Australian sport is often talked about as the great equaliser: a sacred space where camaraderie can overcome intolerance and exclusion. Skin colour and surnames are irrelevant and athletic ability is the only measure of success – except when it isn’t.

Richard Holmes describes biography as a 'handshake across time', an 'act of human solidarity and in its own way an act of recognition and of love.' The RM books were motivated by a similar sentiment. Re-excavating the physical traces of labour history was, as we said in the introduction, an effort to 'provide a bridge between the struggles of the past and the people of the present'.

Ali Abdul v The King, Muslim stories from the dark days of White Australia Hanifa Deen UWA Publishing Ali Abdul v The King is an engaging foray into the lives of the Afghan cameleers, as seen through the archives. ‘Australian Muslims had left behind a paper trail and underneath … lay a hidden history.’ Hanifa […]