End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James L Swanson

$9.99 AUD

$24.99 (60% off)

Category: History

Here, for the first time in decades, is a gripping, minute-by-minute account of the day President John F. Kennedy was shot, told by James Swanson, author of the New York Times bestseller Manhunt, which so vividly brought the Lincoln assassination to life. In End of Days, he reveals Lee Harvey Oswald's b izarre history of violence and follows John and Jacqueline Kennedy's wildly successful swing through Texas and their fateful Dallas motorcade ride. In the most riveting account ever written about the assassin's shots, Swanson takes us to the sixth-floor Texas Book Depository window to look through Oswald's rifle sights. Swanson also re-creates the last hours of the doomed assassin and the days of national mourning for the president that followed, culminating in a funeral that united the country in a tearful farewell to the fallen commander in chief.In End of Days, Swanson combines extensive research with his unparalleled storytelling abilities to turn the events of one of the darkest days of the twentieth century into a pulse-pounding thriller that will remain the definitive popular account of the assassination for years to come. ...Show more

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

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

Troy by Stephen Fry

$35.00 AUD

Category: Mythology | Series: Stephen Fry's Greek Myths | Reading Level: near fine

Following Top Ten bestsellers Mythos and Heroes, this third volume retells the epic tale of Troy The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for ten whol e years. It is a terrible war with casualties on all sides as well as strained relations between allies, whose consequences become tragedies. In Troy you will find heroism and hatred, love and loss, revenge and regret, desire and despair. It is these human passions, written bloodily in the sands of a distant shore, that still speak to us today.   ...Show more

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe

$22.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required. ...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

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

Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage

$39.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

Across Australia, early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park. With extensive grassy patches and pathways, open woodlands and abundant wildlife, it evoked a country estate in England. Bill Gammage has discovered this was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than we have ever realised. For over a decade, Gammage has examined written and visual records of the Australian landscape. He has uncovered an extraordinarily complex system of land management using fire and the life cycles of native plants to ensure plentiful wildlife and plant foods throughout the year. We know Aboriginal people spent far less time and effort than Europeans in securing food and shelter, and now we know how they did it. With details of land-management strategies from around Australia, The Biggest Estate on Earth rewrites the history of this continent, with huge implications for us today. Once Aboriginal people were no longer able to tend their country, it became overgrown and vulnerable to the hugely damaging bushfires we now experience. And what we think of as virgin bush in a national park is nothing of the kind. ...Show more

Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia by Anita Heiss

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

Childhood stories of family, country and belonging What is it like to grow up Aboriginal in Australia? This anthology, compiled by award-winning author Anita Heiss, showcases many diverse voices, experiences and stories in order to answer that question. Accounts from well-known authors and high-profile identities sit alongside those from newly discovered writers of all ages. All of the contributors speak from the heart - sometimes calling for empathy, oftentimes challenging stereotypes, always demanding respect. This groundbreaking collection will enlighten, inspire and educate about the lives of Aboriginal people in Australia today. Contributors include- Tony Birch, Deborah Cheetham, Adam Goodes, Terri Janke, Patrick Johnson, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Jack Latimore, Celeste Liddle, Amy McQuire, Kerry Reed-Gilbert, Miranda Tapsell, Jared Thomas, Aileen Walsh, Alexis West, Tara June Winch, and many, many more. ...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

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom by Robin Wall Kimmerer

$22.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

An inspired weaving of indigenous knowledge, plant science, and personal narrative from a distinguished professor of science and a Native American whose previous book, Gathering Moss, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing.   As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what it means to see humans as "the younger brothers of creation." As she explores these themes she circles toward a central argument: the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgement and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the world. Once we begin to listen for the languages of other beings, we can begin to understand the innumerable life-giving gifts the world provides us and learn to offer our thanks, our care, and our own gifts in return. ...Show more