iBooks Top 50 Australia & Oceania History Ebooks

Chart of the top 50 most popular and best selling history Ebooks on Australia & Oceania at the Apple iBookstore.

Chart list of the top Australia history ebooks was last updated:

History Ebook Best Sellers

Top Australia History Ebooks

1

Farther Than Any Man - Martin Dugard Cover Art

Farther Than Any Man

Farther Than Any Man The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook by Martin Dugard

James Cook never laid eyes on the sea until he was in his teens. He then began an extraordinary rise from farmboy outsider to the hallowed rank of captain of the Royal Navy, leading three historic journeys that would forever link his name with fearless exploration (and inspire pop-culture heroes like Captain Hook and Captain James T. Kirk). In Farther Than Any Man, noted modern-day adventurer Martin Dugard strips away the myth of Cook and instead portrays a complex, conflicted man of tremendous ambition (at times to a fault), intellect (though Cook was routinely underestimated) and sheer hardheadedness. When Great Britain announced a major circumnavigation in 1768 -- a mission cloaked in science, but aimed at the pursuit of world power -- it came as a political surprise that James Cook was given command. Cook's surveying skills had contributed to the British victory over France in the Seven Years' War in 1763, but no commoner had ever commanded a Royal Navy vessel. Endeavor 's stunning three-year journey changed the face of modern exploration, charting the vast Pacific waters, the eastern coasts of New Zealand and Australia, and making landfall in Tahiti, Tierra del Fuego, and Rio de Janeiro. After returning home a hero, Cook yearned to get back to sea. He soon took control of the Resolution and returned to his beloved Pacific, in search of the elusive Southern Continent. It was on this trip that Cook's taste for power became an obsession, and his legendary kindness to island natives became an expectation of worship -- traits that would lead him first to greatness, then to catastrophe. Full of action, lush description, and fascinating historical characters like King George III and Master William Bligh, Dugard's gripping account of the life and gruesome demise of Capt. James Cook is a thrilling story of a discoverer hell-bent on traveling farther than any man.

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Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash Cover Art

Batavia's Graveyard

Batavia's Graveyard The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Meeting by Mike Dash

From the bestselling author of Tulipomania comes Batavia’s Graveyard , the spellbinding true story of mutiny, shipwreck, murder, and survival. It was the autumn of 1628, and the Batavia, the Dutch East India Company’s flagship, was loaded with a king’s ransom in gold, silver, and gems for her maiden voyage to Java. The Batavia was the pride of the Company’s fleet, a tangible symbol of the world’s richest and most powerful commercial monopoly. She set sail with great fanfare, but the Batavia and her gold would never reach Java, for the Company had also sent along a new employee, Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a bankrupt and disgraced man who possessed disarming charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help of a few disgruntled sailors, Jeronimus soon sparked a mutiny that seemed certain to succeed—but for one unplanned event: In the dark morning hours of June 3, the Batavia smashed through a coral reef and ran aground on a small chain of islands near Australia. The commander of the ship and the skipper evaded the mutineers by escaping in a tiny lifeboat and setting a course for Java—some 1,800 miles north—to summon help. Nearly all of the passengers survived the wreck and found themselves trapped on a bleak coral island without water, food, or shelter. Leaderless, unarmed, and unaware of Jeronimus’s treachery, they were at the mercy of the mutineers. Jeronimus took control almost immediately, preaching his own twisted version of heresy he’d learned in Holland’s secret Anabaptist societies. More than 100 people died at his command in the months that followed. Before long, an all-out war erupted between the mutineers and a small group of soldiers led by Wiebbe Hayes, the one man brave enough to challenge Jeronimus’s band of butchers. Unluckily for the mutineers, the Batavia’s commander had raised the alarm in Java, and at the height of the violence the Company’s gunboats sailed over the horizon. Jeronimus and his mutineers would meet an end almost as gruesome as that of the innocents whose blood had run on the small island they called Batavia’s Graveyard. Impeccably researched and beautifully written, Batavia’s Graveyard is the next classic of narrative nonfiction, the book that secures Mike Dash’s place as one of the finest writers of the genre.

3

The Fatal Shore - Robert Hughes Cover Art

The Fatal Shore

The Fatal Shore
The epic of Australia's founding by Robert Hughes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This incredible true history of the colonization of Australia explores how the convict transportation system created the country we know today. "One of the greatest non-fiction books I’ve ever read ... Hughes brings us an entire world." — Los Angeles Times Digging deep into the dark history of England's infamous efforts to move 160,000 men and women thousands of miles to the other side of the world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Hughes has crafted a groundbreaking, definitive account of the settling of Australia. Tracing the European presence in Australia from early explorations through the rise and fall of the penal colonies, and featuring 16 pages of illustrations and 3 maps, The Fatal Shore brings to life the history of the country we thought we knew.

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War at the End of the World - James P. Duffy Cover Art

War at the End of the World

War at the End of the World Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight For New Guinea, 1942-1945 by James P. Duffy

A harrowing account of an epic, yet nearly forgotten, battle of World War II—General Douglas MacArthur's four-year assault on the Pacific War's most hostile battleground: the mountainous, jungle-cloaked island of New Guinea. “A meaty, engrossing narrative history… This will likely stand as the definitive account of the New Guinea campaign.” —The Christian Science Monitor  One American soldier called it “a green hell on earth.” Monsoon-soaked wilderness, debilitating heat, impassable mountains, torrential rivers, and disease-infested swamps—New Guinea was a battleground far more deadly than the most fanatical of enemy troops. Japanese forces numbering some 600,000 men began landing in January 1942, determined to seize the island as a cornerstone of the Empire’s strategy to knock Australia out of the war. Allied Commander-in-Chief General Douglas MacArthur committed 340,000 Americans, as well as tens of thousands of Australian, Dutch, and New Guinea troops, to retake New Guinea at all costs. What followed was a four-year campaign that involved some of the most horrific warfare in history. At first emboldened by easy victories throughout the Pacific, the Japanese soon encountered in New Guinea a roadblock akin to the Germans’ disastrous attempt to take Moscow, a catastrophic setback to their war machine. For the Americans, victory in New Guinea was the first essential step in the long march towards the Japanese home islands and the ultimate destruction of Hirohito’s empire. Winning the war in New Guinea was of critical importance to MacArthur. His avowed “I shall return” to the Philippines could only be accomplished after taking the island. In this gripping narrative, historian James P. Duffy chronicles the most ruthless combat of the Pacific War, a fight complicated by rampant tropical disease, violent rainstorms, and unforgiving terrain that punished both Axis and Allied forces alike. Drawing on primary sources, War at the End of the World fills in a crucial gap in the history of World War II while offering readers a narrative of the first rank.

5

Last Woman Hanged - Caroline Overington Cover Art

Last Woman Hanged

Last Woman Hanged by Caroline Overington

Two husbands, four trials and one bloody execution: Winner of the 2015 Davitt Award for Best Crime Book (Non-fiction) -- the terrible true story of Louisa Collins. In January 1889, Louisa Collins, a 41-year-old mother of ten children, became the first woman hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol and the last woman hanged in New South Wales. Both of Louisa's husbands had died suddenly and the Crown, convinced that Louisa poisoned them with arsenic, put her on trial an extraordinary four times in order to get a conviction, to the horror of many in the legal community. Louisa protested her innocence until the end. Much of the evidence against Louisa was circumstantial. Some of the most important testimony was given by her only daughter, May, who was just 10-years-old when asked to take the stand. Louisa Collins was hanged at a time when women were in no sense equal under the law -- except when it came to the gallows. They could not vote or stand for parliament -- or sit on juries. Against this background, a small group of women rose up to try to save Louisa's life, arguing that a legal system comprised only of men -- male judges, all-male jury, male prosecutor, governor and Premier -- could not with any integrity hang a woman. The tenacity of these women would not save Louisa but it would ultimately carry women from their homes all the way to Parliament House. Caroline Overington is the author of eleven books of fiction and non-fiction, including the top-selling THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY psychological crime novel. She has said: 'My hope is that LAST WOMAN HANGED will be read not only as a true crime story but as a letter of profound thanks to that generation of women who fought so hard for the rights we still enjoy today.' Praise for LAST WOMAN HANGED 'The story she tells ... is a useful challenge to any tendency to simple moral indignation' -- Beverley Kingston, Sydney Morning Herald 'This is a fascinating book, a terrific read, and an excellent reminder of who tells the stories, and whose stories are forgotten' -- Frances Rand, South Coast Register '... what's ... interesting is Caroline Overington's even-handed appraisal of Collins's alleged crime(s) that led her to become the last woman hanged in New South Wales in 1889' -- Launceston Sunday Examiner

