Robert Aldrich is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Sydney and specialises in the history of European colonialism and its legacy. Among his publications are Vestiges of the Colonial Empire in France: Monuments, Museums and Colonial Memories (2005), Banished Potentates: Dethroning and Exiling Indigenous Monarchs under British and French Colonial Rule, 1815-1955 (2018) and The Colonial World: A History of European Empires, 1780s to the Present (with Andreas Stucki, 2023). With John Connell, he has co-authored The Ends of Empire: The Last Colonies Revisited (2020). His current research projects focus on relations between France and Asia in the long nineteenth century and on the global history of modern monarchy. Forthcoming works include co-edited volumes on Global Royal Families: Cultures of Transnational Monarchy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century and a volume on the cultural history of monarchy in the twentieth century and beyond.

John Connell is a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sydney. His main research focus centres on development issues in island states, especially migration and health, and mainly in the Pacific, and especially Melanesia. His recent books include Islands at Risk (2013), Change and Continuity in the Pacific (2018, edited with Helen Lee), COVID in the Islands, A comparative perspective on the Caribbean and the Pacific (2021, edited with Yonique Campbell), and Pacific Island Guestworkers in Australia (2023, with Kirstie Petrou). He is presently engaged in writing a book on Islands and Health and working on resolving issues related to the migration of health workers in the Pacific islands.