Denholm is perhaps best known for his book on Australian history,
The Colonial Australians.
John Hirst, writing in
The Monthly in 2006, placed it on his brief list of the best Australian history books of all-time. Elsewhere, Hirst describes
The Colonial Australians as an "underrated" work that "explores... the nature of colonial society by examining its physical remains," and Denholm as the historian who "best understands" the sense in which that the culture of a colony is as old as the culture of the mother country. He first came to national and international attention with his
debut novel,
The Last Blue Sea (1959, written under the pen-name "David Forrest"), about the conflict between Australia and Japan during
World War II. The novel, which emphasized the difficulty the
Anzacs experienced in fighting in the heat and rain of
New Guinea, has been called "the classic short novel of the New Guinea campaign." He also wrote
The Hollow Woodheap (1962), and a notable short story
The Barambah Mob (1963), a humorous (and often
anthologised)
cricketing tale. His book-length essay,
The Colonial Australians (1975) was a bestseller. ==Bibliography==