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Sydney
by Jan MorrisRenowned and much-loved travel writer Jan Morris turns her eye to Sydney: 'not the best of the cities the British Empire created ... but the most hyperbolic, the youngest at heart, the shiniest.' Sydney takes us on the city's journey from penal colony to world-class metropolis, as lively and charming as the city it describes. With characteristic exuberance and sparkling prose, Jan Morris guides us through the history, people and geography of a fascinating and colourful city. Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Venice, Hong Kong, Spain, Manhattan '45, A Writer's World and the Pax Britannica Trilogy. Hav, her novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award. 'Sydney should be flattered. A great portrait painter has chosen it for her recent subject . . . Few writers - a handful of novelists apart - have got so far under the city's skin as Morris . . . Few Sydneysiders could match her knowledge of their city's history and its anecdotes' The Times 'The writing is, at times, like surfing: sentences rise like vast waves above which she rides, never overbalancing into gush . . . Jan Morris convincingly explains modern Sydney through its history' Observer
The Voices of War: Australians tell their stories from World War I to the present
by Michael CaulfieldDrawn from engagements ranging from World War I through to operations in East Timor and Iraq, these stories are taken from the Australians at War Film Archive, a collection of the memories of more than 2000 Australians who have served, both on the front line and at home.Some are unbelievably, unbearably tragic, even after sixty or seventy years; others are the golden memories of happy, albeit unusual, times. And, more often than not, they are stories that have never been shared with others, even family members. There are stories from winners of the Victoria Cross; from the POW camps of Asia and Europe; from the patrols of Vietnam, through to those who served as peacekeepers in Rwanda and Somalia.There are stories from nurses, from those who have volunteered to serve with aid agencies and stories of ordinary Australians caught up by circumstances and by duty, in wartime. These are their words.
Women's Bodies and Medical Science: An Inquiry into Cervical Cancer (Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History)
by L. BryderAn analysis of a scandal involving a doctor accused of allowing a number of women to develop cervical cancer from carcinoma in situ as part of an experiment he had been conducting since the 1960s into conservative treatment of the disease, to more broadly explore dramatic changes in medical history in the second half of the twentieth century.
The Australian Study of Politics
by R. RhodesThe Australian Study of Politics provides the first comprehensive reference book on the history of the study of politics in Australia, whether described as political studies or political science. It focuses on Australia and on developments since WWII, also exploring the historical roots of each major subfield.
Australian Tragic: Gripping tales from the dark side of our history
by Jack MarxA compelling collection of tales from Australia's dark heart - of catastrophe and misfortune, intrigue and passion, betrayal and tragedy.AUSTRALIAN TRAGIC ranges across our past and our present: the heartbreaking story of the fire at Luna Park; the unstoppable opportunist who snatched innocent men and women from Palm Island to be part of P. T. Barnum's 'Greatest Show on Earth'; a world-class boxer who lost his battle with alcohol and ended up in an unmarked American grave; a man who heroically survived a war to find himself crushed and defeated by events much closer to home; and a new story - of an echo from Ned Kelly at Stringybark Creek, in our own time ... Heartbreaking and shocking, gothic and weird, these fascinating stories are all true, and told to remind us of the Australia we don't know, the one that simmers with love and hate, of hopes raised and futures dashed, unheralded and unnoticed . . . until now.
Contesting Native Title: From controversy to consensus in the struggle over Indigenous land rights
by David Ritter'This book debunks in spectacular fashion some of the most treasured, over-inflated claims of the benefits of native title.'Professor Mick Dodson, ANU Centre for Indigenous Studies'David Ritter's fascinating account of the evolution of the native title system is elegant and incisive, scholarly and sceptical; above all, unfailingly intelligent.'Professor Robert Manne, La Trobe University'An unsentimental, richly informed account of a fascinating period in the history of Australia's relationships with its indigenous people.' From the Foreword by Chief Justice Robert FrenchAfter the historic Mabo judgement in 1992, Aboriginal communities had high hopes of obtaining land rights around Australia. What followed is a dramatic story of hard-fought contests over land, resources, money and power, yielding many frustrations and mixed outcomes. Based on extensive research, enriched by intimate experience as a lawyer and negotiator, David Ritter offers both an insider's perspective and a cool-headed and broad-ranging account of the native title system. In lucid prose Ritter examines the contributions of the players that contested and adjudicated native title: Aboriginal leaders and their communities, multinational resource companies, pastoralists, courts and tribunals, politicians and bureaucrats. His account lays bare the conflicts, compromises and conceits beneath the surface of the native title process.
