Angela Woollacott’s latest book Settler Society in the Australian Colonies: Self-Government and Imperial Culture (Oxford University Press, 2015) uses life stories of men and women to explain the rapid spread of the settler colonies, and how land, labour, Indigenous dispossession and frontier violence were linked to the gendered evolution of responsible government. The book will be launched by Joy Damousi during the AHA Conference this year on Tuesday 7 July 2015.