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The Tin Ticket - Deborah J. Swiss Cover Art

The Tin Ticket

The Tin Ticket
The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women by Deborah J. Swiss

The convict women who built a continent..."A moving and fascinating story." --Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost Historian Deborah J. Swiss tells the heartbreaking, horrifying, and ultimately triumphant story of the women exiled from the British Isles and forced into slavery and savagery-who created the most liberated society of their time. The Tin Ticket  takes us to the dawn of the nineteenth century and into the lives of Agnes McMillan, whose defiance and resilience carried her to a far more dramatic rebellion; Agnes's best friend Janet Houston, who rescued her from the Glasgow wynds and was also transported to Van Diemen's Land; Ludlow Tedder, forced to choose just one of her four children to accompany her to the other side of the world; Bridget Mulligan, who gave birth to a line of powerful women stretching to the present day. It also tells the tale of Elizabeth Gurney Fry, a Quaker reformer who touched all their lives. Ultimately, it is the story of women discarded by their homeland and forgotten by history-who, by sheer force of will, become the heart and soul of a new nation.

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The Battle for Hell's Island - Stephen L. Moore Cover Art

The Battle for Hell's Island

The Battle for Hell's Island How a Small Band of Carrier Dive-Bombers Helped Save Guadalcanal by Stephen L. Moore

“Stephen L. Moore offers what will soon be ranked a major military classic... A major, first-rate, authoritative contribution to the literature of WWII.”— Leatherneck   From the author of Pacific Payback comes the gripping true story of the Cactus Air Force and how this rugged crew of Dive-Bombers helped save Guadalcanal and won the war. November 1942: Japanese and American forces have been fighting for control of Guadalcanal, a small but pivotal island in Japan’s expansion through the South Pacific. Both sides have endured months of grueling battle under the worst circumstances: hellish jungles, meager rations, and tropical diseases, which have taken a severe mental and physical toll on the combatants. The Japanese call Guadalcanal Jigoku no Jima —Hell's Island. Amid a seeming stalemate, a small group of U.S. Navy dive bombers are called upon to help determine the island's fate. The men have until recently been serving in their respective squadrons aboard the USS Lexington and the USS Yorktown , fighting in the thick of the Pacific War's aerial battles. Their skills have been honed to a fine edge, even as injury and death inexorably have depleted their ranks. When their carriers are lost, many of the men end up on the USS Enterprise . Battle damage to that carrier then forces them from their home at sea to operating from Henderson Field, a small dirt-and-gravel airstrip on Guadalcanal. With some Marine and Army Air Force planes, they help form the Cactus Air Force, a motley assemblage of fliers tasked with holding the line while making dangerous flights from their jungle airfield. Pounded by daily Japanese air assaults, nightly warship bombardments, and sniper attacks from the jungle, pilots and gunners rarely last more than a few weeks before succumbing to tropical ailments, injury, exhaustion, and death. But when the Japanese launch a final offensive to take the island once and for all, these dive-bomber jocks answer the call of duty—and try to perform miracles in turning back an enemy warship armada, a host of fighter planes, and a convoy of troop transports. A remarkable story of grit, guts, and heroism, The Battle for Hell's Island reveals how command of the South Pacific, and the outcome of the Pacific War, depended on control of a single dirt airstrip—and the small group of battle-weary aviators sent to protect it with their lives.

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The Great Christmas Escape - Kellie Hailes Cover Art

The Great Christmas Escape

The Great Christmas Escape The most unputdownable Christmas romcom you’ll read this year! by Kellie Hailes

It's time to swap mistletoe and mince pies for the adventure of a lifetime! Sara's life has been in a bit of a rut. Lately, her job as a photographer has just meant taking photos of happy couples and families all day before returning to her empty flat. And while she normally loves Christmas with her family, this year a part of her just wants to run away. So when her ex-husband Fin gets in touch with a wild idea - a joint work trip to New Zealand - she knows it's crazy... but she says yes! A celebrated travel blogger, Fin has made a career out of following his bliss. As much as he loves Sara, the steady family life she's always wanted is not one he can give her. This trip together is his one chance to win her back. But can he convert her to his impulsive lifestyle? There's only one way to find out. As the two explore the stunning sights and thrills of New Zealand, they're about to discover there's so much more to each other than they ever realised... A Christmas romcom like no other, The Great Christmas Escape by Kellie Hailes is the perfect getaway read this year...

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A Commonwealth of Thieves - Thomas Keneally Cover Art

A Commonwealth of Thieves

A Commonwealth of Thieves by Thomas Keneally

In this spirited history of the remarkable first four years of the convict settlement of Australia, Thomas Keneally offers us a human view of a fascinating piece of history. Combining the authority of a renowned historian with a brilliant narrative flair, Keneally gives us an inside view of this unprecedented experiment from the perspective of the new colony’s governor, Arthur Phillips. Using personal journals and documents, Keneally re-creates the hellish overseas voyage and the challenges Phillips faced upon arrival: unruly convicts, disgruntled officers, bewildered and hostile natives, food shortages, and disease. He also offers captivating portrayals of Aborigines and of convict settlers who were determined to begin their lives anew. A Commonwealth of Thieves immerses us in the fledgling penal colony and conjures up the thrills and hardships of those first four improbable years.

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A Short History of New Zealand - Gordon McLauchlan Cover Art

A Short History of New Zealand

A Short History of New Zealand
by Gordon McLauchlan

A new edition of the bestselling short history on New Zealand, updated to include the Helen Clark years, the rise of John Key, the Christchurch earthquakes and the 2011 Rugby World Cup!  A lively and accessible history written by one of New Zealand’s most well-known commentators on matters past and present. Succinct and well referenced, this book is the most accessible introduction to New Zealand history currently in print. 

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Mutiny on the Bounty - Peter FitzSimons Cover Art

Mutiny on the Bounty

Mutiny on the Bounty A saga of sex, sedition, mayhem and mutiny, and survival against extraordinary odds by Peter FitzSimons

The mutiny on HMS Bounty , in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories - a tale of human drama, intrigue and adventure of the highest order - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty 's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave. Under the leadership of Fletcher Christian most of the crew mutinied soon after sailing from Tahiti, setting Captain William Bligh and 18 loyal crewmen adrift in a small open boat. In one of history's great feats of seamanship, Bligh navigated this tiny vessel for 3618 nautical miles to Timor. Fletcher Christian and the mutineers sailed back to Tahiti, where most remained and were later tried for mutiny. But Christian, along with eight fellow mutineers and some Tahitian men and women, sailed off into the unknown, eventually discovering the isolated Pitcairn Island - at the time not even marked on British maps - and settling there. This astonishing story is historical adventure at its very best, encompassing the mutiny, Bligh's monumental achievement in navigating to safety, and Fletcher Christian and the mutineers' own epic journey from the sensual paradise of Tahiti to the outpost of Pitcairn Island. The mutineers' descendants live on Pitcairn to this day, amid swirling stories and rumours of past sexual transgressions and present-day repercussions. Mutiny on the Bounty is a sprawling, dramatic tale of intrigue, bravery and sheer boldness, told with the accuracy of historical detail and total command of story that are Peter FitzSimons' trademarks.

