Showing titles in Australia, New Zealand & Oceania

On the thirtieth anniversary of John Howard coming to power, a searing analysis of the untouchable prime minister: how the ‘great economic manager’ sold our future. John Howard is often revered as one of the great Australian prime ministers (1996–2007): economically prudent, politically...

Three women from very different backgrounds, bound by friendship, separated by destiny It was impossible, but in full view of the church, the Governor and wedding guests ... The bride had vanished. Some girls are born to be loved, some are born to be useful. Some girls are born to be bad...

From its earliest days as an uncertain experiment in the 1950s, the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) has grown into one of the most respected – and sometimes most controversial – military formations in the world. Headquartered at Campbell Barracks in Perth, this small regiment has carried Australia’s banner into jungles, deserts, mountains, and cities across the globe, carving a reputation for daring, precision, and relentless adaptability.

'The sun did not know how beautiful its light was until it was reflected off this building.' - Louis Kahn, US architect If only these walls and this land could talk ... The Sydney Opera House is a breathtaking building, recognised around the world as a symbol of modern Australia. Along with the...

The first comprehensive biography of the godfather of Australian bushranging – Frank Gardiner – leader of the Lachlan gang and mastermind of the largest gold heist in Australian history. Atop the hierarchy of Australian bushrangers sits Ned Kelly – the ultimate outlaw – and just below...

In 1982, Sally Morgan travelled back to her grandmother's birthplace. What started as a tentative search for information about her family, turned into an overwhelming emotional and spiritual pilgrimage. My Place is a moving account of a search for truth into which a whole family is gradually drawn, finally freeing the tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.

In March 1945 Reg Cleworth, a navigator on PBY Catalina seaplanes flying out of Darwin, went missing in action. No details were ever given about the incident that took his life, nor the reason his plane went down. For Reg’s younger brother, Robert, the news came as a prophecy fulfilled. The last time they saw each other, Reg confided in Robert, ‘I don’t think I’m coming back’.

Celebrated historian Diana Preston presents betrayals, escapes, and survival at sea in her account of the mutiny of the Bounty and the flight of convicts from the Australian penal colony. The story of the mutiny of the Bounty and William Bligh and his men's survival on the open ocean for 48 days and 3,618 miles has become the stuff of legend. But few realize that Bligh's escape across the seas was not the only open-boat journey in that era of British exploration and colonization.

Millions have been entertained by the viral video of a man being arrested after a ‘succulent Chinese meal’. But when Mark Dapin investigated, it emerged that this man's story went to the heart of the Australian underworld. A true crime cult classic in the making. Whether you know it as the...

After a lifetime of research and debate on Australian and international history, Geoffrey Blainey is well-placed to introduce us to the people who have played a part and to guide us through the events which have created the Australian identity: the mania for spectator sport, the suspicion of the tall poppy, the rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, Sydney and Melbourne, new and old homelands, the conflicts of war abroad and race at home, the importance of technology, the recognition of our Aboriginal past and Native Title.

Two husbands, four trials and one bloody execution: Winner of the 2015 Davitt Award for Best Crime Book (Non-fiction) -- the terrible true story of Louisa Collins. In January 1889, Louisa Collins, a 41-year-old mother of ten children, became the first woman hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol and the...

Wearing the colour red and having the patch with the emblem of the mighty bulldog on your back was what ex-Mongrel Mob leader Tuhoe 'Bruno' Isaac called being True Red. "Because all levels of society hated us we created a new society of hatred symbolised by the bulldog. Its ferocious habits were engraved on our hearts", Tuhoe says, "If you weren't a mobster you weren't worth knowing." He lived this way for 17 years. However, constantly living for the bash, beer, prison and the possibility of dying in a pool of blood eventually saw Tuhoe search for another way of doing life.

The Second Battle of Krithia has existed largely in the shadows of the bigger Gallipoli story. It is, however, one of the most poignant and tragic tales of World War I. The fascinating story has been brought to light at last by bestselling military historian Mat McLachlan, author of The Cowra Breakout.

Drawing on hundreds of accounts by soldiers, politicians, aid workers, entertainers and the Vietnamese people, Paul Ham reconstructs for the first time the full history of our longest military campaign. From the commitment to engage, through the fight over conscription and the rise of the anti - war movement, to the tactics and horror of the battlefi eld, Ham exhumes the truth about this politicians' war - which sealed the fate of 50,000 Australian servicemen and women.

Australia's greatest escape stories from two world wars Australia’s Greatest Escapes is a collection of stories about the most hazardous aspect of the prisoner of war experience – escape. Here is all the adventure, suspense and courage of ordinary Australians who defied their captors; men...

There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway. At dawn of June 4, 1942, a rampaging Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. By sunset, their vaunted carrier force (the Kido Butai) had been sunk and their grip on the Pacific had been loosened forever. In this absolutely riveting account of a key moment in the history of World War II, one of America's leading naval historians, Craig L. Symonds, paints an unforgettable portrait of ingenuity, courage, and sacrifice.

This is a richly detailed saga of politics and power in the colonial world – of land seized, fortunes made and lost, and the violence let loose as squatters and their allies fought for possession of the country – a war still unresolved in today's Australia.

In the history of Australian diplomacy, the Jakarta post between 2004 and 2007 looms larger than any other. In the span of just a few years, a terrorist bomb attack partially destroyed the Embassy compound, killing eleven; the Boxing Day tsunami wreaked havoc on an almost incomprehensible scale; a bombing in Bali killed twenty, including four Australians; Schapelle Corby divided public opinion; members of the Bali Nine were executed; and a Garuda flight crashed and exploded in Yogyakarta, killing twenty, including members of the Australian diplomatic corps.

Auckland Island is a godforsaken place in the middle of the Southern Ocean, 285 miles south of New Zealand. With year-round freezing rain and howling winds, it is one of the most forbidding places in the world. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death. In 1864, Captain Thomas Musgrave and his crew of four aboard the schooner Grafton wreck on the southern end of the island. Utterly alone in a dense coastal forest, plagued by stinging blowflies and relentless rain, Captain Musgrave inspires his men to take action.

In 1858, 14-year-old Narcisse Pelletier sailed from Marseilles in the French trader Saint-Paul. With a cargo of Bordeaux wine, they stopped in Bombay, then Hong Kong, and from there they set sail with more than 300 Chinese prospectors bound for the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo. Around the...