Contesting Native Title: From controversy to consensus in the struggle over Indigenous land rights
by David Ritter'This book debunks in spectacular fashion some of the most treasured, over-inflated claims of the benefits of native title.'Professor Mick Dodson, ANU Centre for Indigenous Studies'David Ritter's fascinating account of the evolution of the native title system is elegant and incisive, scholarly and sceptical; above all, unfailingly intelligent.'Professor Robert Manne, La Trobe University'An unsentimental, richly informed account of a fascinating period in the history of Australia's relationships with its indigenous people.' From the Foreword by Chief Justice Robert FrenchAfter the historic Mabo judgement in 1992, Aboriginal communities had high hopes of obtaining land rights around Australia. What followed is a dramatic story of hard-fought contests over land, resources, money and power, yielding many frustrations and mixed outcomes. Based on extensive research, enriched by intimate experience as a lawyer and negotiator, David Ritter offers both an insider's perspective and a cool-headed and broad-ranging account of the native title system. In lucid prose Ritter examines the contributions of the players that contested and adjudicated native title: Aboriginal leaders and their communities, multinational resource companies, pastoralists, courts and tribunals, politicians and bureaucrats. His account lays bare the conflicts, compromises and conceits beneath the surface of the native title process.
Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the bad old days of Australian cricket
by Christian Ryan**Voted Wisden Cricket Monthly's best cricket book ever in 2019**WINNER, BEST CRICKET BOOK, BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2010_________________Golden Boy is a blistering exposé of the tumultuous Lillee/Marsh/Chappells era of Australian cricket, as viewed through the lens of flawed genius Kim Hughes._________________Kim Hughes was one of the most majestic and daring batsmen to play for Australia in the last 40 years. Golden curled and boyishly handsome, his rise and fall as captain and player is unparalleled in cricketing history. He played several innings that count as all-time classics, but it's his tearful resignation from the captaincy that is remembered.Insecure but arrogant, abrasive but charming; in Hughes' character were the seeds of his own destruction. Yet was Hughes' fall partly due to those around him, men who are themselves legends in Australia's cricketing history? Lillee, Marsh, the Chappells, all had their agendas, all were unhappy with his selection and performance as captain - evidenced by Dennis Lillee's tendency to aim bouncers relentlessly at Hughes' head during net practice.Hughes' arrival on the Test scene coincided with the most turbulent time Australian cricket has ever seen - first Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket, then the rebel tours to South Africa. Both had dramatic effects on Hughes' career. As he traces the high points and the low, Christian Ryan sheds new and fascinating light on the cricket - and the cricketers - of the times.
A History of India
by Burton SteinThis new edition of Burton Stein's classic A History of India builds on the success of the original to provide an updated narrative of the development of Indian society, culture, and politics from 7000 BC to the present. New edition of Burton Stein’s classic text provides a narrative from 7000 BC up to the twenty-first century Includes updated and extended coverage of the modern period, with a new chapter covering the death of Nehru in 1964 to the present Expands coverage of India's internal political and economic development, and its wider diplomatic role in the region Features a new introduction, updated glossary and further reading sections, and numerous figures, photographs and fully revised maps
Landscapes of Culture and Nature
by R. GiblettA bold and exciting exploration of the relationship and interactions between humans, the human landscape and the earth, looking at a diverse range of case studies from the nineteenth-century city to the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.
The Malays (The Peoples of South-East Asia and the Pacific)
by Anthony MilnerJust who are ‘the Malays’? This provocative study poses the question and considers how and why the answers have changed over time, and from one region to another. Anthony Milner develops a sustained argument about ethnicity and identity in an historical, ‘Malay’ context. The Malays is a comprehensive examination of the origins and development of Malay identity, ethnicity, and consciousness over the past five centuries. Covers the political, economic, and cultural development of the Malays Explores the Malay presence in Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and South Africa, as well as the modern Malay show-state of Malaysia Offers diplomatic speculation about ways Malay ethnicity will develop and be challenged in the future
Alone on a Wide Wide Sea
by Michael MorpurgoDiscover the beautiful stories of Michael Morpurgo, author of Warhorse and the nation’s favourite storyteller. How far would you go to find yourself? The lyrical, life-affirming new novel from the bestselling author of Private Peaceful
Angels Over Elsinore: Collected Verse 2003-2008
by Clive JamesClive James, our most brilliant prose stylist, is also a naturally gifted poet, and Angels Over Elsinore: Collected Verse 2003-2008 is his most accomplished collection of poetry to date. From reminiscences of his Australian childhood and elegies for friends and family to hilarious observations on the state of the language in the twenty-first century and reflections on art, metaphysics, science and faith, Angels Over Elsinore is simultaneousIy witty, passionate and provocative. Fired by the same energy and rigorous intelligence as his prose, his verse displays a breathtaking range – but for all its dazzling variety, one theme sings through James’s inexhaustible fascination with his fellow humans.
