Showing titles in Australia, New Zealand & Oceania

In 1808, an American merchant ship happened upon an uncharted island in the South Pacific and unwittingly solved the biggest nautical mystery of the era: the whereabouts of a band of fugitives who, after seizing their vessel, had disappeared into the night with their Tahitian companions. Seven generations later, the island is still inhabited by descendants of the original mutineers, marooned like modern castaways.

All those great and not so great sporting moments that have made us chuckle, roll and roar with laughter, told in Peter FitzSimons' inimitable style. Putting his unique spin on our sporting life, Peter FitzSimons celebrates the tall tales and true, the outrageous yarns and the knockabout humour from the footy fields, cricket grounds, dressing rooms, bars and commentary boxes of Australia.

In this wise and illuminating essay, Laura Tingle looks at leadership, economics, history and more. Competitiveness has marked our relationship from its earliest days. In the past half-century, both countries have remade themselves amid shifting economic fortunes. New Zealand has been held up as a model for everything from tax reform to the conduct of politics to the response to COVID-19. Tingle considers everything from Morrison and Ardern as national leaders to the different ways each country has dealt with its colonial legacy.

One day while sitting around the dinner table with his family, Victor Briggs’s Uncle Tim told him that on a visit to Hawaii, he had met an Indigenous Hawaiian Elder who told him a story. A long time ago, Indigenous Australian seafarers had sailed to Hawaii on the trade winds.

Australia is on the brink of momentous change, but only if its citizens and politicians can come to new terms with the past. In this inspiring essay, Mark McKenna considers the role of history in making and unmaking the nation. From Captain Cook to the frontier wars, from Australia Day to the Uluru Statement, we are seeing fresh debates and recognitions. McKenna argues that it is time to move beyond the history wars and that truth-telling about the past will be liberating and healing. This is an urgent essay about a nation’s moment of truth.

Once there was a wilderness: Australia's frontier, a dangerous and unforgiving place where outlaws ruled the roads and killers were hailed as heroes. It was here, in 1838, that one man's uncompromising sense of justice changed history and shocked the world. Denny Day was a vicar's son from Ireland. A member of the Anglo-Irish ruling class, as a young man Day joined the British army before resigning to seek his fortune in New South Wales. There he accepted the most challenging role in the young colony: keeping the peace on the frontier.

Was ist das für ein Land, in dem sich fliegende Füchse tummeln und Schweinefußnasenbeutler einst ihr Unwesen trieben? In seinem ebenso amüsanten wie informativen Streifzug durch ein unbekanntes Australien erzählt Bill Bryson von den historischen Hintergründen der Entdeckung dieses faszinierenden Kontinents...

Over the course of five combat patrols during the Pacific War, Commander Fluckey reinvented submarine warfare, pioneering audacious strategies to hunt and sink Japanese warships and merchant vessels. At the helm of the USS Barb, he directed his boat to attack warship convoys - never mind the lop-sided odds - and to slip into heavily defended enemy harbors to launch torpedoes at unsuspecting targets.

Over 35,000 Australian soldiers and airmen are still listed as Missing in Action from the wars of the 20th century. Telling the moving story of the determination and skill of the searchers who apply old-fashioned detective work and cutting-edge science to solve the mysteries of the missing and bring peace of mind and solace to their families and to all those who serve, Where Soldiers Lie follows these investigators and scientists on their mission to locate and identify unrecovered war casualties and to unlock their secrets.

Bennelong and Phillip were leaders of their two sides in the first encounters between Britain and Indigenous Australians, Phillip the colony’s first governor, and Bennelong the Yiyura leader. The pair have come to represent the conflict that flared and has never settled. Fullagar’s account is also the first full biography of Bennelong of any kind and it challenges many misconceptions, among them that he became alienated from his people and that Phillip was a paragon of Enlightenment benevolence.

For nearly three decades, Dr Colin Manock was in charge of South Australia's forensic pathology services. In cases of unexpected or unexplained death, it was his job to determine when a person took their final breath, and whether they had died naturally - or not. But Manock did not have the necessary training for such a specialist role, and made serious errors in several major cases. The full extent of his wrongdoing, and the exact number of cases impacted by it, remain a mystery more than twenty-five years after he retired.

Rural and remote ambulance drivers and paramedics are a dedicated and gutsy bunch who work tirelessly to care for their communities, often in isolated and inhospitable conditions, with few resources but plenty of experience, courage and care. Ambos deal with it all: car crashes, delivering babies, snake bites, heart attacks, lost bushwalkers, drug overdoses—even the occasional crook camel. One thing they are never short of is a story or two to tell.

From Curio Bay in Southland to Totaranui in Golden Bay, this is both a provocative history and a vast expedition across the land once known as Middle Island, as Ansley visits the places and people who hold the clues to the South's famous character. Not so very long ago, the South Island had most of New Zealand's people and just about all of the money. Gold miners found fortunes in the hills and rivers, sheep barons bestrode mountains, valleys and plains. Wealthy southerners ruled the embryonic government. Where now lies the South Island's golden fleece? And what is its future?

Australia is a nation forged in the furnace of revival. Long forgotten, Australia’s Spirit-filled history comes to life in Great Southland Revival. Discover how the flame of Pentecost spread from the book of Acts all the way to the South Pacific. Journey on convict ships and city trams, to goldfields, outback communities and far-flung islands transformed by the gospel. Most of all, be inspired that God longs to revive the church, sweep multitudes into His kingdom, and renew our world once again.

Edward "Ned" Kelly (1854 -1880) was the last and most celebrated Australian bushranger (outlaw). After being implicated in the shooting of three policemen at Stringybark Creek in October, 1878, Kelly and his gang were declared by the Victorian government to be outlaws, and were the subjects of an extensive manhunt over the next two years.

The Buxtons are one of only a few families that were successful in the gold rush era and are still prominent today. They have survived and prospered through two world wars, two calamitous depressions, numerous recessions, and any number of political and economic crises. In The Buxtons, Peter Yule brings their story to life, tracing how this one family left a distinctive mark on Melbourne’s landscape.

Vegemite shares the fascinating tale of Cyril Callister, the man who invented what would become Australia's most beloved consumer product, along with the story of its rocky road to acceptance. Spanning the Gold Rush, the Depression and two world wars, it opens a window on the evolution of modern Australia. Vegemite is a great Australian story of overcoming the odds, and of how extraordinary things can happen to (almost) ordinary people.

In the relatively short history of colonial Australia, one event stands apart, both for its revolutionary spirit and its impact: The Eureka Rebellion of December 3, 1854. This was the only time in Australian history when a government was resisted by free subjects of the Crown in a violent conflict. It only took place in one colony, Victoria, but it was an important event in the evolution of the democratic government in Australia as a whole. The Eureka Rebellion analyzes the chain of events that led to the fighting and its lasting impact.

The stories and verses in this collection are not just anecdotes, racing history pieces, or rehashed feature articles from sports journalists; first and foremost they are good literature. The common thread running through the wonderful Australian short stories featured in this volume is the real Aussie character and passion for life that racing seems to bring out in our culture. There are tales of childhood dreams, great achievements, victory in adversity and also tales of tragedy and heartbreak. There are stories of crazy schemes and hilarious events that could only happen on an Australian racetrack.

New Zealand and the British Empire: The History of New Zealand under British Sovereignty analyzes the expeditions that discovered New Zealand and the early settlements and conflicts waged there from 1650 to 1850. You will learn about New Zealand under British sovereignty like never before.