I do not accept the view, widely held in the Federal Cabinet, that some kind of slow Asian takeover of Australia is inevitable. I do not believe that we are powerless. I do believe that we can with good will and good sense control our destiny ... As a people, we seem to move from extreme to extreme. In the past 30 years the government of Australia has moved from the extreme of wanting a white Australia to the extreme of saying that we will have an Asian Australia and that the quicker we move towards it the better.

The immediate consequence of all this was that Blainey, easily Australia’s best and most prolific living historian, was effectively silenced from speaking at his own university. He reverted to an administrative role as Dean of Arts and did not lecture again in the history department until 1987. This violation of academic freedom, clearly the worst in Australian history, provoked no protest at all from the university’s academic staff association, nor from the university council, let along his own departmental colleagues.

To some extent my generation was reared on the Three Cheers view of history. This patriotic view of our past had a long run. It saw Australian history as largely a success. While the convict era was a source of shame or unease, nearly everything that came after was believed to be pretty good. There is a rival view, which I call the Black Armband view of history. In recent years it has assailed the optimistic view of history. The black armbands were quietly worn in official circles in 1988. The multicultural folk busily preached their message that until they arrived much of Australian history was a disgrace. The past treatment of Aborigines, of Chinese, of Kanakas, of non-British migrants, of women, the very old, the very young, and the poor was singled out, sometimes legitimately, sometimes not. ... The Black Armband view of history might well represent the swing of the pendulum from a position that had been too favourable, too selfcongratulatory, to an opposite extreme that is even more unreal and decidedly jaundiced.

• The Peaks of Lyell, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Vic., 1954.
• A Centenary History of the University of Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic.; London, Cambridge University Press, 1957.
• A history of The National Bank of Australasia, Georgian House, Melbourne, Victoria 1958.
• The Story of Mount Isa Mines, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, N.S.W., 1960.
• A History of Australian Mining, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Vic., 1963.
• A History of Camberwell, Jacaranda Press in association with the Camberwell City Council, Brisbane, 1964.
• How Distance Shaped Australia's History, Sun Books, Melbourne, Vic., 1966.
• Winner of the C. Weickhardt award for Australian literature
• The Rise of Broken Hill, Macmillan of Australia, Melbourne, Vic., 1968.
• Across a Red World, Macmillan, Melbourne, Vic., 1968.
• The Steel Master: A Life of Essington Lewis, Macmillan of Australia, South Melbourne, Vic., 1971.
• The Causes of War, Macmillan, London, 1973.
• Triumph of the Nomads: A History of Ancient Australia, Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic., 1975. SBN 333 17583 2
• A Land Half Won, Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic., 1980.
• Gold and Paper 1858-1982: A History of the National Bank of Australasia, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1983.
• Our Side of the Country: The Story of Victoria, Metheun Haynes, North Ryde, N.S.W., 1984.
• All for Australia, Methuen Haynes, North Ryde, N.S.W., 1984.
• The Great Seesaw: A New View of the Western World, 1750-2000, Macmillan, South Melbourne Vic., Basingstoke, 1988.
• A Game of Our Own: The Origins of Australian Football, Information Australia, Melbourne, Vic., 1990.
• Odd Fellows: A History of IOOF Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, N.S.W., 1991.
• Blainey, Eye on Australia: Speeches and Essays of Geoffrey Blainey, Schwartz Books, Melbourne, Vic., 1991.
• Jumping Over the Wheel, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, N.S.W., 1993.
• The Golden Mile, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, 1993.
• A Shorter History of Australia, William Heinemann Australia, Port Melbourne, Vic., 1994.
• White Gold: The Story of Alcoa of Australia, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, N.S.W., 1997.
• In Our Time, Information Australia, Melbourne, Vic., 1999.
• A History of the AMP 1848-1998, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, N.S.W., 1999.
• A Short History of the World, Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Vic., 2000.
• Black Kettle & Full Moon: Daily Life in a Vanished Australia, Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Vic., 2004.
• A Short History of the Twentieth Century, Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Vic., 2006.
• A History of Victoria, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006.
• Sea of Dangers: Captain Cook and His Rivals, Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Vic., 2008.