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Girt - David Hunt Cover Art

Girt

Girt The Unauthorised History of Australia by David Hunt

Girt. No word could better capture the essence of Australia . . . In this hilarious history, David Hunt reveals the truth of Australia's past, from megafauna to Macquarie - the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten eccentrics and Eureka moments that have made us who we are. Girt introduces forgotten heroes like Mary McLoghlin, transported for the crime of 'felony of sock', and Trim the cat, who beat a French monkey to become the first animal to circumnavigate Australia. It recounts the misfortunes of the escaped Irish convicts who set out to walk from Sydney to China, guided only by a hand-drawn paper compass, and explains the role of the coconut in Australia's only military coup. Our nation's beginnings are steeped in the strange, the ridiculous and the frankly bizarre. Girt proudly reclaims these stories for all of us. Not to read it would be un-Australian. 'A sneaky, sometimes shocking peek under the dirty rug of Australian history.' John Birmingham 'Girt … cuts an irreverent swath through the facts, fools, fantasies and frauds that made this country what it is today, hoisting sacred cows on their own petards and otherwise sawing the legs off Lady Macquarie's chair. I was transported.' —Shane Maloney, The Age Best Books of 2013 'Girt is a ripping read… a humorous history that is accessible enough to share with the eight-year-old. Hunt's writing interests span comedy, politics and history, a happy triumvirate when your subject is Australia.' —Stephen Romei, The Australian

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Captain James Cook - Rob Mundle Cover Art

Captain James Cook

Captain James Cook by Rob Mundle

A biography that puts you on the quarterdeck with history's greatest sailor Captain James Cook is one of the greatest maritime explorers in world history. Over three remarkable voyages of discovery into the Pacific in the latter part of the eighteenth century, Cook unravelled the oldest mystery surrounding the existence of Terra Australis Incognita - the Great South Land. He became the first explorer to circumnavigate New Zealand and establish that it was two main islands; discover the Hawaiian Islands for the British Empire; and left an enduring legacy. Rob Mundle introduces us to an unlikely sailor in a teenage Cook, who, through the combination of hard-won skills as a seafarer, the talents of a self-taught navigator and surveyor, and an exceptional ability to lead and care for his men, climbed the ranks of the Royal Navy to acheive legendary status among all who sailed and mapped the world.

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In Great Spirits - Archie Barwick Cover Art

In Great Spirits

In Great Spirits Archie Barwick's WWI Diary - from Gallipoli to the Western Front and Home Again by Archie Barwick

An Aussie soldier's diary of the first World War - by turns compelling, illuminating, funny, touching and sad - and absolutely unputdownable. Archie Albert Barwick was an enthusiastic young 24 year old when he joined the First AIF in late August 1914 - his service number was 914. When he learnt that he'd been accepted into the army, he was so happy he turned two somersaults for pure joy. this is his diary, that he kept throughout the war - from Cairo to Gallipoli, from Marseilles through to the terrible winter of 1916 in the Somme, from Ypres to Pozieres. He was wounded three times and sent back to the fighting, before finally travelling back home in December 1918.this diary is simply a treasure - vivid, alive, compelling. His description of the war is by turns down-to-earth, horrifying, illuminating, funny, touching and terribly sad. Yet his voice and personality shine through. In his diary, Archie describes someone as being 'merry & bright & never downhearted' and this could be a description of Archie himself. Readable, spirited and humming with life, In Great Spirits is a unique and incredibly moving tribute to the Australian character and the ANZAC spirit.

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Voyagers - Nicholas Thomas Cover Art

Voyagers

Voyagers The Settlement of the Pacific by Nicholas Thomas

An award-winning scholar explores the sixty-thousand-year history of the Pacific islands in this dazzling, deeply researched account. One of the Best Books of 2021 —  Wall Street Journal The islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia stretch across a huge expanse of ocean and encompass a multitude of different peoples. Starting with Captain James Cook, the earliest European explorers to visit the Pacific were astounded and perplexed to find populations thriving thousands of miles from continents. Who were these people? From where did they come? And how were they able to reach islands dispersed over such vast tracts of ocean?  In Voyagers , the distinguished anthropologist Nicholas Thomas charts the course of the seaborne migrations that populated the islands between Asia and the Americas from late prehistory onward. Drawing on the latest research, including insights gained from genetics, linguistics, and archaeology, Thomas provides a dazzling account of these long-distance migrations, the seagoing technologies that enabled them, and the societies they left in their wake.

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Cooper's Creek - Alan Moorehead Cover Art

Cooper's Creek

Cooper's Creek Tragedy and Adventure in the Australian Outback by Alan Moorehead

In 1860, an expedition set out from Melbourne, Australia, into the interior of the country, with the mission to find a route to the northern coast. Headed by Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills, the party of adventurers, scientists, and camels set out into the outback hoping to find enough water and to keep adequate food stores for their trek into the bush. Almost one year later, Burke, Wills, and two others from their party, Gray and King, reached the northern shore but on their journey back, they were stranded at Cooper’s Creek where all but King perished. Cooper’s Creek is a gripping, intense historical narrative about the harshness of the Australian outback and the people who were brave enough to go into the very depths of that uncharted country.

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The Mysteries of Free Masonry - William Morgan Cover Art

The Mysteries of Free Masonry

The Mysteries of Free Masonry Exposing Masonic Secrets & Degrees of the Order by William Morgan

The Mysteries of Free Masonry is a book about this infamous secret society, written by the New York businessman William Morgan, who was a mason himself, but turned against them. Morgan claimed to have been made a Master Mason while he was living in Canada, and he appears to have briefly attended a lodge in Rochester. After he was denied participation by members in Batavia, New York, he decided to publically expose secrets of Freemasonry. The book reveals and explains all the degrees conferred in the Royal Arch Chapter and Grand Encampment of Knights Templars—Knights of the Red Cross—of the Christian Mark—and of the Holy Sepulchre.

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Kokoda - Paul Ham Cover Art

Kokoda

Kokoda by Paul Ham

For the first time ever, the compelling story of the infamous Kokoda Track campaign has been told from both sides of the conflict. In a unique and balanced portrayal, renowned journalist Paul Ham recounts both the Australian and Japanese perspectives of the events on the hellish Papuan jungle trail where thousands fought and died during World War II. Based on extensive research in Australia and Japan, and including previously unpublished documents, Kokoda intimately relates the stories of ordinary soldiers in 'the world's worst killing field', and examines the role of commanders in sending ill-equipped, unqualified Australian troops into battles that resulted in near 100 per cent casualty rates. It was a war without mercy, fought back and forth along 90 miles (145 km) of river crossings, steep inclines and precipitous descents, with both sides wracked by hunger and disease, and terrified of falling into enemy hands. Defeat was unthinkable: the Australian soldier was fighting for his homeland against an unyielding aggressor; the Japanese ordered to fight to the death in a bid to conquer 'Greater East Asia'. Paul Ham captures the spirits of those soldiers and commanders who clashed in this war of exceptional savagery, and tells of the brave souls on both sides of the campaign whose courage and sacrifices must never be forgotten.

