Our people

Associate Professor Sarah Irving-Stonebraker

Associate Professor of History,
Western Civilisation Program

Areas of expertise: intellectual history; history of science; history of political thought; history of the british empire.

Location: ACU North Sydney Campus
HDR Supervisor accreditation status: HDR Supervisor (Full)
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7660-4296 

Dr. Sarah Irving Stonebraker is an intellectual historian of early modern Britain with a particular interest in the intersections of theology, natural philosophy, and historical writing. She was awarded her BA with First Class Honours and the University Medal from the University of Sydney, and her PhD in History from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar at King's College. She then held a Junior Research Fellowship in History at Wolfson College, Oxford University.

Her first book, Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire (London: 2008, reprinted 2016) was awarded the Royal Society of Literature and Jerwood Foundation Prize for Non-fiction. Her most recent book is Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age (Zondervan/HarperCollins, 2024), which was awarded The Gospel Coalition's 2024 Book of the Year (Culture Category) and shortlisted for Australian Christian Book of the Year.

In 2026 during her sabbatical leave she is a Visiting Scholar at St. Edmund's College, Cambridge University, and an Academic Visitor for Michaelmas term at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University.

Website

Select publications

Books

• Priests of History: Engaging with the Past in the Ahistoric Age (Zondervan/Harper Collins: 2024)
  Awarded:
• The Gospel Coalition 2025 Book of the Year - culture category
• Outreach Magazine 2025 Book of the Year - culture category.
• Shortlisted: Australian Christian Book of the Year, 2025.

• Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire (Pickering and Chatto, London: 2008; reprinted by Routledge, 2016)
  Awarded:
• The Royal Society of Literature and Jerwood Foundation Prize for Non-fiction.

Peer-reviewed journal articles

• Irving-Stonebraker, S., (2025) "Religious Liberty and the Rights of White and Aboriginal Subjects in Colonial New South Wales: The Case of John Dunmore Lang", Australian Journal of Politics and History 71 (4), 2025.

• Irving, S. (2022), 'Evangelicals and the Religious Liberty of Indigenous Australians in the Period of Nation-Building: The Arrernte People's Sacred Tywerrenge", Lucas: Journal of Evangelical History, December 2022.

• Irving, S. (2022), 'The Surprising History of Religious Liberty: The 2020 Richard Johnson Lecture', Notes and Documents in Journal of Religious History,

• Irving, S. (2021), 'Catholic Emancipation and the Idea of Religious Liberty in 1830s New South Wales, Australian Journal of Politics and History', vol. 67, no. 1.

• Irving, S. (2021), '"Sworn to No Master": the Intellectual Traditions of Liberty of Conscience in Colonial NSW to 1856', Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 67, no.2

• Irving, S. (2020), 'Comparative History and Ethnography in William Ellis's Polynesian Researches', Journal of Pacific History, vol 55, no 1, pp 1 - 17.

• Irving, S. (2020), 'Enlightenment Ethnography on the Global Periphery: The Case of the Duff Missionary Voyage to the South Pacific, 1796-1798', Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol 53, no 4, pp 629 - 646.

• Irving, S. (2019), '"Redeemed from Savagery": Sanctification and Civilization in the Accounts of Cook Islands Missionaries Aaron Buzacott and John Williams', Missiology: An International Review, vol 47, no 3, pp 226 - 239.

• Irving, S. (2019), 'From Eden to Savagery and Civilization: British Colonialism and Humanity in the Development of Natural History, ca. 1600-1840', History of the Human Sciences, vol 32, no 4, pp 63 - 79.

• Irving, S. (2018), 'From Little Gidding to Virginia: The Seventeenth Century Ferrar Family in the Atlantic Colonial Context', The Seventeenth Century, vol 33, no 2, pp 183 - 194.

• Irving, S. (2018), 'Theology, Idolatry, and Science: John Williams' Missionary Ethnography and Natural History of the South Pacific', Journal of Religious History, vol 42, no 3, pp 343 - 358.

• Irving, S. (2017), 'Nature, Knowledge, and Civilisation: Connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Worlds in the Enlightenment', Itinerario, vol 41, no 1, pp 93 - 107.

