societies (co-editor, with Libby Robin, 1997) Forests of Ash: An Environmental History (2001) A change in the weather : climate and culture in Australia (co-editor, with Tim Sherratt and Libby Robin, 2004) Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica (2007) Frontier, race, nation : Henry Reynolds and Australian history (co-editor, with Bain Attwood) Australia and the Antarctic Treaty System (co-editor, with Marcus Haward, 2012) Living with fire : people, nature and history in Steels Creek (co-author, with Christine Hansen, 2012) – "examines how one community rebuilt and redefined itself following the Black Saturday fires" The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft (2016)

Essays and articles "The Transformative Craft of Environmental History: Perspectives on Australian Scholarship". In: Visions of Australia: Environments in History, edited by Christof Mauch, Ruth Morgan, and Emily O’Gorman. RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society 2017, no. 2, 115–24. doi.org/10.5282/rcc/7915 (Published by the Rachel Carson Center)

Personal life Griffiths has children.

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