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The Mutiny on the Bounty - Captain William Bligh Cover Art

The Mutiny on the Bounty

The Mutiny on the Bounty Texts by Captain Bligh, Sir John Farrow, and Rosalind Amelia Young by Captain William Bligh

The Mutiny of the Bounty is one of the most famous stories in maritime history that has been told in countless books and motion pictures. It describes the arduous voyage of the H.M.S. Bounty, under the harsh rule of the strict Captain Bligh, and the eventual mutiny of much of the crew led by the Mutineer Fletcher Christian. Less well-known is the incredible survival story of how Captain Bligh and fourteen loyal men were cast adrift in an tiny open boat, and how they survived an astonishing journey of 4,000 miles of the Southern Ocean, driven to extreme hardship. On his return to land, Captain Bligh sought justice against the mutineers, and several of them were captured, except for those who had sought to evade detection for ever by starting a new and tiny colony on the Island of Pitcairn - a speck of land in the vast Pacific Ocean. Here the mutineers, along with their descendants lived for many decades until the World finally caught up with them again, one of the strangest and most unique stories in World History. This book brings together 4 separated narratives, the first two being the personal accounts of Captain Bligh himself, detailing the original voyage of the Bounty, the Mutiny and the subsequent voyage across the South Sea. The third Text was written by Sir John Barrow, who, as Secretary t the Admiralty in Britain had a particular insight into the whole affair. The final text is a history of the vents on Pitcairn Island, by Rosalind Amelia Young, one of the native daughters of the Island, and a descendant of the original Mutineers of the Bounty.

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James Cook - Peter FitzSimons Cover Art

James Cook

James Cook The story behind the man who mapped the world by Peter FitzSimons

The name Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated. But who was the real James Cook? This Yorkshire farm boy would go on to become the foremost mariner, scientist, navigator and cartographer of his era, and to personally map a third of the globe. His great voyages of discovery were incredible feats of seamanship and navigation. Leading a crew of men into uncharted territories, Cook would face the best and worst of humanity as he took himself and his crew to the edge of the known world - and beyond. With his masterful storytelling talent, Peter FitzSimons brings the real James Cook to life. Focusing on his most iconic expedition, the voyage of the Endeavour , where Cook first set foot on Australian and New Zealand soil, FitzSimons contrasts Cook against another figure who looms large in Australasian history: Joseph Banks, the aristocratic botanist. As they left England, Banks, a rich, famous playboy, was everything that Cook was not. The voyage tested Cook's character and would help define his legacy. Now, 240 years after James Cook's death, FitzSimons reveals what kind of man James was at heart. His strengths, his weaknesses, his passions and pursuits, failures and successes. James Cook reveals the man behind the myth.

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Scratch One Flattop - Robert C Stern Cover Art

Scratch One Flattop

Scratch One Flattop The First Carrier Air Campaign and the Battle of the Coral Sea by Robert C Stern

A study of the historic World War II naval battle, the first involving aircraft carriers and first in which neither warship was in sight of the other. By the beginning of May 1942, five months after the Pearl Harbor attack, the US Navy was ready to challenge the Japanese moves in the South Pacific. When the Japanese sent troops to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, the Americans sent the carriers Lexington and Yorktown to counter the move, setting the stage for the Battle of the Coral Sea . . . In this book, historian Robert C. Stern analyzes the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first major fleet engagement where the warships were never in sight of each other. Unlike the Battle of Midway, the Battle of the Coral Sea has received remarkably little study. Stern covers not only the action of the ships and their air groups but also describes the impact of this pivotal engagement. His analysis looks at the short-term impact as well as the long-term implications, including the installation of inert gas fuel-system purging on all American aircraft carriers and the push to integrate sensor systems with fighter direction to better protect against enemy aircraft. The essential text on the first carrier air campaign, Scratch One Flattop is a landmark study on an overlooked battle in the first months of the United States’ engagement in World War II. “His research into sources on both sides is exhaustive and he has used Japanese translators where necessary and appropriate to best illuminate materials. His effort has taken years of meticulous scholarship and it shows. . . . Highly recommended.” —Lisle A. Rose, The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord

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Hell's Battlefield - Phillip Bradley Cover Art

Hell's Battlefield

Hell's Battlefield The Australians In New Guinea In World War II by Phillip Bradley

The first single volume history to cover all the battles fought by the Australians against the Japanese in Papua New Guinea.  Hell's Battlefield is the first book that tells the whole story of the Australians against the Japanese in New Guinea during World War II, from invasion in 1942 to the brutal end game in 1945. Besides giving new perspectives on the Kokoda campaign, the book covers the battles that preceded and those that followed, most of which have previously received scant attention. Phillip Bradley has conducted extensive research on the official and private records from Australia, the US and Japan, and as well as these perspectives, shows those of the Papua New Guineans. He has also conducted wide-ranging interviews with veterans, and made extensive use of Japanese prisoner interrogation records. The text is further illuminated by the author's deep familiarity with the New Guinea battlefields, and is well illustrated with photographs, many previously unpublished, and maps. Hundreds of thousands of Australians, Phillip's father among them, fought in New Guinea. Many never returned. Hell's Battlefield tells their story, and those of the battles that raged on land, in the air and at sea.

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Fairness and Freedom - David Hackett Fischer Cover Art

Fairness and Freedom

Fairness and Freedom A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand and the United States by David Hackett Fischer

Fairness and Freedom compares the history of two open societies--New Zealand and the United States--with much in common. Both have democratic polities, mixed-enterprise economies, individuated societies, pluralist cultures, and a deep concern for human rights and the rule of law. But all of these elements take different forms, because constellations of value are far apart. The dream of living free is America's Polaris; fairness and natural justice are New Zealand's Southern Cross. Fischer asks why these similar countries went different ways. Both were founded by English-speaking colonists, but at different times and with disparate purposes. They lived in the first and second British Empires, which operated in very different ways. Indians and Maori were important agents of change, but to different ends. On the American frontier and in New Zealand's Bush, material possibilities and moral choices were not the same. Fischer takes the same comparative approach to parallel processes of nation-building and immigration, women's rights and racial wrongs, reform causes and conservative responses, war-fighting and peace-making, and global engagement in our own time--with similar results. On another level, this book expands Fischer's past work on liberty and freedom. It is the first book to be published on the history of fairness. And it also poses new questions in the old tradition of history and moral philosophy. Is it possible to be both fair and free? In a vast array of evidence, Fischer finds that the strengths of these great values are needed to correct their weaknesses. As many societies seek to become more open--never twice in the same way, an understanding of our differences is the only path to peace.

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The First Fleet - Rob Mundle Cover Art

The First Fleet

The First Fleet by Rob Mundle

A biography of unprecedented expedition under sail The role of the sailor through history should never be underestimated. Over centuries battles were won and new lands discovered and settled by their skills and nerve. Rob Mundle is back on the ocean to tell one of the great stories of an expedition under sail: the extraordinary eight-month, 17-000-nautical mile voyage of the First Fleet. With customary sweep and swell, Mundle puts you alongside 48-year-old Captain Arthur Phillip on the quarterdeck of the Royal Navy escort, HMS Sirius, as he commands his small armada of 11 ships, carrying over 1420 men, women and children, to the other side of the world.

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The Home of the Blizzard - Douglas Mawson Cover Art

The Home of the Blizzard

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 by Douglas Mawson

The Home of the Blizzard is the lesser known tale of Antarctic Exploration - from the same era of heroic exploration as Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton.  It is the first hand account of Sir Douglas Mawson's "Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1914", which aimed to chart the coastline of the Antarctic Continent. The expedition was beset with difficulty and tragedy, and at the core of the narrative is the account of Mawson's three-man sledge journey in 1912-13, during which his two companions B.E.S Ninnis and Xavier Mertz both perished, leaving Mawson the sole survivor. Despite the terrible tragedy, the expedition managed to deliver some genuine accomplishments in the fields of geology and biology on the frozen continent, and Mawson was knighted on his return for his incredible mental strength and fortitude in the face of appalling adversity. This Bybliotech ebook contains a collection of original photographs and maps from the expeditions which are displayed throughout the text.

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Crossfire - Peter Haran & Robert Kearney Cover Art

Crossfire

Crossfire An Australian Reconnaissance Unit In Vietnam by Peter Haran & Robert Kearney

In October 1966, 28 soldiers were chosen to form Australia's first specialist Reconnaissance Platoon in the Vietnam War. One of this platoon's section commanders was a 20-year old regular soldier called Bob Kearney, who led a series of deadly patrols, operating in isolation and extreme danger ahead of the main Australian forces. This is the story of Bob and his unit's tale of courage, terror, madness and survival, told by fellow Vietnam veteran Peter Haran, best-selling author of Trackers and Robert Kearney.