Arrernte Present, Arrernte Past: Invasion, Violence, and Imagination in Indigenous Central Australia
by Diane J. Austin-BroosThe Arrernte people of Central Australia first encountered Europeans in the 1860s as groups of explorers, pastoralists, missionaries, and laborers invaded their land. During that time the Arrernte were the subject of intense curiosity, and the earliest accounts of their lives, beliefs, and traditions were a seminal influence on European notions of the primitive. The first study to address the Arrernte’s contemporary situation, Arrernte Present, Arrernte Past also documents the immense sociocultural changes they have experienced over the past hundred years. Employing ethnographic and archival research, Diane Austin-Broos traces the history of the Arrernte as they have transitioned from a society of hunter-gatherers to members of the Hermannsburg Mission community to their present, marginalized position in the modern Australian economy. While she concludes that these wrenching structural shifts led to the violence that now marks Arrernte communities, she also brings to light the powerful acts of imagination that have sustained a continuing sense of Arrernte identity.
Arrernte Present, Arrernte Past: Invasion, Violence, and Imagination in Indigenous Central Australia (The\bush School Series In The Economics Of Public Policy)
by Diane J. Austin-BroosThe Arrernte people of Central Australia first encountered Europeans in the 1860s as groups of explorers, pastoralists, missionaries, and laborers invaded their land. During that time the Arrernte were the subject of intense curiosity, and the earliest accounts of their lives, beliefs, and traditions were a seminal influence on European notions of the primitive. The first study to address the Arrernte’s contemporary situation, Arrernte Present, Arrernte Past also documents the immense sociocultural changes they have experienced over the past hundred years. Employing ethnographic and archival research, Diane Austin-Broos traces the history of the Arrernte as they have transitioned from a society of hunter-gatherers to members of the Hermannsburg Mission community to their present, marginalized position in the modern Australian economy. While she concludes that these wrenching structural shifts led to the violence that now marks Arrernte communities, she also brings to light the powerful acts of imagination that have sustained a continuing sense of Arrernte identity.
Arrernte Present, Arrernte Past: Invasion, Violence, and Imagination in Indigenous Central Australia (The\bush School Series In The Economics Of Public Policy)
by Diane J. Austin-BroosThe Arrernte people of Central Australia first encountered Europeans in the 1860s as groups of explorers, pastoralists, missionaries, and laborers invaded their land. During that time the Arrernte were the subject of intense curiosity, and the earliest accounts of their lives, beliefs, and traditions were a seminal influence on European notions of the primitive. The first study to address the Arrernte’s contemporary situation, Arrernte Present, Arrernte Past also documents the immense sociocultural changes they have experienced over the past hundred years. Employing ethnographic and archival research, Diane Austin-Broos traces the history of the Arrernte as they have transitioned from a society of hunter-gatherers to members of the Hermannsburg Mission community to their present, marginalized position in the modern Australian economy. While she concludes that these wrenching structural shifts led to the violence that now marks Arrernte communities, she also brings to light the powerful acts of imagination that have sustained a continuing sense of Arrernte identity.
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story
by Christina ThompsonCome On Shore and We Will Kill And Eat You All is a sensitive and vibrant portrayal of the cultural collision between Westerners and Maoris, from Abel Tasman's discovery of New Zealand in 1642 to the author's unlikely romance with a Maori man. An intimate account of two centuries of friction and fascination, this intriguing and unpredictable book weaves a path through time and around the world in a rich exploration of the past and the future that it leads to.
