Australians at Home: World War II by Michael McKernan (Deputy Director, Australian War Memorial)

$14.99 AUD

$34.95 (57% off)

Category: Australian History

The best-selling Australians at Home were the first books to study the Australian home front, during World War I and II, in depth and detail. Michael McKernan has a University Medal and a doctorate from the Australian National University, he lectured in Australian History at the University of New South Wales ...Show more

Macquarie (HB) by Grantlee Kieza

$14.99 AUD

$39.99 (62% off)

Category: Australian History | Reading Level: 3 Biography

A lively and engaging portrait of a towering and complex figure of Australian colonial history. Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming the harsh, foreboding penal colony of New Holland into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also help ed shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and business people. However, the governor's ambitions for the colony (which he lobbied to have renamed 'Australia') brought him into conflict with the continent's original landowners, and he was responsible for the deaths of Aboriginal men, women and children, brutally killed in a military operation intended to create terror among local Indigenous people. So, was Macquarie the man who sowed the seeds of a great nation, or a tyrant who destroyed Aboriginal resistance? In this, the most comprehensive biography yet of this fascinating colonial governor, acclaimed biographer Grantlee Kieza draws on Macquarie's rich and detailed journals. He chronicles the life and times of a poor Scottish farm boy who joined the British army to make his fortune, saw wars on five continents and clawed his way to the top. Ultimately, Macquarie laid the foundations for a new nation, but, in the process, he played a part in the dispossession of the continent's original people. Lover, fighter, egalitarian, autocrat - Lachlan Macquarie is a complex and engaging character who first envisaged the nation we call Australia.             ...Show more

Lost at Sea: Found at Fukushima by Andy Millar

$7.99 AUD

$29.99 (73% off)

Category: History

On a calm, tropical afternoon in the South Atlantic Ocean in Aril 1942, a British tramp steamer, the SS Willesden, was shelled, torpedoed and sunk by a German raider, the KMS Thor. The Willesden was carrying 47 officers and crew, and a cargo of vital war supplies destined for Britain's 8th Army in North Africa. ...Show more

Loving Country: A Guide to Sacred Australia by Bruce Pascoe; Vicky Shukuroglou

$45.00 AUD

Category: Australian History

Loving Country is a book that inspires ultimate respect for Mother Earth and the role of her custodians. While readers are encouraged to discover the sacred country of Australia in an open-minded and sensitive manner, the intention of this book is to foster communication and understanding between all pe oples and country, to bring about a range of environmental and social changes. Co-authors Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukuroglou hope to empower communities to tell their own stories, and for people to honour them and the country from which they have grown. Beautifully designed, all of the writing and photography in Loving Country has been created in consultation with communities. From the ingenious fish traps at Brewarrina and the rivers that feed the Great Barrier Reef, to the love stories of Wiluna and the whale story of Margaret River, there is so much to celebrate and admire about the oldest continuing culture in the world. For those who want to do more than a whistle-stop tour of Australia, this book offers some keys to unlock and reveal the heart of this loving country. ...Show more

The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple

$22.99 AUD

Category: History

THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019 A FINANCIAL TIMES, OBSERVER, DAILY TELEGRAPH, WALL STREET JOURNAL AND TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India A book of beauty' o Gerard DeGroot, The Times In August 1765 the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish a new administration in his richest provinces. Run by English merchants who collected taxes using a ruthless private army, this new regime saw the East India Company transform itself from an international trading corporation into something much more unusual- an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business. William Dalrymple tells the remarkable story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power. ...Show more

Charles Family's War by Alan Fewster

$9.99 AUD

$29.99 (66% off)

Category: History

Edwin Llewellyn Charles was a slim, handsome youth, but Terence John, his brother, was beautiful and he knew it. Technically, the boys were twins, but their personalities could not have been more different.So begins this sweeping true story of a fractured but close-knit Australian family during World Wa r II, focusing on the service of the twins and life on the home front as experienced primarily by their elder sister and mother.When hostilities are declared, Terry joins the Australian Military Forces and is quickly promoted. However, as a militiaman, he is banned from serving overseas. Having watched Edwin join the glamorous RAAF and become a pilot, Terry resigns his commission to follow his twin. Forced to swallow the disappointment of failing to emulate Edwin by winning his wings, Terry becomes a navigator in heavy bombers in the closing stages of the European war. Readers are transported from the Charles family home in northern NSW to Canberra, Africa, England, Scotland, the United States, the Subcontinent and Ceylon between 1939 and the end of 1945 as the perspective shifts between the two protagonists. Little-known aspects of wartime experience are explored, including the so-called 'wet canteens' debate; the international negotiations over the release of interned Allied and Japanese diplomats, and the life of the Raj on the north-west frontier and in India and Ceylon. The author's clever interweaving of primary documents with historical fact gives rare insights into the lives and relationships of the Charles family and creates an authentic snapshot of wartime Australia. The Charles Family's War is a compassionate and multi-layered examination of two intelligent and articulate young men who come of age in the cauldron of global conflict. ...Show more

Fire Country: How Indigenous Fire Management Could Save Australia by Victor Steffensen

