Invisible Histories? History Features on Australian Radio

While there is a growing literature on the ways that film and television represent the past, there is remarkably little work on the ways that radio features present history. Such an absence is particularly startling in Australia, given the longevity of history features programmes like Hindsight (1996-2014) on ABC Radio National. This article suggests that radio should have a more prominent place in the expanding field of public and media histories. It argues that radio's aurality, creativity, and relatively autonomous production modes offer rich possibilities to historians wishing to communicate their work to a broader audience. The article charts the emergence and development of history features programming on Australian radio since the late 1970s, and examines the ways that producers have deployed radio's distinctive qualities to present history (especially oral history) in engaging, creative ways.