Dr. Melanie Oppenheimer is a Senior Lecturer in Australian history at the University of Western Sydney (UWS). She has written extensively on many aspects of volunteering in Australia from both an historical and contemporary perspective. Her books include the commissioned history, Red Cross VAs. A History of the VAD Movement in NSW (Walcha, 1999); and an edited book with Jeni Warburton, Volunteers and Volunteering (Sydney, 2000).

Her book All Work No Pay. Australian Civilian Volunteers in War (Walcha, 2002), that examines the role of volunteers and voluntary organizations in wartime, was short listed for the NSW Premier’s History Awards in 2003. She was awarded a Canadian Studies Award in 2003 to undertake a comparative study of volunteering on the Canadian and Australian home fronts during World War II. She has been a member of the editorial working party of the journal Labour History since 1999, and is a co-editor of Third Sector Review. All Work No Pay can be ordered from www.buyaustralian.com.

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