People of the River: Australia's Earliest Settlers by Grace Karskens

$39.99 AUD

Category: Australian

A landmark history of Australia's first successful settler farming area, which was on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River. Award-winning historian Grace Karskens uncovers the everyday lives of ordinary people in the early colony, both Aboriginal and British.  

Victory on Gallipoli and Other What-ifs of Australian History by Peter Stanley

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian

With a twist of fate - and of historical fact - Gallipoli was a military success, Australia had a female prime minister in the 1920s and Gough Whitlam chose his time to retire from the top job. In Victory on Gallipoli and Other What-ifs of Australian History, prominent historians contemplate how Austral ia today could have been a very different place but for a decision made or not made, an opportunity taken or not taken. These are the nation's sliding door moments, our alternative history. The Cold War had the world teetering on the edge of mutually assured destruction. What if it had heated up? What if the 1951 referendum to outlaw the Communist Party had been successful? Would Australia have had its own McCarthy era and where would we be today? With essays by Janette Bomford, Guy Hansen, Carolyn Holbrook, Walter Kudrycz, Michael McKernan, Ross McMullin, Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, John Maynard, Michael Molkentin, Roslyn Russell, Peter Stanley, Craig Wilcox and Clare Wright.   ...Show more

Traitors and Spies by John Fahey

$34.99 AUD

Category: Australian

The history of Australia's intelligence operations in the early 20th century reveals the dark underside of Australian politics, including early infiltration by Russian agents, persecution of innocent civilians, and corruption, right up to the prime minister's office. Dozens of Russian anarchists, socia lists and communists arrived in Australia from 1905, fleeing repression in their homeland. Finding work in the Queensland cane fields, Russian activists recruited in working men's groups for their revolutionary cause, laying the foundations for infiltration by Soviet intelligence services of the unions and Communist Party of Australia decades later. This is just one of the many fascinating stories former intelligence officer John Fahey has uncovered in the archives of Australia, MI5 and the CIA. He shows that Australia was under sustained attack from external threats as early as 1908, threats the country consistently failed to address effectively. He identifies the first German spy in Australia, as well as a group of highly respected Jewish businessmen in Melbourne who were Soviet agents, and an Australian woman who worked for Soviet military intelligence in the United States. Internal security work is dirty work, and never more so than when ruthless politicians and police use intelligence services for their own ends. Fahey has discovered that old boys' networks at the highest levels enabled security agencies to mislead judicial inquiries, spy on members of parliament and other bureaucrats, and persecute innocent citizens in the interwar years. Traitors and Spies tells the story of Australia's intelligence operations before ASIO was established, and reveals the dark side of Australian politics in the first half of the twentieth century. ...Show more

Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia by David Hunt

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian

Winner, 2014 Indie Award for Non-Fiction   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 t hat 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.   Shortlisted, 2014 ABA Nielsen BookData Bookseller's Choice Award, 2014 NSW Premier's Literary Awards, 2014 Australian Book Industry Awards.   '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 in the Australian   David Hunt is an unusually tall and handsome man who likes writing his own bios for all the books he has written. David is the author of Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia, which won the 2014 Indie Award for non-fiction and was shortlisted in both the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and Australian Book Industry Awards. True Girt, the sequel, was published in 2016, as was a book for children, The Nose Pixies. David has a birthmark that looks like Tasmania, only smaller and not as far south. ...Show more

Built on Faith

$65.00 AUD

Category: Australian

Radio Girl: The Story of the Extraordinary Mrs Mac, Pioneering Engineer and Wartime Legend by David Dufty

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian

All around Australia, former WRANs and navy men regard the woman they know as Mrs Mac with a level of reverence usually reserved for saints. Yet today no-one has any idea of who she was and how she rescued Australia's communication systems in World War II.