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

Delving deep into the Australian landscape and its alarming state of devastation, Fire Country is a powerful account from Indigenous land management expert Victor Steffensen on how the revival of Indigenous fire practices, including what's called 'cool burns', could restore our country.   Fire Country o ffers practical solutions for better 'reading country' and knowing when is the right time to undertake cool burns, considering current climate conditions and each landscape's specific ecosystem. From the age of 18, Victor has spent time on country learning traditional cultural and ecological knowledge from Elders. Having been developed over many generations of his people living on the land, this knowledge shows clearly that Australia actually needs fire - with burning done in a controlled manner - for land care and healing.   Victor's writing is unassuming and honest, written in a manner that reflects the nature of yarning. And while much of the knowledge shared in his book is still unknown to western science, there is much evidence that, if adopted, it will benefit all Australians.   ...Show more

Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great by Ben Shapiro

$9.99 AUD

$27.99 (64% off)

Category: Sociology

Now a #1 New York Times Bestseller.Human beings have never had it better than we have it now in the West. So why are we on the verge of throwing it all away?In 2016, New York Times bestselling author Ben Shapiro spoke at the University of California-Berkeley. Hundreds of police officers were required to protect his speech. What was so frightening about Shapiro? He came to argue that Western civilization is in the midst of a crisis of purpose and ideas; that we have let grievances replace our sense of community and political expediency limit our individual rights; that we are teaching our kids that their emotions matter more than rational debate; and that the only meaning in life is arbitrary and subjective.As a society, we are forgetting that almost everything great that has ever happened in history happened because of people who believed in both Judeo-Christian values and in the Greek-born power of reason. In The Right Side of History, Shapiro sprints through more than 3,500 years, dozens of philosophers, and the thicket of modern politics to show how our freedoms are built upon the twin notions that every human being is made in God's image and that human beings were created with reason capable of exploring God's world.We can thank these values for the birth of science, the dream of progress, human rights, prosperity, peace, and artistic beauty. Jerusalem and Athens built America, ended slavery, defeated the Nazis and the Communists, lifted billions from poverty, and gave billions more spiritual purpose. Jerusalem and Athens built America, ended slavery, defeated the Nazis and the Communists, lifted billions from poverty, and gave billions more spiritual purpose. Yet we are in the process of abandoning Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law, watching our civilization collapse into age-old tribalism, individualistic hedonism, and moral subjectivism. We believe we can satisfy ourselves with intersectionality, scientific materialism, progressive politics, authoritarian governance, or nationalistic solidarity.We can't.The West is special, and in The Right Side of History, Ben Shapiro bravely explains how we have lost sight of the moral purpose that drives each of us to be better, the sacred duty to work together for the greater good, . ...Show more

The Claimant by Paul Terry

$9.99 AUD

$32.99 (69% off)

Category: Australian History

In 1866, Thomas Castro, a fat butcher from the bush town of Wagga Wagga set the English-speaking world into a frenzy when he claimed to be the missing English nobleman, Sir Roger Tichborne, the baronet of Tichborne Park . It seemed too ridiculous to be true yet dozens of people who knew Roger, including his mother, accepted the fat man as the real baronet of one of England's oldest families.Now known only as the Claimant, he became the centre of the two longest-running trials in English history. In the process, the Claimant became the best known man in England. He sparked a powerful political movement, sent world media into overdrive and inspired a global souvenir industry on a scale never seen before. The Claimant's story was one of intrigue, deception, betrayal and conflict. It sparked a class war, impugned a lady's honour and even delivered the crushing finale to a 900-year-old medieval curse. When he died at the end of a lifetime of notoriety, the Tichborne family allowed him to be buried in a casket marked with Roger Tichborne's name. However, it was only after his death that an intriguing document emerged, claiming to shed light on a fine family's dark secret and providing a new theory on the real identity of the butcher who claimed to be a baronet. Who was he really a baronet or a butcher? ...Show more

Moonlite: The Tragic Love Story of Captain Moonlite and the Bloody End of the Bushrangers by Garry Linnell

$34.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

Charismatic, intelligent and handsome, George Scott is unlike any other bushranger. Born into a privileged life in famine-wracked Ireland, Scott's family loses its fortune and is forced to flee to New Zealand. There, Scott joins the local militia and fights as a soldier against the Maori in the brutal N ew Zealand wars. After recovering from a series of serious gunshot wounds, he sails to Australia and becomes a Lay Preacher, captivating churchgoers with his fiery and inspiring sermons. But Scott is also prone to bursts of madness. The local villagers back in Ireland often whispered that a 'wild drop' ran in the blood of the Scott family. One night he dons a mask in a small country town, arms himself with a gun and, dubbing himself Captain Moonlite, brazenly robs a bank before staging one of the country's most audacious jailbreaks. After falling in love with fellow prisoner James Nesbitt, a boyish petty criminal desperately searching for a father figure, Scott finds himself unable to shrug off his criminal past. Pursued and harassed by the police, he stages a dramatic siege and prepares for a final showdown with the law - and a macabre executioner without a nose. Meticulously researched and drawing on previously unpublished material, Moonlite is a brilliant work of non-fiction that reads like a novel. Told at a cracking pace, and based on many of the extensive letters Scott wrote from his death cell, Moonlite is set amid the violent and sexually-repressed era of Australia in the second half of the 19th century. With a cast of remarkable characters, it weaves together the extraordinary lives of our bushrangers and the desperation of a young nation eager to remove the stains of its convict past. But most of all, Moonlite is a tragic love story. For these are the dying days of the bushrangers and Captain Moonlite is about to make his last stand. ...Show more