Showing titles in Australia, New Zealand & Oceania

Chaplains of ANZAC: New Zealand's Fallen Chaplains of the Great War tells the story of seven New Zealand Expeditionary Force chaplains who served and died during the Great War. The beautiful collection of stories in this book tell the oft-overlooked tales of the chaplains who left New Zealand and served their god, king and country on foreign fields of battle. In all, over 140 chaplains served as part of the NZEF. This book contains the stories of seven of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

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.

What ever happened to good government? What are the signs of bad government? And can Malcolm Turnbull apply the lessons of the past in a very different world? In this crisp, profound, and witty essay, Laura Tingle seeks answers to these questions. She ranges from ancient Rome to the demoralised state of the once-great Australian public service, from the jingoism of the past to the tabloid scandals of the Internet age.

Blending narrative history, travelogue, and personal reminiscences, Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation is an engaging memoir as well as an insightful meditation on the realities of nation-making and international development.

Take a self-guided audio walk from Sydney's Circular Quay -- the spot where European Australia had its beginnings. The walk takes in the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera House and winds its way along Sydney Harbour into the Royal Botanic Gardens. It finishes at Mrs Macquarie's Chair, with views of Fort Denison, Garden Island and down harbour. As you enjoy spectacular views and iconic landmarks, you'll enjoy a breezy commentary on 200 years of Australian history.

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.

You and Me and Cancer Makes Three is a poetical journey about survival from cancer. An uplifting and enduring tale of his journey with cancer. John held his hands around his own mortality, yet leaves the clinic whole, with much more than he ever expected: he discovers the true meaning of friendship, redemption, and hope as told in his poetry.

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.

The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works?

Buraadja provides a powerful account of the Liberal Party’s approach to indigenous affairs. The party’s record of successes and failures is frankly evaluated as an important basis for developing effective approaches to persistent problems.

The most recent state to join the union, Hawaii is the only one to have once been a royal kingdom. After its discovery by Captain Cook in the late 18th century, Hawaii was fought over by European powers determined to take advantage of its position as the crossroads of the Pacific. The arrival of the first missionaries marked the beginning of the struggle between a native culture with its ancient gods, sexual libertinism, and rites of human sacrifice and the rigid values of the Calvinists.

Darwin longgrassers have been living large since the beginning. They come from all over the Territory to camp in the public spaces around town, to catch up with family and friends, attend health and legal matters, holiday and shop, and drink. Especially drink. And the whitefellas don’t like it. They think they’re noisy and dirty and rude. So, they try to move them on. For 150 years they’ve been trying to move them on. But the longgrassers won’t go. Yet beneath this running battle between the settled and the free lurks an undeniable truth about colonisation that is almost Newtonian in style.

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...

On August 25, 1895, Ernest Alfred Hall was born into a pioneering Australian family that lived on a 313-acre property called "Cloverdale" near the hamlet of Beech Forest, south of the Otway Ranges, some 200 kilometres south west of Melbourne, Victoria. As a child, it seemed he would be destined for the life of a farmer in a country that was just realising its independence through Federation, yet his path was to be diverted by the cataclysmic events that befell Europe and the British Empire.

If you think Australia’s history is straightforward, you’re dead wrong. This is a land of the strange, the spooky and the unexplained. From the eerie ball of light that stalked a terrified family across the Nullabor, to the whereabouts of Victoria’s parliamentary mace, to the unidentified body found propped up on an Adelaide beach, and, yes, to the whereabouts of Ned Kelly’s skull, you’ll find our history has plenty of mysterious twists and unanswered questions.

Going to war may be the gravest decision a nation and its leaders make. At the moment Australia is at war with the Islamic State. We also live in a region that has become much more volatile, as China asserts itself and America seeks to hold the line. What is it like to go to war? How do we decide to go to war? Where might we go to war in the future? Will we get that decision right?

Geologists have amassed data that indicate that islands have disappeared in the Pacific, a phenomenon that oral traditions of many groups of Pacific Islanders also highlight. This book explores the issue of vanished islands in the Pacific by bringing together the geology and the myths.

On 3 February 1967, despite public outrage and vocal protests from wide-ranging community groups, Ronald Ryan became the last person to be legally executed in Australia. Last Words is the human story behind this historical event that aims to answer some of the remaining unanswered questions, 50 years after his death. Ryan was found guilty of murdering prison officer George Hodson during an escape from Pentridge Prison with fellow inmate Peter Walker. But did Ryan really fire the bullet?

El 29 de febrero del año 2000, John Price pidió una orden de alejamiento contra su novia, Katherine Knight. Más tarde, ese mismo día, dijo a sus compañeros de trabajo que ella le había apuñalado y que si alguna vez desaparecía, era porque Knight le había matado. Come hombres, es el relato dramático y apasionante de la primera mujer en Australia condenada a cadena perpetua sin libertad condicional, con la adición especial de "nunca ser liberada". La fascinante narración de Ryan Green introduce al oyente en el horror real experimentado por la víctima.

Australia's contributions in the Pacific War are often forgotten in history lessons today. However, Australia faced the bombing of its cities and invasions of nearby islands much like the rest of the world, and stood up to fight as needed. They placed a central role from 1942 to 1943 in the New Guinea Campaign and defended Japanese forces invading Port Moseby. Japanese forces then invaded the Australian mainland, trying to cut supply lines, but were fought back by valiant forces. Take to the ground and skies during this mix of intense land and air battles.