Exploring Gallipoli: Australian Army's Battlefield Guide to Gallipoli by Lt Col Glenn Wahlert

$19.99 AUD

Category: Australian | Series: Australian Army Campaign

This book provides both practical touring information on Gallipoli for the independent traveller, and a guide to the amazing First World War Anzac battlefields. Written by a serving Australian Army officer with over 30 years soldiering experience, and now a historian with the Australian Army History Uni t, Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Wahlert presents a unique view of the campaign and of the key events that occurred on the ground. It includes detailed information on the key sites at Gallipoli, including recommended routes, optional walks and drives, maps, digital images, original art work and even sound files to download on to your MP3 player. Information and suggestions on accommodation, transport, restaurants, entertainment and sightseeing are also provided to enable you to plan your holiday and make the most of your time on the Peninsula. ...Show more

From Great Depths by M. McCarthy

$70.00 AUD

Category: Australian

Long considered one of the world's most significant wartime mysteries, the fateful dusk encounter between HMAS Sydney (II) and the German raider Kormoran stands as Australia's single largest naval disaster. The loss of both ships on the night of 19 November 1941 with Sydney's full war compleme nt of men and boys sparked a growing mystery spanning sixty-six years for Australia's most famous fighting ship and for one of Germany's best known raiders. The 2008 discovery of the wrecks captured the imagination of two young researchers who dreamt and then lived their impossible dream — bringing what lies in total darkness on the seabed nearly three kilometres beneath the waves and over 100 kilometres from the coast to the surface for all to experience. This had never been done before. Needing a state-of-the-art ship and its crew, the most modern of underwater vehicles, state-of-the-art visual modeling and reconstructive imaging technology, an unheard of array of mounted lighting and cameras, and the support and services of some of Australia's leading scientists, maritime archaeologists and historians, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. From Great Depths features the results of their astounding success, presenting absolutely stunning underwater photography and fascinating new discoveries, brought together with inspiring and heartrending personal accounts of wartime service on the ships, and their fierce battle with the devastating loss of over 700 souls from both sides. ...Show more

The Pacific: in the Wake of Captain Cook, with Sam Neill (PB) by Meaghan Wilson Anastasios

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian

A rich, complex and engaging account of Cook's voyages across the Pacific, from actor and raconteur Sam Neill. Captain James Cook first set sail to the Pacific in 1768, just over 250 years ago. These vast waters, one third of the earth's surface, were uncharted but not unknown. A rich diversity of peop le and cultures navigated, traded, lived and fought here for thousands of years. Before Cook, the Pacific was disconnected from the power and ideas of Europe, Asia and America. In the wake of Cook, everything changed. The Pacific with Sam Neill is the companion book to the Foxtel documentary series of the same name, in which actor and raconteur Sam Neill takes a deeply personal, present-day voyage to map his own understanding of James Cook, Europe's greatest navigator, and the immense Pacific Ocean itself. Voyaging on a wide variety on vessels, from container ships to fishing trawlers and sailing boats, Sam crosses the length and breadth of the largest ocean in the world to experience for himself a contemporary journey in Cook's footsteps, engaging the past and present in both modern and ancient cultural practice and peoples. Fascinating, engaging, fresh and vital - this is history ... but not as you know it. ...Show more

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

$34.99 AUD

Category: Australian | 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

Seeking Wisdom: A Centenary History of the University of Western Australia by GREGORY, JENNY

$65.00 AUD

Category: Australian

Buckley's Chance PB by Garry Linnell

$22.99 AUD

Category: Australian

He fought Napoleon's army and survived. e was sent to the gallows and escaped the noose. Now he is in chains and on his way to the other side of the world. What happens next will become one of the most remarkable survival stories in history. The 19th century has just begun. The world is at war. England, ruled by a mad king, is exiling thousands of criminals to an old land that has become its newest dumping ground. One of those prisoners is William Buckley, barely 21, a former soldier sentenced to life for stealing two small pieces of cloth. He's a giant for his times. But it's not just his towering frame that sets him apart. It's his desire for freedom that will make his story so unique - even in an era famous for outrageous acts of bravery and heroism. On a moonlit night Buckley escapes and disappears into the Australian bush. Discovered and adopted by an aboriginal tribe who regard him as a ghost, he is initiated into their rich and complex culture. Given up for dead by his white captors, he will not be seen again for more than 30 years until he emerges one day...carrying a spear, dressed in animal skins and having forgotten the English language. Buckley's Chance is a profound journey into a turning point in history where cultures clash, bitter rivals go to war and the body count mounts. It's also the story of a man who refuses to be held down. A man prepared to defy all odds and take a chance. Buckley's chance ...Show more