Return to Uluru by Mark McKenna

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

A killing. A hidden history. A story that goes to the heart of the nation. When Mark McKenna set out to write a history of the centre of Australia, he had no idea what he would discover. One event in 1934 - the shooting at Uluru of Aboriginal man Yokunnuna by white policeman Bill McKinnon, and subseque nt Commonwealth inquiry - stood out as a mirror of racial politics in the Northern Territory at the time. But then, through speaking with the families of both killer and victim, McKenna unearthed new evidence that transformed the historical record and the meaning of the event for today. As he explains, 'Every thread of the story connected to the present in surprising ways.' In a sequence of powerful revelations, McKenna explores what truth-telling and reconciliation look like in practice. Return to Uluru brings a cold case to life. It speaks directly to the Black Lives Matter movement, but is completely Australian. Recalling Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man, it is superbly written, moving, and full of astonishing, unexpected twists. Ultimately it is a story of recognition and return, which goes to the very heart of the country. At the centre of it all is Uluru, the sacred site where paths fatefully converged. 'Mark McKenna has exposed the wounded heart of Australia. Never has a history of our country so assumed the power of sacred myth. Return to Uluru is a spellbinding story of death and resurrection that is Australian to its core.' --James Boyce 'Mark McKenna sets the highest standard for truth-telling of the kind that Australians so urgently need if they are to live in this country with honour. I feel sure that this book will become an Australian classic, not the first of its kind, but certainly the most powerful narrative I have read of frontier injustice and its resonance in our lives today.' --Marcia Langton ...Show more

Lost Boys of Mr Dickens: How the British Empire turned artful dodgers into child killers by Steve Harris

$34.95 AUD

Category: History | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

This is the gripping real-life story of two young boys in the 19 th century sent by the British Government as impoverished and unwanted juveniles to exile to Van Diemen's Land in the world's first prison built exclusively for children. Prejudice, moral panic, harsh justice and expedience saw unwanted bo ys condemned to severe isolation, solitary confinement, hard labour in chains and thrashings in a juvenile version of notorious Port Arthur, a ground-breaking chapter in the history of juvenile crime and punishment. Some quietly endured in the hope of salvation through rudimentary trade and Biblical instruction, but others became relentlessly defiant and mutinous in a brotherhood of resistance and bullying, inexorably slipping from hope to hell. Engrossing as a novel, this story of the death of childhood in the cradle of the world's mightiest empire, and the atmospheric tale of crime and punishment leading to a sensational murder trial is from another time but implicitly raises questions which remain with us today. ...Show more

Stalin's Wine Cellar by John Baker

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

In the late 1990s, John Baker was known as a purveyor of quality rare and old wines. Always entrepreneurial and up for adventure, John was the perfect person for an occasional business partner, Andrew Simon, to approach with a mysterious wine list that was foreign to anything John, or his second-in-comm and, Kevin Hopko, had ever come across. The list was discovered to be a comprehensive catalogue of the wine collection of Nicholas II, the last Czar of Russia. The wine had become the property of the state after the Russian Revolution of 1918, during which Nicholas and his entire family were executed. Now owned by Stalin, the wine was discretely removed to a remote Georgian winery when Stalin was concerned the advancing Nazi army might overrun Russia, and inevitably loot artefacts and treasures. Half a century later, the wine was rumoured to be hidden underground and off any known map. John and Kevin embarked on an audacious, colourful and potentially dangerous journey to Georgia to discover if the wines actually existed; if the bottles were authentic and whether the entire collection could be bought and transported to a major London auction house for sale. Stalin's Wine Cellar is a wild, sometimes rough ride in the glamorous world of high end wine. The cast of characters include Stalin, Hitler, Czar Nicholas II and a motley bunch of Georgian businessmen/cowboys toting handguns, in the early days of Russian business development that led to the world of Putin and oligarchs.   ...Show more

What Ever Happened to Ned Kelly's Head? by Eamon Evans

$29.99 AUD

Category: History

Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World (PB) by Simon Winchester

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

From the bestselling author Simon Winchester, a human history of land around the world: who mapped it, owned it, stole it, cared for it, fought for it and gave it back. The ownership of land has always been complicated, opaque, and more than a little anarchic when viewed from the outside. In this book, Simon Winchester explores the the stewardship of land, the ways it is delineated and changes hands, the great disputes, and the questions of restoration – particularly in the light of climate change and colonialist reparation. A global study, this is an exquisite exploration of what the ownership of land might really mean – not in dry-as-dust legal terms, but for the people who live on it. ...Show more

Truth Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement by Henry Reynolds

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

If we are to take seriously the need for telling the truth about our history, we must start at first principles. What if the sovereignty of the First Nations was recognised by European international law in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? What if the audacious British annexation of a whole conti nent was not seen as acceptable at the time and the colonial office in Britain understood that 'peaceful settlement' was a fiction? If the 1901 parliament did not have control of the whole continent, particularly the North, by what right could the new nation claim it? The historical record shows that the argument of the Uluru Statement from the Heart is stronger than many people imagine and the centuries-long legal position about British claims to the land far less imposing than it appears. In Truth-Telling, influential historian Henry Reynolds pulls the rug from legal and historical assumptions, with his usual sharp eye and rigour, in a book that's about the present as much as the past. His work shows exactly why our national war memorial must acknowledge the frontier wars, why we must change the date of our national day, and why treaties are important. Most of all, it makes urgently clear that the Uluru Statement is no rhetorical flourish but carries the weight of history and law and gives us a map for the future.   ...Show more

