Iain McCalman
Iain Duncan McCalman is an Australian historian, and a research professor at the University of Sydney. He is a specialist in eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth British and European history and has a particular interest in popular culture and low life. He was born in Nyasaland, Africa and was educated in Zimbabwe and Australia.Career
McCalman was President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities from 2001–2004, and is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. In 2007 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for "service to history and to the humanities as a teacher, researcher and author, and through administrative, advocacy and advisory roles in academic and public sector organisations."Books
McCalman's 2003 book, The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro, Flamingo, explores the life of the celebrated and infamous alchemist, magician, freemason, and global identity of the eighteenth century, Alessandro Cagliostro.
Darwin's Armada, published in 2009, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, examines the sea voyages of four naturalists, Darwin himself, Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley, and Alfred Wallace, and their subsequent roles in the controversy surrounding the publication of On the Origin of Species. It won the 2011 Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Book Prize.
The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change was published by Scientific American Books and Penguin in 2014. The Reef was shortlisted for the 2015 NSW Premier's Literary Awards for non-fiction.