• Irving, S. (2017), 'Disease and Civilization: A Scottish Atlantic Network of Physicians in the Enlightenment', Britain and the World, vol 10, no 2, pp 197 - 216.

• Irving, S. (2017), '"The Sagacity of the Indians": William Dampier's Surprising Respect for Indigenous Knowledge', Journal of Early Modern History, vol 21, pp 543 - 564.

• Stonebraker, J. and Irving, S. (2015), 'Natural Law and Protestantism: A Historical Reassessment and Its Contemporary Significance', Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, vol 4, no 3, pp 421 - 441.

• Irving, S. (2015), 'Beyond Dominion and Stewardship: Humanity and Nature in Puritan Theology', American Theological Inquiry, vol 8, no 1, pp 49 - 59.

• Irving, S. (2014), 'Public Knowledge, Natural Philosophy, and the Eighteenth-Century Republic of Letters', Early American Literature, vol 49, no 1, pp 67 - 88.

• Irving, S. (2014), 'Governing Nature: The Problem of Northern Australia', Australian Historical Studies, vol 45, no 3, pp 388 - 406.

• Stonebraker, J. and Irving, S. (2014), 'The Just War Tradition Reconsidered: Protestantism and International Law', Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, vol 3, no 3, pp 373 - 392.

• Irving, S. (2012), 'Rethinking Instrumentality: Natural Philosophy and Christian Charity in the Early Modern Atlantic World', History of Philosophy of Science. 2 (1)

• Irving, S, (2011), With Marcelo Arunda, etc. al., 'Review of the Harvard Atlantic History Seminar 2009', Atlantic Studies 7 (3).

• Irving, S., (2009) 'America, Christian Charity, and the Origins of Modern Science', Harvard Working Paper No. 09-10. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University, 2009).

• Irving, S. (2006), 'In a Pure Soil: Anxieties of Empire in the Work of Francis Bacon' History of European Ideas, 33 (3) Spring 2006, pp.249-62.

• Irving, S. (2003) 'The Unacknowledged Republic: Civic Humanism in the 1890s' Pathways: Journal of the National Library of Australia, 13 (9) June 2003.

Book Chapters

• "Wrestling with Life's Biggest Questions: How the New Atheism Drove a Historian to Christianity", (2023), in Alister McGrath and Denis Alexander, eds., Coming to Faith Through Dawkins, (Grand Rapids: 2023).

• Irving, S, (2019) 'The Surprising Lineage of Useful Knowledge', Politics, Religion and Ideas in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Britain: Essays in Honour of Mark Goldie, (The Boydell Press: 2019)

• Irving, S., (2007) 'An Empire Restored: America and the Royal Society of London, 1660-1700', in America in the British Imagination, ed. Catherine Armstrong, (Cambridge Scholars Press: Cambridge: 2007).

• Irving, S., (2005), 'Margaret Cavendish' in Mary Spongberg, Ann Curthoys and Barbara Caine, Companion to Women's Historical Writing, (Palgrave Macmillan, London: 2005).

• Irving, S., (2005), 'Women's Utopian Literature' in Mary Spongberg, Ann Curthoys and Barbara Caine, Companion to Women's Historical Writing, (Palgrave Macmillan, London: 2005).

Awards

• Priests of History awarded The Gospel Coalition's Book of the Year Award- culture category

• Priests of History shortlisted for Australian Christian Book of the Year

• Priests of History awarded Outreach Magazine 2025 Book of the Year - culture category

• Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire awarded The Royal Society of Literature and Jerwood Foundation Award for Nonfiction.

Appointments and Affiliations

• Visiting Scholar, St. Edmund's College, Cambridge University, 2026-2027

• Academic Visitor, Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University, Michaelmas 2026

• Fellow, Tim Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, 2026-

Editorial roles

• Co-editor, Journal of Religious History, 2021-2024

Public engagement

Public Engagement and Media 2025-2026

• Sir John Graham Lecture, Maxim Institute, Auckland NZ, "Our Rootless Age: How History Grounds Us". July 17, 2026.

• Apologetics Canada- Keynote speaker - Toronto, September 2026.

