Given that I didn't even know this prize existed, it came as a bit of a shock this morning to see in "The Age" that Les Carlyon had been presented with the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History for his book, The Great War. This was not an "OMG" shock, more a "what the...?"
Actually Carlyon was the joint winner of the inaugral award, sharing the $100,000 prize with David Cochrane for his book Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy.
[Update: it appears that blindly following the mass media is not the best course of action at times. The correct name of the joint winner of this award, as pointed out by Brian Hoepper in an attached comment, was Dr Peter Cochrane. My apologies for the error. You can find further details of the award, including the other shortlisted works at the official website.]