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Australians - Thomas Keneally Cover Art

Australians

Australians Origins To Eureka by Thomas Keneally

The first volume of a unique history of Australia where people are always centre stage, from bestselling author Thomas Keneally who brings to life the vast range of characters who have formed our national story. In this volume of a unique history of Australia where people are always centre stage, bestselling author Thomas Keneally brings to life the vast range of characters who have formed our national story. Convicts and Aborigines, settlers and soldiers, patriots and reformers, bushrangers and gold seekers, it is from their lives and their stories that he has woven a vibrant history to do full justice to the rich and colourful nature of our unique national character. The story begins by looking at European occupation through Aboriginal eyes as we move between the city slums and rural hovels of eighteenth century Britain and the shores of Port Jackson. We spend time on the low-roofed convict decks of transports, and we see the bewilderment of the Eora people as they see the first ships of turaga, or 'ghost people'. We follow the daily round of Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo, and the tribulations of warrior Windradyne. Convicts like Solomon Wiseman and John Wilson find their feet and even fortune, while Henry Parkes' arrival as a penniless immigrant gives few clues to the national statesman he was to become. We follow the treks of the Chinese diggers - the Celestials - to the goldfields, and revolutionaries like Italian Raffaello Carboni and black American John Joseph bring us the drama of the Eureka uprising. Were the first European mothers whores or matriarchs? Was the first generation of Australian children the luckiest or unluckiest on the planet? How did this often cruel and brutal penal experiment lead to a coherent civil society? To answer these and many more questions Thomas Keneally has brought to life the high and the low, the convict and the free of early Australian society. This is truly a new history of Australia, by an author of outstanding literary skill and experience, and whose own humanity permeates every page.

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A Short History of Australia - Ernest Scott Cover Art

A Short History of Australia

A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott

There was a period when maps of the world were published whereon the part occupied by the continent of Australia was a blank space. On other maps, dating from about the same time, land masses were represented which we now know to have been imaginary. Let us look at four examples. The first is a map drawn by Robert Thorne in the reign of Henry VIII (1527). He said in an apology for his work that ‘it may seem rude,’ and so it was; but it serves the purpose of proving that Thorne and the Spanish geographers from whom he derived his information knew nothing about a continent near Australia. Sixty years later a map published at Paris showed a portion of New Guinea, but still the place occupied by Australia was left as open ocean. A Dutch map published at Amsterdam in 1594 did indeed indicate a large stretch of southern land, and called it Terra Australis, but it bore no resemblance to the real continent either in shape or situation. In 1595 a map by Hondius, a Dutchman living in London, was published to illustrate the voyage of Francis Drake round the globe. It represented New Guinea as an island, approximately in its right position, though the shape of it was defective. To the south of it, and divided from it by a strait, appeared a large mass of land named Terra Australis. The outline is not much like that of the continent of Australia, but it was apparently copied from an earlier Dutch map by Ortelius (1587), upon which were printed words in Latin stating that whether New Guinea was an island or part of an austral continent was uncertain. Many other early maps could be instanced, but these four will suffice to exhibit the defective state of knowledge concerning this region at the end of the sixteenth century. By that time the belief had grown that there probably was a large area of land in the southern hemisphere. Much earlier, in the Middle Ages, some had seriously questioned whether there could possibly be antipodes. Learned and ingenious men argued about it, for and against, at considerable length; for it was much easier to write large folios in Latin about the form of the earth than to go forth in ships and find out. One famous cosmographer, Cosmas Indicopleustes, scoffed at the very idea of there being countries inhabited by people who walked about with their feet opposite to those of Europeans and their bodies (as he imagined) hanging downwards, like flies on a ceiling. How, he asked, could rain ‘be said to “fall” or “descend,” as in the Psalms and Gospels, in those regions where it could only be said to come up?’ Consequently he declared ideas about antipodes to be nothing better than ‘old wives’ fables.’ Another class of speculators maintained that there necessarily must be antipodes, because the globe had to be equally poised on both sides of its own centre. As there was a large mass of land, consisting of Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and North America, on the one side of the Equator, they argued that there had to be a balance of earth at the opposite extremity.

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True Girt - David Hunt Cover Art

True Girt

True Girt The Unauthorised History of Australia Volume 2 by David Hunt

In this side-splitting sequel to his best-selling history, David Hunt takes us to the Australian frontier. This was the Wild South, home to hardy pioneers, gun-slinging bushrangers, directionally challenged explorers, nervous indigenous people, Caroline Chisholm and sheep. Lots of sheep. First there was Girt. Now comes . . . True Girt True Girt introduces Thomas Davey, the hard-drinking Tasmanian governor who invented the Blow My Skull cocktail, and Captain Moonlite, Australia's most famous LGBTI bushranger. Meet William Nicholson, the Melbourne hipster who gave Australia the steam-powered coffee roaster and the world the secret ballot. And say hello to Harry, the first camel used in Australian exploration, who shot dead his owner, the explorer John Horrocks. Learn how Truganini's death inspired the Martian invasion of Earth. Discover the role of Hall and Oates in the Myall Creek Massacre. And be reminded why you should never ever smoke with the Wild Colonial Boy and Mad Dan Morgan. If Manning Clark and Bill Bryson were left on a desert island with only one pen, they would write True Girt. 'An engaging, witty and utterly irreverent take on Australian history.' —Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project 'Astounding, gruesome and frequently hilarious, True Girt is riveting from beginning to end.' —Nick Earls

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The History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1890 - Alexander Sutherland Cover Art

The History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1890

The History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1890 by Alexander Sutherland

According to Wikipedia: "Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the mainland of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous other islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.N4 Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. For around 40,000 years before European settlement commenced in the late 18th century, the Australian mainland and Tasmania were inhabited by around 250 individual nations of indigenous Australians.[8] After sporadic visits by fishermen from the immediate north, and European discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606,[9] the eastern half of Australia was claimed by the British in 1770 and initially settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales, founded on 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in the following years; the continent was explored, and during the 19th century another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were established. On 1 January 1901, the six colonies became a federation, and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed. Since Federation, Australia has maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and remains a Commonwealth realm. The population is just over 21.3 million, with approximately 60% concentrated in and around the mainland state capitals of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide. The nation's capital city is Canberra, located in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Technologically advanced and industrialised, Australia is a prosperous nation and has good results in many international comparisons of national performance such as health care, life expectancy, quality-of-life, human development, public education, economic freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights."

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Gallipoli Sniper - John Hamilton Cover Art

Gallipoli Sniper

Gallipoli Sniper by John Hamilton

A powerful and very different account of war and its effect on those who fight The Anzac battlefield on Gallipoli was made for snipers. Scrub, cliffs, spurs and hills meant that both Anzac and Turkish positions often overlooked one another. The unwary or unlucky were prey to snipers on both sides, and the sudden crack of a gunshot and instant death were an ever-present menace. The most successful and most feared sniper of the Gallipoli campaign was Billy Sing, a Light Horseman from Queensland who was almost unique among the Australian troops in having a Chinese-born father. A combination of patience, stealth and an incredible eye made him utterly deadly, with the incredible - and horrifying - figure of over 200 credited "kills". John Hamilton, author of the bestselling Goodbye Cobber, God Bless You , has written an extraordinary account of a hidden side of the campaign - the snipers' war. Following Sing from his recruitment onwards, Hamilton takes us on a journey into the squalor, dust, blood and heroism of Gallipoli, seen from the unique viewpoint of the sniper.