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story
by Christina ThompsonA beautifully written, fiercely intelligent and boldly conceived book that puts the author's unlikely marriage to a Maori man into the context of the history of Western colonization of New Zealand and the South Pacific. Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson's marriage to a Maori man. As an American graduate student studying history in Australia, Thompson traveled to New Zealand and met a Maori known as "Seven." Their relationship is one of opposites: he is a tradesman, she is an intellectual; he comes from a background of rural poverty, she from one of middleclass privilege; he is a "native," she descends directly from "colonizers." Nevertheless, they shared a similar sense of adventure and a willingness to depart from the customs of their families and forge a life together on their own. In this book, which grows out of decades of reading and research, Thompson explores cultural displacement through the ages and the fascinating history of Europeans in the South Pacific, beginning with Abel Tasman's discovery of New Zealand in 1642 and Cook's circumnavigation of 1770. Transporting us back and forth in time and around the world, from Australia to Hawaii to tribal New Zealand and finally to a house in New England that has ghosts of its own, Come on Shore brings to life a lush variety of characters and settings. Yet at its core, it is the story of two people who meet, fall in love, and are forever changed."A multilayered, highly informative and insightful book that blends memoir, historical and travel narrative...vivid and meticulously researched."--San Francisco Chronicle
HMAS Sydney
by Tom FrameThe complete and authoritative account of the sinking of the HMAS Sydney, and the recent finding of her wreck.On 19 November 1941, the pride of the Australian Navy, the light cruiser Sydney, fought a close-quarters battle with the German armed raider HSK Kormoran off Carnarvon on the West Australian coast. Both ships sank – and not one of the 645 men on board the Sydney survived. Was Sydney’s captain guilty of negligence by allowing his ship to manoeuvre within range of Kormoran’s guns? Did the Germans feign surrender before firing a torpedo at the Sydney as she prepared to despatch a boarding party? This updated edition covers the recent discovery of the wreck – with the light this sheds on the events of that day 67 years ago, and the closure it has brought to so many grieving families. ‘Tom Frame has produced the most comprehensive and compelling account of the loss of HMAS Sydney to date. His judgements are fair and his conclusions reasoned. If you only read one book on this tragic event in Australian naval history, and want all the facts and theories presented in a balanced way, Tom Frame’s book is for you’ - Vice Admiral Russ Shalders AO CSC RANR Chief of Navy, 2005-08.
More Precious Than Gold
by Val JonesThe Robertson family has lived on their New South Wales sheep and cattle property, Brindabella, for five generations. However, their continued ownership of the farm is under threat. An adjoining property has been sold and the new owners are unfriendly to say the least. Then things start to go very wrong on Brindabella. Stock begins to die and there seems to be no reasonable explanation. Facing bankruptcy and the loss of Brindabella, Ben's father commences an opal-mining venture in Coober Pedy in South Australia's remote outback. But even here mysterious mishaps plague the smooth operation of what began as a successful opal mine. In this well-rounded, gripping story of rural crisis, Val Jones writes how lives are threatened and 'accidents' occur, which make life in Coober Pedy very dangerous. Suddenly opal mining isn’t as straightforward as it seems …
Shades of the Sublime & Beautiful
by John KinsellaAustralian John Kinsella is one of the most highly regarded poets currently writing in English. Taking Edmund Burke’s 250-year old masterpiece A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful as his template, Kinsella has produced his most accomplished and broadly representative work to date. Shades of the Sublime & Beautiful is a warm, human, anecdotally rich book, concentrating many of the themes that have obsessed its author over the last twenty years: language, love, the invocation of place, the mysteries of the Australian wilderness, and our mediations between the human and natural realms. Together, these lyric meditations build towards a profound thesis on the ecology of the imagination, and are always conducted in concrete, vivid and exuberant language that is unmistakably Kinsella’s own. ‘Kinsella’s poems are a very rare feat: they are narratives of feeling. Vivid sight – of landscapes, of animals, of human forms in distant light – becomes insight. There is, often, the shock of the new. But somehow awaited, even familiar. Which is the homecoming of a true poet’ George Steiner ‘John Kinsella is an Orphic fountain, a prodigy of the imagination . . . he frequently makes me think of John Ashbery: improbable fecundity, eclecticism, and a stand that fuses populism and elitism in poetic audience’ Harold Bloom
Someone Special
by Sheila O'FlanaganSOMEONE SPECIAL by Sheila O'Flanagan is an enthralling novel about families, friends and finding love that should not be missed by readers of Veronica Henry and Marian Keyes.Romy Kilkenny loves her life in Australia - she has her dream job, a fun lifestyle, and best friend Keith who understands her better than anyone. Best of all, she couldn't be further from her family. But when a phone call summons her home at short notice, Romy's world is turned upside down. Romy has never fitted in, and with Keith too far away to give comfort, she feels like more of an outsider than ever. She also worries that the accidental half-kiss with Keith at the airport may have lost her the greatest friend she's ever had. What on earth has Romy let herself in for?What readers are saying about Someone Special: 'So many twists and turns throughout the book as well as many other smaller stories interwoven throughout. It is more than just a love story, and now my favourite book of [Sheila O'Flanagan's]' Amazon reviewer, 5 stars'Interesting story about an unusual and dysfunctional Irish family. You simply fall in love with them' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars'I liked the differences between characters, what they have gone through and how they interact when they need each other. It was my first book by Sheila O'Flanagan and I will definitely read more' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars
Australian Literature: Postcolonialism, Racism, Transnationalism (Oxford Studies In Postcolonial Literatures Ser.)