• "Stewarding Our Past for the Future" - ASPIRE Conference, ICC Darling Harbour, February 2026 www.aspireconference.org.au

• Podcast on Priests of History- Re-enchanting Podcast with Justin Brierley, Apple Podcasts, (2024)

• Conversation with Tony Abbott about Australia: a History, Ramsay Event, (Oct, 2025)

• Podcast with ABC Radio- Religion and Ethics Report, about Ramsay Centre, Western Civilisation Program, and "Why History Still Matters", (Oct, 2025) https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/religionandethicsreport/why-history-education-matters-today/1046184

• Podcast interview about Priests of History - Life and Faith podcast, Centre For Public Christianity, Apple Podcasts, (Oct, 2024)

• Guest Speaker- "Why History Matters"- Christian Scholars' Educators' Group, Morling College, (Oct, 2024)

• Moore College podcast: "Why History Matters" (Feb, 2025)

• Podcast interview about Priests of History- Hank Unplugged- on Apple podcasts (Feb, 2025)

• Podcast interview- about Priests of History - Posteverything Podcast - on Apple podcasts "History and Anxiety" (Feb, 2025)

• Podcast interview about Priests of History with Glenn Scrivener "Speak Life", Apple Podcasts (April, 2025)

• Interview with Prof. Thomas Kidd- about Priests of History (March, 2025) /

• 2025 Pamela Nutt Address "Why History Matters", Presbyterian Ladies College, Sydney, (August, 2025).

• Interview at Australian Christian Book of the Year Awards, Melbourne, (August, 2025)

• Podcast with Prof. Mike Bird on Priests of History - "Does History Still Matter?" (Oct, 2025)

• Public event for the Prayerbook Society, "Authentic Anglicanism: Stewarding a Rich Inheritance", Parramatta Cathedral, (Oct, 2025).

Prior to 2025-

• Dual Citizens Podcast: History, Faith & the West

• Life & Faith Podcast: Why history still matters

• Gospelbound Podcast with Collin Hansen: Overcoming our Ahistoric Age

• Confronting Christianity Podcast with Rebecca McLaughlin: Finding God in History

• Freedom for Faith Conference: FREEDOM24 - Freedom For Faith

• Undeceptions with John Dickson: Episode 134, History Wars

• Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God with Justin Brierley (Episode 3: Thank God for Richard Dawkins and Other Episodes)

• Confronting Christianity Podcast with Rebecca McLaughlin and Kyle Worley: Where Did Human Rights Come From?

• Undeceptions with John Dickson: Ahistoric Age

• Third Space's The Edge: Wrestling with History in an Ahistoric Age.

• St Mark's Lecture, 2022: The Death of History and the Hope of Christianity.

• Political Animals Podcast with Dr Jonathan Cole: Religious Liberty: A History.

• Evangelical History Association Conference Keynote, 2022.

• Freedom for Faith Conference, 2022 on the History of Religious Freedom and its Implications for the Current Debate.

• John Anderson Podcast on the History of Religious Freedom.

• Millis Podcast on the History of Religious Freedom.

• The Gospel Coalition Australia, Everyday Conversations Podcast, The History of Human Rights: Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, Natasha Moore and Rebecca McLaughlin.

• 2020 Richard Johnson Lecture: Free To Be Me? The Forgotten Story of Religious Liberty.

• Undeceptions Podcast with John Dickson (2019): Episode 9: Dominus Illuminatio.

• Life & Faith Podcast - Centre for Public Christianity (2018): Surprised by Peter Singer.

• ABC News Article (2018): What happened to the top students of the class of 1998.

• Sydney Morning Herald (2018): They topped the HSC over the past 40 years - what are they doing now?

Schools Engagement

• Pamela Nutt Address "Why History Matters", Presbyterian Ladies College, Sydney, (August, 2025).

• Guest Speaker - Why History Matters - History Week, Tara School- (Oct, 2024)

• Shore School Chapel- 3 talks, (June 2024)

• St. Paul's Grammar School Chapel- talk (June 2024)

• Guest Speaker- Prayer Breakfast, St. Paul's Grammar School, (October, 2024)

• Guest speaker - History and Faith- Shore School Lunchtime Groups, Shore School, (May 2025)

• Guest Speaker- Redeemer Baptist School, end of year service, (Dec, 2024)

• Guest Speaker - Presbyterian Ladies College, Speech Day, Sydney Opera House, (Dec, 2024)

• Wenona School, Foundation Day Address (2019).