Mark McKenna is a native of Sydney, Australia, and is a professor of history at the University of Sydney. He is the author of several books on history and politics in Australia, including From the Edge: Australia's Lost Histories, Return to Uluru, and An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark, which won the Prime Minister's Literary Award for nonfiction and the Victorian, New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australian premiers' awards. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2013.