by Graham HugganThe Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures series offers stimulating and accessible introductions to definitive topics and key genres and regions within the rapidly diversifying field of postcolonial literary studies in English. In a provocative contribution to the series, Graham Huggan presents fresh readings of an outstanding, sometimes deeply unsettling national literature whose writers and readers just as unmistakably belong to the wider world. Australian literature is not the unique province of Australian readers and critics; nor is its exclusive task to provide an internal commentary on changing national concerns. Huggan's book adopts a transnational approach, motivated by postcolonial interests, in which contemporary ideas taken from postcolonial criticism and critical race theory are productively combined and imaginatively transformed. Rejecting the fashionable view that Australia is not, and never will be, postcolonial, Huggan argues on the contrary that Australian literature, like other settler literatures, requires close attention to postcolonial methods and concerns. A postcolonial approach to Australian literature, he suggests, is more than just a case for a more inclusive nationalism; it also involves a general acknowledgement of the nation's changed relationship to an increasingly globalized world. As such, the book helps to deprovincialize Australian literary studies. Australian Literature also contributes to debates about the continuing history of racism in Australia-a history in which the nation's literature has played a constitutive role, as both product and producer of racial tensions and anxieties, nowhere more visible than in the discourse it has produced about race, both within and beyond the national context.
Being Australian: Narratives of national identity
by Catriona ElderAfter a century of speculation by writers, filmmakers, travelers and scholars, being Australian' has become a recognisable shorthand for a group of national characteristics. Now, in an era of international terrorism, being seen as un-Australian' has become a potent rhetorical weapon for some, and a badge of honour for others.Catriona Elder explores the origins, meaning and effects of the many stories we tell about ourselves, and how they have changed over time. She outlines some of the traditional stories and their role in Australian nationalism, and she shows how concepts of egalitarianism, peaceful settlement and sporting prowess have been used to create a national identity. Elder also investigates the cultural and social perspectives that have been used to critique dominant accounts of Australian identity, including ideas of class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and race. She shows how these critiques have been, in turn, queried in recent years. Being Australian is an ideal introduction to studying Australia for anyone interested in understanding Australian society, culture and history. A clever work: incisive and original. At a time when Australian identities have never been more debated, Elder finds an open way through the closed doors which often restrict cultural representations of Australian-ness.'Professor Adam Shoemaker, Dean of Arts, ANU This is a timely and significant new analysis essential reading on issues of identity and our own anxieties about national belonging and what it means to be Australian' in a globalising world.'Kate Darian-Smith, Professor of Australian Studies and History, University of Melbourne
Being Australian: Narratives of national identity
by Catriona ElderAfter a century of speculation by writers, filmmakers, travelers and scholars, being Australian' has become a recognisable shorthand for a group of national characteristics. Now, in an era of international terrorism, being seen as un-Australian' has become a potent rhetorical weapon for some, and a badge of honour for others.Catriona Elder explores the origins, meaning and effects of the many stories we tell about ourselves, and how they have changed over time. She outlines some of the traditional stories and their role in Australian nationalism, and she shows how concepts of egalitarianism, peaceful settlement and sporting prowess have been used to create a national identity. Elder also investigates the cultural and social perspectives that have been used to critique dominant accounts of Australian identity, including ideas of class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and race. She shows how these critiques have been, in turn, queried in recent years. Being Australian is an ideal introduction to studying Australia for anyone interested in understanding Australian society, culture and history. A clever work: incisive and original. At a time when Australian identities have never been more debated, Elder finds an open way through the closed doors which often restrict cultural representations of Australian-ness.'Professor Adam Shoemaker, Dean of Arts, ANU This is a timely and significant new analysis essential reading on issues of identity and our own anxieties about national belonging and what it means to be Australian' in a globalising world.'Kate Darian-Smith, Professor of Australian Studies and History, University of Melbourne