Elizabeth Tynan

Elizabeth Tynan is an associate professor in the Graduate Research School at James Cook University in Townsville. A former journalist, her book Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story (NewSouth, 2016) won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award (Australian History) and the CHASS Australia Book Prize in 2017.

Elizabeth Tynan reviews 'Operation Hurricane: The story of Britain’s first atomic test in Australia and the legacy that remains' by Paul Grace

October 2023, no. 458 • 24 September 2023

In April 1952, during the long voyage from Portsmouth around the Cape to the Montebello Islands off the coast of Western Australia, HMS Narvik and HMS Zeebrugge anchored at the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. After a slow, lurching trip, the palmy islands and their azure seas were a tonic. There, the crew of the British ships met for the first time with the legendary RAAF No. 2 Airfield Constru ... (read more)

'Britain’s atomic oval: The vassalage of Australian governments in the 1950s and 1960s' by Elizabeth Tynan

June 2022, no. 443 • 25 May 2022

Australia became the oval on which Britain’s nuclear game was to be played. Report of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia When I was launching my book Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga story in 2016, one of the guests put it to me that the name Maralinga should be just as recognisable in Australian society as Gallipoli. This comment suggested that the British tests h ... (read more)