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The Land Before Avocado - Richard Glover Cover Art

The Land Before Avocado

The Land Before Avocado by Richard Glover

The new book from the bestselling author of Flesh Wounds. A funny and frank look at the way Australia used to be - and just how far we have come. 'It was simpler time'. We had more fun back then'. 'Everyone could afford a house'. There's plenty of nostalgia right now for the Australia of the past, but what was it really like? In The Land Before Avocado, Richard Glover takes a journey to an almost unrecognisable Australia. It's a vivid portrait of a quite peculiar land: a place that is scary and weird, dangerous and incomprehensible, and, now and then, surprisingly appealing. It's the Australia of his childhood. The Australia of the late '60s and early '70s. Let's break the news now: they didn't have avocado. It's a place of funny clothing and food that was appalling, but amusingly so. It is also the land of staggeringly awful attitudes - often enshrined in law - towards anybody who didn't fit in. The Land Before Avocado will make you laugh and cry, feel angry and inspired. And leave you wondering how bizarre things were, not so long ago. Most of all, it will make you realise how far we've come - and how much further we can go. PRAISE Richard Glover's just-published The Land Before Avocado is a wonderful and witty journey back in time to life in the early 1970s. For a start, he deftly reclaims the book's title fruit from those who have positioned it as a proxy for all that is wrong with today's supposedly feckless and spendthrift young adults. Rather than maligning the avocado (and young people), he cleverly appropriates the fruit as an exemplar of how far we have come since the 1970s' Richard Wakelin, Australian Financial Review 'This is vintage Glover - warm, wise and very, very funny. Brimming with excruciating insights into life in the late sixties and early seventies, The Land Before Avocado explains why this was the cultural revolution we had to have' Hugh Mackay 'Hilarious and horrifying, this is the ultimate intergenerational conversation starter' Annabel Crabb PRAISE FOR FLESH WOUNDS 'A funny, moving, very entertaining memoir' Bill Bryson, New York Times 'The best Australian memoir I've read is Richard Glover's Flesh Wounds' Greg Sheridan, The Australian

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Breaker Morant - Peter FitzSimons Cover Art

Breaker Morant

Breaker Morant by Peter FitzSimons

The epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet - murderer or hero? Most Australians have heard of the Boer War and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. But Morant was a complicated man. Born in England and immigrating to Queensland in 1883, he established a reputation as a rider, polo player and poet who submitted ballads to The Bulletin and counted Banjo Paterson as a friend. Travelling on his wits and the goodwill of others, Morant was quick to act when appeals were made for horsemen to serve in the war in South Africa. He joined up, first with the South Australian Mounted Rifles and then with a South African irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers. The adventure would not go as Breaker planned. In October 1901 Lieutenant Harry Morant and two other Australians, Lieutenants Peter Handcock and George Witton, were arrested for the murder of Boer prisoners. Morant and Handcock were court-martialled and executed in February 1902 as the Boer War was in its closing stages, but the debate over their convictions continues to this day. With his masterful command of story, Peter FitzSimons takes us to the harsh landscape of southern Africa and into the bloody action of war against an unpredictable force using modern commando tactics. The truths FitzSimons uncovers about 'the Breaker' and the part he played in the Boer War are astonishing - and finally we will know if the Breaker was a hero, a cad, a scapegoat or a criminal.

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Contemporary Japan - Jeff Kingston Cover Art

Contemporary Japan

Contemporary Japan History, Politics, and Social Change since the 1980s by Jeff Kingston

The second edition of this comprehensive study of recent Japanese history now includes the author's expert assessment of the effects of the earthquake and tsunami, including the political and environmental consequences of the Fukushima reactor meltdown. Fully updated to include a detailed assessment of the aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami Shows how the nuclear crisis at Fukushima was an accident waiting to happen Includes detailed discussion of Japan's energy policy, now in flux after the mishandling of the Fukushima crisis Analyzes Japan's 'Lost Decades', why jobs and families are less stable, environmental policies, immigration, the aging society, the US alliance, the imperial family, and the 'yakuza' criminal gangs Authoritative coverage of Japanese history over the last two decades, one of the country's most tumultuous periods

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Vietnam - Paul Ham Cover Art

Vietnam

Vietnam The Australian War by Paul Ham

For the first time this is the full story of Australia's involvement in our longest military campaign 'Surely God weeps,' an Australian soldier wrote in despair of the conflict in Vietnam. But no God intervened to shorten the years of carnage and devastation in this most controversial of wars. the ten-year struggle in the rice paddies and jungles of South Vietnam unleashed the most devastating firepower on the Vietnamese nation, visiting terrible harm on both civilians and soldiers.Yet the Australian experience was very different from that of the Americans. Guided by their commanders' knowledge of jungle combat, Australian troops operated with stealth, deception and restraint to pursue a 'better war'. In reconstructing for the first time the full history of our longest military campaign, Paul Ham draws on hundreds of accounts by soldiers, politicians, aid workers, entertainers and the Vietnamese people. From the commitment to engage, through the fight over conscription and the rise of the anti-war movement, to the tactics and horror of the battlefield, Ham exhumes the truth about this politicians' war - which sealed the fate of 50,000 Australian servicemen and women. More than 500 Australian soldiers were killed and thousands wounded. those who made it home returned to a hostile and ignorant country and a reception that scarred them forever. this is their story.

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Captain Bullen's War - Paul Ham & John Bullen Cover Art

Captain Bullen's War

Captain Bullen's War The Vietnam War Diary of Captain John Bullen by Paul Ham & John Bullen

The hilarity of M*A*S*H meets the satire of Catch 22 in one distinctive Australian voice. 'We need to send our survey party there!' (pointing to map) 'But Colonel, we cain't do it. that's the most insecure area in the whole country!' 'Insecure? Goddamn it! the greatest concentration of American troops in the country is there!' 'Yes Colonel, and have you considered why the greatest concentration of American troops is right there?' CAPtAIN BULLEN'S WAR combines the irreverent humour of M*A*S*H with the sharp satire of Catch 22 in portraying one man's extraordinary experiences of the war in Vietnam in 1968, the bloodiest year of the conflict. the difference is that neither Captain John Bullen nor his experiences are fictional. Nor was he a reluctant soldier. A graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, and a career soldier in the Australian Army, Bullen commanded the vital map-producing section of the Australian task Force at Nui Dat. Alert to the possibility of humour in the bleakest circumstances, he decided to chronicle the events around him. What emerges is one of the most darkly funny and lacerating accounts of the Vietnam War ever written. Strewn with wonderful character sketches and hilarious anecdotes, CAPtAIN BULLEN'S WAR is more than just one man's insightful account of the absurdity of war. He perceives with unsparing clarity the nature and enormity of the conflict around him. A thoughtful, decent man, Bullen's is a voice of sanity in a world gone mad.

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Australians - Thomas Keneally Cover Art

Australians

Australians A Short History by Thomas Keneally

A masterly history of Australia and its people by an author of outstanding literary skill whose own humanity permeates every page.  Australians , Thomas Keneally's widely acclaimed three volume history of the Australian people from origins to Vietnam, gave us a robust, vibrant and page-turning narrative that brought to life the vast range of characters who have formed our national story. Australians: a short history brings these three volumes together and reintroduces us to the rich assortment of contradictory, inspiring and surprising characters who made a young and cocky Australia. It is the story of the original Australians and European occupation of their land through the convict era to pastoralists, bushrangers and gold seekers, working men, pioneering women, the rifts wrought by World War I, the rise of hard-nosed radicals from the Left and the Right, the social upheavals of the Great Crash and World War II, the Menzies era, the nation changing period of post-war migration and Australia's engagement with Asia. This is a truly masterly history of Australia and its people by an author of outstanding literary skill whose own humanity permeates every page. Praise for Australians , the three volume history '... giving us what Australian history has desperately needed for years.' Canberra Times 'Keneally evokes these distant lives with concrete detail and vivid sympathy ... his people inhabit the same world we do - we meet them without the hesitation of reaching across voids of space and time.' Sydney Morning Herald 'When it comes to writing page-turning narrative no one does it better than Thomas Keneally ... no doubt about it, Australians is a corker.' Weekend Australian 'Reading this book is like listening to a witty raconteur.' Adelaide Advertiser 'This new perspective on Australia's founding fathers is truly fascinating.' Courier Mail '... what this book does is populate the blankness of our collective memory with lots of characters from all parts of the continent and all walks of life.' Saturday Age

