Book Prize Winners

ANZSHM Biennial Book Prize 2025

The 2025 inaugural ANZSHM Book Prize winner was announced at the Society’s biennial conference in Sydney in July 2025.

Winner:

Linda Bryder, The Best Country to Give Birth? Midwifery, Homebirth and the Politics of Maternity, Aotearoa 1970–2022 (Auckland University Press, 2023).

Judging Panel's Citation:

This is an impressive and exhaustive account of over 50 years of the history of midwifery in New Zealand. Commencing from the 1970s, this book canvasses the emergence of homebirth and the role it has played in New Zealand's unique midwifery provision. Bryder has compiled extensive and diverse sources to trace the history of midwifery care in NZ, and maps out the key developments in midwifery accessibility, philosophy, training and accountability. The end result is a comprehensive history of midwifery and childbirth in NZ. The book includes compelling and meticulous documentation of how feminist lobbying against the (at that time) mainly male Obstetrics & Gynaecology establishment, counterculture and misinformation won a long campaign to take midwifery and midwifery education away from the 'medical' model. The roles of particular players, most notably Joan Donley and (later to be PM) Helen Clark are forensically examined. In the words of Janet McCalman AC, this 'quietly spoken book with a shocking story to tell…is a crucial step forward in the advancement of reproductive rights, women’s health and good medical practice’.

Highly Commended:

Philippa Barr, Uncertainty and Emotion in the 1900 Sydney Plague (Cambridge, 2024).

Eugenia Pacitti, The Body Collected in Australia: A History of Human Specimens and the Circulation of Biomedical Knowledge (Bloomsbury, 2024).