For service to scholarship as a writer and historian addressing issues of fundamental concern to Australian society and for contributing to shaping public debate on conflicting contemporary issues.

Books

• Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatán, 1517-1570 (1987)
• Aztecs: An Interpretation (1991)
• Reading the Holocaust (1998)
• Tiger's Eye - a Memoir (2000)
• True Stories (2000)
• Dancing with Strangers: Europeans and Australians at First Contact (2004)
• Agamemnon's kiss: selected essays (2006)

Articles

• 1988 - received the 1988 Herbert Eugene Bolton Memorial Prize for Ambivalent Conquests
• 1999 - winner of the NSW History Awards, Premier's General History Prize for Reading the Holocaust
• 1999 - Reading the Holocaust was judged Best Book of the Year by The New York Times
• 2000 - New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Gleebooks Prize for Critical Writing for Reading the Holocaust
• 2002 - received the Adelaide Festival Award for Innovation for Tiger's Eye
• 2003 - received the Premier's History Award for her piece "History Here: a Vier from Outside"
• 2004 - New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction for Dancing with Strangers
• 2005 - recipient of the ASA (Australian Society of Authors) biennial medal
• 2006 - Appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia for her services as a writer and historian.