Australian History

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming a harsh, foreboding penal colony into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and businesspeople.

The accounts in the contents of my father’s diaries expose the raw truth about the sacrifices, trauma, and the intense drive that drove our soldiers to fight and to win World War II. My father realized our God-given freedoms were being threatened and in harm’s way. I’ve heard him say: “There was a mission at hand and any sacrifices I made were all worth the fight to save this country from all the evil that was trying to overtake us.” He was also very explicit about how he felt toward those enemies. Some excerpts and entries in his diaries and letters are not politically correct. I...

John Ibrahim's incredible life story told in his own words. Last King of the Cross lays bare Australia's most notorious underworld figure. In the mongrel tongue of the streets, John writes of fleeing war-torn Tripoli with his family and growing up in Sydney's rough and tumble west - before establishing himself as a tough guy and teen delinquent, then a bouncer, enforcer and nightclub king on the Golden Mile.

Taking us from the suburbs of Western Sydney and Australia's military army bases, to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, this is a remarkable audiobook that reveals the as-yet untold story of the battle for Mosul and the secret involvement of Australians on both sides of the war - both our commandos and Australian ISIS fighters. Mosul details the rise of ISIS influence in Australia, the Iran and Australia allegiance to fight Daesh and shows what led up to the battle and the ramifications that are still being felt at home - by our soldiers and the victims of that war.

A few years ago Anna Clark saw a series of paintings on a sandstone cliff face in the Northern Territory. There were characteristic crosshatched images of fat barramundi and turtles, as well as sprayed handprints and several human figures with spears. Next to them was a long gun, painted with white ochre, an unmistakable image of the colonisers. Was this an Indigenous rendering of contact? A work of history?

A unique collection of poignant, horrific, sad and sometimes dryly humorous stories and yarns from the bloody battlefield of Gallipoli. This is not a history, nor is it an individual soldier's story. Rather Jim Haynes has done what he does so well and pulled together the many yarns and stories and verses written about Gallipoli - everything from the firsthand accounts of being recruited to memories of ordinary soldiers written from the trenches and accounts of the aftermath.

In 1769, Captain James Cook’s historic expedition in the region would lead to an English claim on Australia, but before he reached Australia, he sailed near New Zealand and spent weeks mapping part of New Zealand’s coast. Thus, he was also one of the first to observe and take note of the indigenous peoples of the two islands.

Severine Kassel is asked by the Louvre in 1963 to aid the British Museum with curating its antique jewellery, her speciality. Her London colleagues find her distant and mysterious, her cool beauty the topic of conversations around its quiet halls. No one could imagine that she is a desperately damaged woman, hiding her trauma behind her chic French image. It is only when some dramatic Byzantine pearls are loaned to the museum that Severine's poise is dashed and the tightly controlled life she's built around herself is shattered....

The history books are full of heroes and villains… but what about all the idiots? Comedian and armchair historian Mikey Robins tells the astonishing story of human stupidity, one idiot at a time. Idiots, Follies and Misadventures shows that human stupidity has always been our constant companion. History tends to omit tales of human fallibility. We overlook the dubious and ridiculous contributions made by history’s tawdry parade of knuckleheads. But this book is a call to arms … Knuckleheads Assemble! And once assembled, prepare to be mocked.

Have you ever wondered about the origin of the terrifying Wendigo? How about the Philippine shape-shifting vampire? What about the Māori forest spirits? Join award winning podcaster and researcher Kamuela Kaneshiro as he takes you on a thrilling trip through Asia, the Americas, and other fascinating cultures touching the Pacific Ocean. And as you marvel at this captivating assortment of deities, monsters, and historical backdrops, you’re sure to have your imagination sparked by the wonders of the world.

Inside Cardboard Box 39 at the South Australian Museum’s storage facility lies the forgotten skull of an Aboriginal man who died 85 years before. His misspelled name is etched on the crown, but the many bones in boxes around him remain unidentified. Who was Yokununna, and how did he die? His story reveals the layered, exploitative White Australian mindset that has long rendered Aboriginal reality all but invisible.

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the American experiment is failing. Division, mistrust and misinformation are now its defining characteristics. The storming of the Capitol, the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the increasing spotlight on Second Amendment rights raise the spectre of further political violence, and even the possibility of a second civil war.

Atop the hierarchy of Australian bushrangers sits Ned Kelly–the ultimate outlaw–and just below him, the tragic figure of Ben Hall, who joined a gang led by a man whose name today is less well known, but in his time was much more famous than any other: Frank Gardiner. Mastermind of the largest gold robbery in Australia’s history, Gardiner led an extraordinary life, the full telling of which is long overdue. In a tough country and among a group of tough men, Gardiner was the toughest of them all.

Available once again for a new generation, the first volume in Arthur Ashe’s epic trilogy that chronicles the remarkable legacy of Black athletes in the United States—a major addition to our understanding of American history and the fulfillment of this legendary sports star and global activist’s lifelong dream.

When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the British asked Australia for help. With some misgivings, the Australian government sent five destroyers to beef up the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. HMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen were old ships, small with worn-out engines. Their crews used to joke they were held together by string and chewing gum; when the Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels heard of them, he sneered that they were a load of scrap iron.

The story of the clipper ships, and the tens of thousands of migrants they brought to the Australian colony of the 19th century, is one of the world's great migration stories. For anyone who travelled to Australia before 1850, it was a long and arduous journey that could take as much as four months. With the arrival of the clipper ships, and favourable winds, the journey from England could be done in a little over half this time.

For months during 1943 there was no night in Hellfire Pass. By the light of flares, carbide lamps and bamboo fires, men near-naked and skeletal cut a passage through stone to make way for a railway. Among these men were some of the 22,000 Australian soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. In camps across Asia and the Pacific, they struggled, died, and survived with a little help from their mates.

From his early life as an up-and coming AFL player to his tours of duty in Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan and his final battle in the dusty Ghawcha village in the Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan - the powerful biography of Cameron Baird, VC, MG, one of Australia's most decorated modern soldiers.

In December 1932, as the Depression tightened its grip, the body of a woman was found in Queens Park, Sydney. It was a popular park. There were houses in plain view. Yet this woman had been violently murdered without anyone noticing. Other equally brutal and shocking murders of women in public places were to follow. Australia's first serial killer was at large.

The Hawaiian kingdom existed for about a century, from the early 1790s to 1893, starting when King Kamehameha finally united the islands and lasting until American planters and businessmen staged a coup and forced Queen Lili’uokulani to abdicate. During the century of its existence, the kingdom offered its native peoples considerable protection. For example, in the later 1800s, several thousands of Pacific islanders were, in effect, kidnapped and forced to serve as indentured laborers in places like the Guano Islands in Peru and plantations in Queensland.