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The Ship That Never Was - Adam Courtenay Cover Art

The Ship That Never Was

The Ship That Never Was The Greatest Escape Story Of Australian Colonial History by Adam Courtenay

The greatest escape story of Australian colonial history by the son of Australia’s best-loved storyteller In 1823, cockney sailor and chancer James Porter was convicted of stealing a stack of beaver furs and transported halfway around the world to Van Diemen's Land. After several escape attempts from the notorious penal colony, Porter, who told authorities he was a 'beer-machine maker', was sent to Macquarie Harbour, known in Van Diemen's Land as hell on earth. Many had tried to escape Macquarie Harbour; few had succeeded. But when Governor George Arthur announced that the place would be closed and its prisoners moved to the new penal station of Port Arthur, Porter, along with a motley crew of other prisoners, pulled off an audacious escape. Wresting control of the ship they'd been building to transport them to their fresh hell, the escapees instead sailed all the way to Chile. What happened next is stranger than fiction, a fitting outcome for this true-life picaresque tale. The Ship That Never Was is the entertaining and rollicking story of what is surely the greatest escape in Australian colonial history. James Porter, whose memoirs were the inspiration for Marcus Clarke's For the Term of his Natural Life, is an original Australian larrikin whose ingenuity, gift of the gab and refusal to buckle under authority make him an irresistible anti-hero who deserves a place in our history.

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The Secret Cold War - John Blaxland Cover Art

The Secret Cold War

The Secret Cold War The Official History Of Asio, 1975-1989 by John Blaxland

The Cold War between the West and the Soviet Bloc didn't end with detente in 1975: it just went underground. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, tensions between the superpowers continued to play out across the world. Until now, few would have known of the surprising extent of clandestine operations in Australia by foreign intelligence operatives and the violence-prone activities of local extremist groups from the Middle East, Armenia and Croatia in the 1970s and 1980s. Meanwhile, prompted by probing royal commissions and reviews, ASIO was being systematically transformed into a modern intelligence organisation. The Secret Cold War uncovers behind the scenes stories of the Hilton bombing in Sydney, assassinations of diplomats, the Combe-Ivanov affair, and the new threat from China. It reveals that KGB officers were able to recruit and run agents in Australia for many years, and it follows ASIO's own investigations into persistent allegations of penetration by Soviet moles. The Secret Cold War is the third and final volume of The Official History of ASIO. ' The Secret Cold War concludes the seminal trilogy of the Official History of ASIO, and provides an unabashed perspective into ASIO's inner workings throughout the 1970s and 1980s.' - His Excellency General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Retd), Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia

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The Protest Years - John Blaxland Cover Art

The Protest Years

The Protest Years The Official History Of Asio, 1963-1975 by John Blaxland

By 1963, Robert Menzies had been prime minister for thirteen years, Australia had its first troops in Vietnam, and change was in the air. There would soon be street protests over women's rights, Aboriginal land rights and the Vietnam War and unprecedented student activism. With the Cold War lingering, ASIO was concerned that protests were being orchestrated to foment revolution. The Protest Years tells the inside story of Australia's domestic intelligence organisation from the last of the Menzies years to the dismissal of the Whitlam government. With unrestricted access to ASIO's internal filesand extensive interviews with insiders, for the first time the circumstances surrounding the alleged role of ASIO in the demise of the Whitlam government are revealed and the question of the CIA's involvement in Australia is explored. The extraordinary background to the raid on ASIO headquarters in Melbourne by Attorney-General Lionel Murphy and Australia's efforts at countering Soviet bloc espionage, as well as the sensitive intelligence activities in South Vietnam, are exposed. This is a ground-breaking political and social history of some of Australia's most turbulent years as seen through the secret prism of ASIO. The Protest Years is the second of three volumes of The Official History of ASIO.

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The Spy Catchers - David Horner Cover Art

The Spy Catchers

The Spy Catchers The Official History of Asio, 1949-1963 by David Horner

Winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History For the first time, ASIO has opened its archives to an independent historian. With unfettered access to the records, David Horner tells the real story of Australia's domestic intelligence organisation, from shaky beginnings to the expulsion of Ivan Skripov in 1963. From the start, ASIO's mission was to catch spies. In the late 1940s, the top secret Venona program revealed details of a Soviet spy ring in Australia, supported by leading Australian communists. David Horner outlines the tactics ASIO used in counterespionage, from embassy bugging to surveillance of local suspects. His research sheds new light on the Petrov Affair, and details incidents and activities that have never been revealed before. This authoritative and ground-breaking account overturns many myths about ASIO, and offers new insights into broader Australian politics and society in the fraught years of the Cold War. The Spy Catchers is the first of three volumes of The Official History of ASIO . ' The Spy Catchers is a fascinating account of ASIO's early years when the main threat Australia faced was from the Soviet regime.' - The Hon. John Howard, OM, AC, former Prime Minister of Australia 'This is one of our most important official histories.' - The Hon. Kim Beazley, AC, Australian Ambassador to the United States of America

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Eyewitness - Garrie Hutchinson Cover Art

Eyewitness

Eyewitness Australians Write from the Frontline by Garrie Hutchinson

In Eyewitness , Garrie Hutchinson has selected the cream of writing from Australia's wars. Many of our finest writer-reporters are featured - C.E.W. Bean, Alan Moorehead, Paul McGeough, Kenneth Slessor, Ray Parkin, Osmar White, John Martinkus, Peter Ryan and more. The settings range from the beach at Anzac Cove in 1914 to the Kokoda Track, from desert dugouts to a hotel in Baghdad. Eyewitness shows how Australian war correspondents, official and unofficial, have written with courage and conviction, under pressure of censorship and physical and technical hardship. This is writing of great immediacy, passion and truthfulness, with each selection accompanied by a brief scene-setting narrative and a biographical sketch. Contributors include: Monica Attard, C.E.W. Bean, Wilfred Burchett, Pat Burgess, Tony Clifton, W.H. Downing, G.H. Fearnside, Cameron Forbes, Garrie Hutchinson, Ion Idriess, Charles Jager, Betty Jeffrey, George Johnston, Frank Legg, Hugh Lunn, Irris Makler, Gilbert Mant, John Martinkus, Paul McGeough, Gary McKay, Alan Moorehead, Lindsay Murdoch, Ray Parkin, Rohan Rivett, E.J. Rule, Peter Ryan, Kenneth Slessor, Geoffrey Tebbutt, Osmar White, Chester Wilmot.

