Australian History

Most of us take for granted the features of our modern society, from air travel and telecommunications to literacy and obesity. Yet for nearly all of its six million years of existence, human society had none of these things. While the gulf that divides us from our primitive ancestors may seem unbridgeably wide, we can glimpse much of our former lifestyle in those largely traditional societies still or recently in existence.

Jagged Waters is the third book in the Southern Skyes family saga, carving some exciting new names on the family tree. Spicy Irish miss, Mariah Malone, is a young convict unjustly condemned to New South Wales, Australia, to serve her sentence for life. During the transport, her ship encounters a frightening, rocky demise, and the handful of survivors are washed up on King Island to await rescue. It is during this time of uncertainty and fear, Mariah’s knowledge of the entrancing surroundings—both land and sea—of this Australian island and beyond stimulates her ever-tumbling thoughts. ...

According to the Australian government’s website, at the time of first contact with Europeans, there were some 500 distinct Indigenous nations, speaking different languages and following their own religious and cultural practices. As with all human societies, that of the Indigenous Australians is abounding in stories. Stories of how the world came to be the way it is, stories of heroism and perfidy, stories about animals and birds, and stories about love and hate all have parts to play in the wide array of myths, legends, and tales created by Indigenous Australians.

On May 13, 1945, 24 American servicemen and WACs boarded a transport plane for a sightseeing trip over “Shangri-La,” a beautiful and mysterious valley deep within the jungle-covered mountains of Dutch New Guinea. Unlike the peaceful Tibetan monks of James Hilton’s best-selling novel Lost Horizon, this Shangri-La was home to spear-carrying tribesmen, warriors rumored to be cannibals. But the pleasure tour became an unforgettable battle for survival when the plane crashed. Miraculously, three passengers pulled through.

Perched on the edge of The Great Barrier Reef, the city of Mackay is often thought of as being a sweet, peaceful little place that is the perfect place to grow up and raise a family. We have beaches, we have rainforests, we have mountains and cane fields- and we have a very low crime rate compared to most other places. It is hard to imagine that somewhere this perfect and new that is usually drenched in sunlight could ave a dark history, but that's not true. like every other city in the world, unspeakable things have happened here and those dark spots in our past have cast cold shadows over...

The Irish-American story, with all its twists and triumphs, is told through the improbable life of one man. A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony. He escaped and six months later was heralded in the streets of New York - the revolutionary hero, back from the dead, at the dawn of the great Irish immigration to America.

From the authors of the New York Times best-selling The Heart of Everything That Is and Halsey's Typhoon comes the dramatic untold story of a daredevil bomber pilot and his misfit crew who fly their lone B-17 into the teeth of the Japanese Empire in 1943, engage in the longest dogfight in history, and change the momentum of the war in the Pacific - but not without making the ultimate sacrifice.

America's first frontier was not the West; it was the sea, and no one writes more eloquently about that watery wilderness than Nathaniel Philbrick. In his best-selling In the Heart of the Sea, Philbrick probed the nightmarish dangers of the vast Pacific. Now, in an epic sea adventure, he writes about one of the most ambitious voyages of discovery the Western world has ever seen - the US Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842.

They called her Red Jack, for her hair was as bright as an outback sunset, hanging to her waist from beneath a stained cattleman’s hat. On her jet-black stallion, Mephistopheles, she roved the north in the 1880s and 90s. Where did she come from, and where did she go? No one knows for sure, but the mystery lives on. The Ragged Thirteen were a band of thirteen larrikins who put their stamp on Australian folklore with their devil-may-care journey across the wild Northern Australian frontier. They were not bushrangers, but were certainly inclined to bend the law. This fictional account is ...

In 1858, a ship destined for the goldfields of Australia is wrecked on a reef on the outer quarter of the Solomon Islands. What happens next is a tale of courage, resilience, and adventure that will have one man questioning all that he thought he knew. A bold decision to change the route of the Elizabeth May ends in tragedy when the ship is wrecked near Heron Island. Many of the crew and the 300 Chinese laborers onboard perish and for the stricken survivors, the future looks dire. After a series of calamitous events, a longboat carrying the captain, a few crew members, and young Matt Jones ...

The happy, tranquil, traditional way of life on the remote, little Scottish island of Skran far out in the Firth of Clyde is threatened with unwanted upheaval along with an environmental disaster by big business. Can Bonnie and Clive Sutherland help prevent it or will money speak. Drams, Jams and Scams follows on from where our previous book Daydream Believers left off. Drams are the moonshine peatreek that is illicitly distilled on the island, that they are continually being offered. The jams are what they get into when they encounter tight spots; including ghosts, a mysterious station ...

New Zealand was the last country in the world to be discovered and settled by humankind. It was also the first to introduce full democracy. Between those events, and in the century that followed, the movements and conflicts of human history have been played out more intensively and more rapidly in New Zealand than anywhere else on Earth.

"We are the people our parents warned us about" is the motto of the Bandidos, one of the world's most feared outlaw motorcycle gangs. For ten years, Steve Utah was a Bandidos insider. He arranged the security of their clubhouses. He 'cooked' ecstasy and ice for them. He was at meetings where interstate and overseas drug and weapons smuggling was planned. He saw stolen military weapons being sold. He witnessed vicious beatings, helped dump corpses.It all became too much and, in an attempt to regain control of his life, Utah resorted to the unthinkable....

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.

An unravelling silken scarf … mysterious gold … a breathtaking romance. Emotional and unforgettable. Melita Van Der Meeliko’s swimwear is starting to make waves in the industry. Hoping to ride the success, she’s determined to open her own boutique/teahouse. A chance find of a derelict building might be the solution—and she wants Luke Harvey to do the renovations. Shaking off her feelings for him is another challenge altogether. Down-to-earth tradesman Luke Harvey has dreams of his own, determined to be a leader in sustainable green buildings. When Melita offers him the chance to ...

Drawing on interviews, official records, private archives, and his own family history, Jason M. Colby tells the exhilarating and often heartbreaking story of how people came to love the ocean's greatest predator.

An alphabetical exploration of the people, geography, animals, plants, history, and culture of New Zealand.

The Southern Skyes Series: Two brothers are separated by circumstance, their descendants by choice. In centuries-old Australia, familial roots of siblings and societies feed the beasts of prejudice, misfortune, and disproportionate wealth. What will the fruits be? ~~~ Southern Cross Rising In this the fifth book of the Southern Skyes series, the era is ripe for historic battles, during a time spanning the Boer Wars, Australian federation, women’s suffrage, and World War I. Among those warriors for progress are members of the Skye and McCabe families, not just on the battlefield, but in ...

Dive into the captivating realm of The Legends and Myths of Hawaii, where the mystical allure of the Pacific islands comes alive through the mesmerizing fables and folk-lore shared by none other than the esteemed King David Kalakaua. Prepare to be transported to a time when oral traditions were the heart of Hawaiian culture, as the illustrious monarch weaves a tapestry of enchanting stories that have been cherished for generations.

Embark on an extraordinary visual journey through the stunning artistic heritage of Australia and Oceania with "Vibrant Australia and Oceania"! This captivating eBook unveils the rich, diverse, and inspiring world of art from these fascinating regions. Allow yourself to be immersed in the intricate tapestry of traditional Oceanian art and the indigenous roots of Australian artistic expressions as you navigate each chapter. Discover the stories held within each stroke of a masterpiece as you explore remarkable art forms, from the complex patterns of Maori culture to the captivating beauty of...