Waltzing Matilda: Australia's Accidental Anthem by W Benjamin Lindner

$32.99 AUD

Category: HISTORY

1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia by James Boyce

$19.99 AUD

Category: HISTORY

Winner of the 2012 Age Book of the Year Award and the 2013 Tasmania Book Prize   With the founding of Melbourne in 1835, a flood of settlers began spreading out across the Australian continent. In three years more land - and more people - was conquered than in the preceding fifty.   In 1835 James Bo yce brings this pivotal moment to life. He traces the power plays in Hobart, Sydney and London, and describes the key personalities of Melbourne's early days. He conjures up the Australian frontier - its complexity, its rawness and the way its legacy is still with us today. And he asks the poignant question largely ignored for 175 years: could it have been different?   With his first book, Van Diemen's Land, Boyce introduced an utterly fresh approach to the nation's history. "In re-imagining Australia's past," Richard Flanagan wrote, "it invents a new future." 1835 continues this untold story.   'Anyone who calls Melbourne home - in fact anyone who calls Australia home - should read this book.' -Peter Mares   'An eloquent and thought-provoking book.' -Australian Book Review   '1835 is the best book on Australian history I have read since Van Diemen's Land. James Boyce is on a roll.' -Good Reading   Shortlisted, 2012 Prime Minister's Literary Award Shortlisted, 2011 West Australian Premier's Book Awards Shortlisted, 2012 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Shortlisted, 2012 Queensland Literary Awards   James Boyce is the multiple award-winning author of Born Bad, 1835 and Van Diemen's Land. He has a PhD from the University of Tasmania, where he is an honorary research associate of the School of Geography and Environmental Studies. ...Show more

The Catalpa Rescue: The Most Dramatic & Successful Prison Break in Australian History by Peter FitzSimons

$34.99 AUD

Category: HISTORY | Reading Level: very good

The incredible true story of one of the most extraordinary and inspirational prison breaks in Australian history. New York, 1874. Members of the Clan-na-Gael - agitators for Irish freedom from the English yoke - hatch a daring plan to free six Irish political prisoners from the most remote prison in the Britsh Empire, Fremantle Prison in Western Australia. Under the guise of a whale hunt, Captain Anthony sets sail on the Catalpa to rescue the men from the stone walls of this hell on Earth known to the inmates as a 'living tomb'. What follows is one of history's most stirring sagas that splices Irish, American, British and Australian history together in its climatic moment. For Ireland, who had suffered English occupation for 700 years, a successful escape was an inspirational call to arms. For America, it was a chance to slap back at Britain for their support of the South in the Civil War; for England, a humiliation. And for a young Australia, still not sure if it was Great Britain in the South Seas or worthy of being an independent country in its own right, it was proof that Great Britain was not unbeatable. Told with FitzSimons' trademark combination of arresting history and storytelling verve, The Catalpa Rescue is a tale of courage and cunning, the fight for independence and the triumph of good men, against all odds. ...Show more

Van Diemen's Land by James Boyce

$49.99 AUD

Category: HISTORY

Almost half of the convicts who came to Australia came to Van Diemen's Land. There they found a land of bounty and a penal society, a kangaroo economy and a new way of life. In this multi-award-winning history of colonial Tasmania, James Boyce shows how the newcomers were changed by the natural world th ey encountered. Escaping authority, they soon settled away from the towns, dressing in kangaroo skin and living off the land. Behind the official attempt to create a Little England was another story of adaptation, in which the poor, the exiled and the criminal made a new home in a strange land. This is their story, the story of Van Diemen's Land. 'The most significant colonial history since The Fatal Shore. In re-imagining Australia's past, it invents a new future.' -Richard Flanagan 'Tasmania is only a short flight from where I live, but I have never been there. Now I will go, because its grasslands, mountains, bays and islands have become real to me, each territory with its own history and bearing the subtle scars of its particular past.' -Inga Clendinnen ...Show more

The New World of Martin Cortes - A True Story of Poignant Loss and Resilient Courage by Anna Lanyon

$37.00 AUD

Category: BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR

Martin Cortes was the first, and illegitimate, son of the conquistador Hernan Cortes and the indigenous American woman who translated for him-the legendary Malinche. Taken from his mother as an infant, he was raised in Cuba by paternal relatives. At six he went to Spain with his father to become a page in the service of the Spanish prince. In his twenties, Martin fought as a soldier of Spain in Germany, France, and Algeria. Later, Martin was ultimately fated to resist the Spanish Crown andto die far from anywhere he might call home. Today, he is remembered by Mexicans as the first mestizo, emblematic of Mexico's dual heritage.Like Lanyon's earlier book,Malinche's Conquest , this one is an engrossing and evocative story, bringing to life those extraordinary times in the sixteenth century. It is a tale of intrigue and identity, exploring Martin Cortes's relations with his famous father, his half-brother, his mother's people, and his Spanish and New World loyalties. It is a stimulating reflection on the processes of history and legend and on the nature of the human spirit caught between conflicting worlds. ...Show more

The Glamour Boys: The Secret Story of the Rebels Who Fought for Britain to Defeat Hitler by Chris Bryant