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The Penguin History of New Zealand - Michael King Cover Art

The Penguin History of New Zealand

The Penguin History of New Zealand by Michael King

This bestselling book by the late Michael King is the unchallenged contemporary reference on the history of New Zealand. First published in 2003 and hailed as a triumph of careful research, wide reading and judicious assessment, it has been continuously in print for 20 years and has sold over 300,000 copies. It remains the definitive, yet highly readable, starting-point for anybody wanting to understand this country. New Zealand was the last country in the world to be discovered and settled by humankind. It was also the first to introduce full democracy. Between those events, and in the century that followed, the movements and conflicts of human history have been played out more intensively and more rapidly in New Zealand than anywhere else on Earth. The Penguin History of New Zealand tells that story in all its colour and drama. The narrative that emerges is an inclusive one about men and women, Māori and Pākehā. It shows that British motives in colonising New Zealand were essentially humane; and that Māori, far from being passive victims of a 'fatal impact', coped heroically with colonisation and survived by selectively accepting and adapting what Western technology and culture had to offer. Now more relevant than ever, this edition includes a Foreword by Sir Tipene O'Regan and a biographical essay on the author by Jock Phillips. PLATINUM PREMIER NEW ZEALAND BESTSELLER READERS' CHOICE AWARD 2004 MONTANA NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS NIELSEN BOOKDATA NEW ZEALAND BOOKSELLERS' CHOICE AWARD – BEST OF THE BEST, 2011

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Consuming Ocean Island - Katerina Martina Teaiwa Cover Art

Consuming Ocean Island

Consuming Ocean Island Stories of People and Phosphate from Banaba by Katerina Martina Teaiwa

Consuming Ocean Island tells the story of the land and people of Banaba, a small Pacific island, which, from 1900 to 1980, was heavily mined for phosphate, an essential ingredient in fertilizer. As mining stripped away the island's surface, the land was rendered uninhabitable, and the indigenous Banabans were relocated to Rabi Island in Fiji. Katerina Martina Teaiwa tells the story of this human and ecological calamity by weaving together memories, records, and images from displaced islanders, colonial administrators, and employees of the mining company. Her compelling narrative reminds us of what is at stake whenever the interests of industrial agriculture and indigenous minorities come into conflict. The Banaban experience offers insight into the plight of other island peoples facing forced migration as a result of human impact on the environment.

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Australian History in Seven Questions - John Hirst Cover Art

Australian History in Seven Questions

Australian History in Seven Questions by John Hirst

'If there are genuine questions about Australian history, there is something to puzzle over. The history ceases to be predictable— and dull.’ From the author of The Shortest History of Europe , acclaimed historian John Hirst, comes this fresh and stimulating approach to understanding Australia’s past and present. Hirst asks and answers questions that get to the heart of Australia’s history: • Why did Aborigines not take up farming? • How did a penal colony change peacefully into a democratic society? • Why was Australia so prosperous so early? • Why did the colonies federate? • What effect did convict origins have on national character? • Why was the postwar migration programme such a success? • Why is Australia not a republic? Engaging and enjoyable, and written for the novice and the expert alike, Australian History in Seven Questions explains how we became the nation we are today. “one of the nation’s most independent and original historians” – Geoffrey Blainey “John Hirst is the gadfly of Australian history, stinging and provocative” – Stuart Macintyre John Hirst was a member of the History Department at La Trobe University from 1968 to 2007. He has written many books on Australian history, including Convict Society and Its Enemies, The Strange Birth of Colonial Democracy, The Sentimental Nation, Sense and Nonsense in Australian History and The Shortest History of Europe.

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Australia: A Very Short Introduction - Kenneth Morgan Cover Art

Australia: A Very Short Introduction

Australia: A Very Short Introduction by Kenneth Morgan

In this Very Short Introduction, Kenneth Morgan provides a wide-ranging and thematic introduction to modern Australia; examining the main features of its history, geography, and culture and drawing attention to the distinctive features of Australian life and its indigenous population and culture.

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Killing for Country - David Marr Cover Art

Killing for Country

Killing for Country A Family Story by David Marr

A gripping reckoning with the bloody history of Australia's frontier wars David Marr was shocked to discover forebears who served with the brutal Native Police in the bloodiest years on the frontier. Killing for Country is the result – a soul-searching Australian history. This is a richly detailed saga of politics and power in the colonial world – of land seized, fortunes made and lost, and the violence let loose as squatters and their allies fought for possession of the country – a war still unresolved in today's Australia. ‘This book is more than a personal reckoning with Marr's forebears and their crimes. It is an account of an Australian war fought here in our own country, with names, dates, crimes, body counts and the ghastly, remorseless views of the 'settlers'. Thank you, David.’ —Marcia Langton ‘[Marr is] one of the country's most accomplished non-fiction writers. I was sometimes reminded of Robert Hughes' study of convict transportation, The Fatal Shore (1987), in the epic quality of this book ... Killing For Country is a timely exercise in truth-telling amid a disturbing resurgence of denialism.’ —Frank Bongiorno, The Age ‘Killing for Country ... stands out for its unflinching eye, its dogged research, and the quality and power of its writing.’ —Mark McKenna, Australian Book Review ‘It's a timely, vital story.’ —Jason Steger, The Age ‘The timing of this book is painfully exquisite and it demonstrates perfectly how little race politics have changed in Australia.’ —Lucy Clark, The Guardian ’This is a story about Marr's family darkness, yes. But it is also a book concerned with our collective shame. No one who reads his important and necessary account with an open mind could consider more decades of voicelessness an acceptable outcome for this nation's First Peoples.’ —Geordie Williamson, The Saturday Paper ‘Killing for Country … shines a light into the dark shameful corners of our collective national experience. What we will find when we look and listen won't be pretty, but it is necessary to confront – not to be captives of history, but to learn from it and transcend it.’ —Julianne Schultz, The Conversation ’The family truth telling … reminds us once again of the terrible cost of the colonisation of Australia’ —Henry Reynolds, Pearls and Irritations

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The Stolen Island - Scott Hamilton Cover Art

The Stolen Island

The Stolen Island Searching for 'Ata by Scott Hamilton

‘What had happened to the stolen islanders? Had any survived slavery?’ One day in 1863 a strange ship stopped at ‘Ata, a tiny island in the wild seas between Tonga and New Zealand, and sailed away with one hundred and forty-four men, women and children. The ‘Atans were never heard from again, and in Tonga their fate became the subject of legends and superstitions. Uncovering the tragedy of ‘Ata takes Scott Hamilton on a journey to the kava circles and caves of Tonga and back to the streets of Auckland. The Stolen Island is a twenty-first century true sea story revealing slavers, mutinies, castaways, pirates and a cruel streak in Pacific history that is often overlooked but not forgotten.

49

A History of China - Morris Rossabi Cover Art

A History of China

A History of China by Morris Rossabi

Capturing China’s past in all its complexity, this multi-faceted history portrays China in the context of a larger global world, while incorporating the narratives of Chinese as well as non-Chinese ethnic groups and discussing people traditionally left out of the story—peasants, women, merchants, and artisans. Offers a complete political, economic, social, and cultural history of China, covering the major events and trends Written in a clear and uncomplicated style by a distinguished historian with over four decades of experience teaching undergraduates Examines Chinese history through the lens of global history to better understand how foreign influences affected domestic policies and practices Depicts the role of non-Chinese ethnic groups in China, such as Tibetans and Uyghurs, and analyzes the Mongol and Manchu rulers and their impact on Chinese society Incorporates the narratives of people traditionally left out of Chinese history, including women, peasants, merchants, and artisans The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production.

50

The South Pole (Illustrated) - Roald Amundsen Cover Art

The South Pole (Illustrated)

The South Pole (Illustrated) (Complete Volume I & II) by Roald Amundsen

Roald Amundsen records his race to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Amundsen's expertise enabled him to succeed where his predecessors, and competitors, did not. His rival Captain Robert F. Scott not only failed to reach the Pole first, but—due to poor preparation and miscalculation—died with the rest of his party on their return trip. The South Pole remains one of the greatest and most important books on polar exploration. Review - 'Roald Amundsen planted the Norwegian flag on the South Pole on December 14, 1911: a full month before Robert Falcon Scott arrived on the same spot. Amundsen's The South Pole (Hurst) is less well-known than his rivals, in part because he is less of a literary stylist, but also, perhaps, because he survived the journey. His book is a riveting first-hand account of a truly professional expedition; Amundsen's heroism is understated, but it is heroism nonetheless.' -Erica Wagner, The Times'Amundsen was the supreme exponent of Polar technique. He towered above his rivals; he brought an intellectual approach to exploration and stood, as he still stands, the antipole to the heroic delusion. [A...] The journey to the South Pole remains his masterpiece, the culmination of the classical age of Polar exploration and, perhaps, the greatest snow journey ever made.' -Roland Huntford, The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole..

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