Meet the author - Paul Ham

Critically acclaimed historian, Paul Ham, will be in discussion with  Hugh Mackay on his new book The Soul A History of the Human Mind , from the earliest expression of self-consciousness to its unshakeable belief in the great religions and political systems. Paul Ham embarks on a journey that has never been attempted: to restore the idea of the soul to the human story and to show how belief in, and beliefs arising from, the soul/mind have animated and driven the history of humankind.

Almost everyone thinks they have one, but nobody knows what it is. For thousands of years the soul was an ‘organ’, an entity, something that was part of all of us, that survived the death of the body and ventured to the underworld, or to heaven or hell. The soul could be saved, condemned, tortured, bought. And then, mysteriously, the ‘soul’ disappeared. The Enlightenment called it the ‘mind’. And today, neuroscientists demonstrate that the mind is the creation of the brain. The ‘religious soul’ lives on, in the minds of the faithful, while the secular ‘soul’ means whatever you want it to mean.

The Soul is much more than a mesmerising narrative and uniquely accessible way of explaining our story. It transforms our understanding of how history works. It persuasively demonstrates that the beliefs of the soul/mind are the engines of human history.

Paul Ham is a former Sunday Times correspondent, with a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics, Paul lives in Paris and devotes his time to writing history and (when possible) to teaching Narrative History at Sciences Po, France's preeminent tertiary school for the humanities. He is the author of 12 books, including Passchendaele which won the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction; Vietnam which won the New South Wales Premier’s Prize for Australian History ; Hiroshima Nagasaki which is being made into a 6-part TV series,; Vietnam: The Australian War which won the New South Wales Premier’s Prize for Australian History and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary; Kokoda which was shortlisted for the Walkley Award for Non-Fiction and Sandakan: The Untold Story of the Sandakan Death Marches, was published in 2012 and was also shortlisted for the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for History.

Hugh Mackay AO is a social psychologist and bestselling author. His non-fiction covers social analysis, psychology, communication and ethics. He is also the author of nine novels. Hugh has had a 60 year career in social research and was a weekly newspaper columnist for twenty-five years. He is a fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and the Royal Society of New South Wales and has been awarded honorary doctorates by five Australian universities. He is currently an honorary professor in the School of Medicine and Psychology at the Australian National University.

The vote of thanks will be given by Allan Behm, Director, International & Security Affairs Program at the Australia Institute, Canberra.

This event is in association with Harry Hartog Bookshop. Books will be available for purchase. Pre-event book signings will be available from 5.30pm and again after the event.

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A podcast will be made available after the event.

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