$29.99 AUD

Category: HISTORY

A story of unsung bravery at a defining moment in Britain's history'A fascinating, beautifully written story I had never heard before' Hugh GrantWe like to think we know the story of how Britain went to war with Germany in 1939, but there is one chapter that has never been told. In the early 1930s, a gr oup of young, queer British MPs visited Berlin on a series of trips that would change the course of the Second World War. As Hitler rose to power, they watched the Nazis arrest their gay and Jewish friends, send them to concentration camps and murder them. These men were some of the first to warn Britain about Hitler, repeatedly speaking out against their government's policy of appeasing him. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain hated them. Branding them 'the glamour boys', he had them followed, harassed, spied upon and derided in the press. They suffered abuse, innuendo and threats of de-selection. At a time when even the suggestion of homosexuality could land you in prison, the bravery these men were forced to show in their personal lives gave them extraordinary courage in public. Adept at hiding their true nature, some became talented spies, while others witnessed the brutality of Hitler's camps first hand. Four of them died in action. And without them, this country would never have faced down the Nazis. Based on years of archival research, this is a story of unsung bravery at a defining moment in Britain's history.   ...Show more

Fire and Song: The Story of Luis De Carvajal and the Mexican Inquisition by Anna Lanyon

$29.99 AUD

Category: BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR

It is 1596 and in Mexico the Inquisition is at its most efficient. A young man trembles in his cell as he prays for salvation, torn between the Christianity he was schooled in and his ancestral faith. What heresies will the Holy Office uncover? Can he protect his mother and sisters?

An Inconvenient Genocide - Who Remembers the Armenians? by Geoffrey Robertson

$34.99 AUD

Category: HISTORY

The most controversial issue left over from the First World War - was there an Armenian Genocide? - comes to a head on 24 April 2015, when Armenians throughout the world commemorate the centenary of the murder of 1.5 million - over half - of their people, at the hands of the Ottoman Turkish government. Turkey continues to deny it ever happened - or if it did, that the killings were justified. This has become a vital international issue. Twenty national parliaments have voted to recognise the genocide, but Britain equivocates and President Obama is torn between Congress, which wants recognition, and the US military, afraid of alienating an important NATO ally. In Australia three state governments have recognised the genocide (despite threats to ban their MPs from Gallipoli), but the Abbott government has told the Turks that Australia does not. Geoffrey Robertson QC despises this mendacity. His book proves beyond reasonable doubt that the horrific events of 1915 - witnessed by Australian POWs - constituted the crime against humanity that is known today as genocide. In this book he explains how democratic countries can combat genocide denial without denying free speech, and makes a major contribution to understanding and preventing this worst of all crimes. His renowned powers of advocacy are on full display, as he condemns all those - from Sri Lanka to the Sudan, from Old Anatolia to modern Gaza - who try to justify the mass murder of children and civilians in the name of military necessity. ...Show more

The Big Book of Australia's War Stories by Jim Haynes

$32.99 AUD

Category: SHORT STORIES

Here are the stories of Australia's iconic battles and campaigns from the time of federation to the Vietnam War. Some are still household names, although their historical significance may be a mystery to most Aussies. Others are barely remembered now, but are part in our history and deserve to be retold . Most importantly, this collection demonstrates the extraordinary courage, resilience, stoic humour, personal heroism and sacrifice that created the legend of the Aussie digger, soldiers, sailors and airmen who did things their own way and earned the undying respect of both their allies and their enemies. These are the stories that explain Australia's wartime reputation. Fifteen years before Gallipoli, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, writing of stoic Australian courage, would say, 'When the ballad makers of Australia seek for a subject, let them turn to Elands River'. Of Gallipoli, a British officer called the cheerful, insubordinate Aussies 'the bravest thing God ever made'. And before the Normandy invasion, Field Marshall Montgomery's chief of staff remarked, before the Normandy invasion, 'I only wish we had the Australian 9th Division with us this morning'. ...Show more

Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre by Lyndall (EDT) Jane (EDT); Ryan Lydon

$34.99 AUD

Category: HISTORY

The 1838 Myall Creek Massacre is remembered for the brutality of the crime committed by white settlers against innocent Aboriginal men, women and children, but also because eleven of the twelve assassins were arrested and brought to trial. Amid tremendous controversy, seven were hanged. Marking its 180t h anniversary, this book explores the significance of one of the most horrifying events of Australian colonialism. Thoughtful and fearless, it challenges us to look at our history without flinching as an act of remembrance and reconciliation. ...Show more

Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester

$24.99 AUD

Category: HISTORY | Reading Level: very good

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2018 Bestselling author Simon Winchester writes a magnificent history of the pioneering engineers who developed precision machinery to allow us to see as far as the moon and as close as the Higgs boson. Precision is the key to everything. It is an int egral, unchallenged and essential component of our modern social, mercantile, scientific, mechanical and intellectual landscapes. The items we value in our daily lives - a camera, phone, computer, bicycle, car, a dishwasher perhaps - all sport components that fit together with precision and operate with near perfection. We also assume that the more precise a device the better it is. And yet whilst we live lives peppered and larded with precision, we are not, when we come to think about it, entirely sure what precision is, or what it means. How and when did it begin to build the modern world? Simon Winchester seeks to answer these questions through stories of precision's pioneers. Exactly takes us back to the origins of the Industrial Age, to Britain where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John 'Iron-Mad' Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden, and Joseph Whitworth. Thomas Jefferson exported their discoveries to the United States as manufacturing developed in the early twentieth century, with Britain's Henry Royce developing the Rolls Royce and Henry Ford mass producing cars, Hattori's Seiko and Leica lenses, to today's cutting-edge developments from Europe, Asia and North America. As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is, rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural co-exist in society? ...Show more