Veni, Vidi, Vici: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Romans but Were Afraid to Ask by Peter Jones; James Nightingale (Editor)

$22.99 AUD

Category: History

The Romans left a long-lasting legacy and their influence can still be seen all around us, from our calendar and coins to our language and laws, but how much do we really know about them? Help is at hand in the form of this bookwhich tells the remarkable, and often surprising, story of the Romans and th e most enduring empire in history. Fusing a lively and entertaining narrative with rigorous research, Veni, Vidi, Vici breaks down each major period into a series of concise nuggets that provide a fascinating commentary on every aspect of the Roman world, from plebs to personalities, sauces to sexuality, games to gladiators, poets to punishments, mosaics to medicine, and Catullus to Christianity. ...Show more

The Unfinished Palazzo: Life, Love and Art in Venice by Judith Mackrell

$29.99 AUD

Category: History

Abandoned unfinished and left to rot on Venice's Grand Canal, 'il palazzo non finito' was once an unloved guest among the aristocrats of Venetian architecture. Yet in the 20th century it played host to three passionate and unconventional women who would take the city by storm. The staggeringly wealthy M archesa Luisa Casati made her new home a belle epoque aesthete's fantasy and herself a living work of art; notorious British socialite Doris Castlerosse (née Delevingne) welcomed film stars and royalty to glittering parties between the wars; and American heiress Peggy Guggenheim amassed an exquisite collection of modern art, which today draws visitors from around the world. Each in turn used the Unfinished Palazzo as a stage on which to re-fashion her life, with a dazzling supporting cast ranging from D'Annunzio and Nijinsky, through Noël Coward, Winston Churchill and Cecil Beaton, to Yoko Ono. Individually sensational and collectively remarkable, these stories of modern Venice tell us much about the ways women chose to live in the 20th century. ...Show more

Moonlite: The Tragic Love Story of Captain Moonlite and the Bloody End of the Bushrangers by Garry Linnell

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

Charismatic, intelligent and handsome, George Scott is unlike any other bushranger. Born into a privileged life in famine-wracked Ireland, Scott's family loses its fortune and is forced to flee to New Zealand. There, Scott joins the local militia and fights as a soldier against the Maori in the brutal N ew Zealand wars. After recovering from a series of serious gunshot wounds, he sails to Australia and becomes a Lay Preacher, captivating churchgoers with his fiery and inspiring sermons. But Scott is also prone to bursts of madness. The local villagers back in Ireland often whispered that a 'wild drop' ran in the blood of the Scott family. One night he dons a mask in a small country town, arms himself with a gun and, dubbing himself Captain Moonlite, brazenly robs a bank before staging one of the country's most audacious jailbreaks. After falling in love with fellow prisoner James Nesbitt, a boyish petty criminal desperately searching for a father figure, Scott finds himself unable to shrug off his criminal past. Pursued and harassed by the police, he stages a dramatic siege and prepares for a final showdown with the law - and a macabre executioner without a nose. Meticulously researched and drawing on previously unpublished material, Moonlite is a brilliant work of non-fiction that reads like a novel. Told at a cracking pace, and based on many of the extensive letters Scott wrote from his death cell, Moonlite is set amid the violent and sexually-repressed era of Australia in the second half of the 19th century. With a cast of remarkable characters, it weaves together the extraordinary lives of our bushrangers and the desperation of a young nation eager to remove the stains of its convict past. But most of all, Moonlite is a tragic love story. For these are the dying days of the bushrangers and Captain Moonlite is about to make his last stand. ...Show more

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe

$19.99 AUD

Category: History

Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required. ...Show more

The Shortest History of China by Linda Jaivin

$24.99 AUD

Category: History

A pacy history of China that can be read in an afternoon, but will transform your perspective for a lifetime. From kung-fu to tofu, tea to trade routes, sages to silk, China has influenced cuisine, commerce, military strategy, aesthetics and philosophy across the world for thousands of years. Chinese hi story is sprawling and gloriously messy. It is full of heroes who are also villains, prosperous ages and violent rebellions, cultural vibrancy and censorious impulses, rebels, loyalists, dissidents and wits. The story of women in China, from the earliest warriors to twentieth-century suffragettes, is rarely told. And historical spectres of corruption and disunity, which have brought down many a glorious ruling house, continue to haunt the People's Republic of China today. Modern China is seen variously as an economic powerhouse, an icon of urbanisation, a propaganda state and an aggressive superpower seeking world domination. China expert Linda Jaivin distils a vast history into a short, readable account that tells you what you need to know about the Middle Kingdom, from its philosophical origins to its political system, to the COVID-19 pandemic and where China is likely to lead the world. ...Show more

The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia by Geoffrey Blainey

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

The vast continent of Australia was settled in two main streams, far apart in time and origin. The first came ashore some 50,000 years ago when the islands of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea were one. The second began to arrive from Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. Each had to come to te rms with the land they found, and each had to make sense of the other. The long Aboriginal occupation of Australia witnessed spectacular changes. The rising of the seas isolated the continent and preserved a nomadic way of life, while agriculture was revolutionising other parts of the world. Over millennia, the Aboriginal people mastered the land's climates, seasons and resources. Traditional Aboriginal life came under threat the moment Europeans crossed the world to plant a new society in an unknown land. That land in turn rewarded, tricked, tantalised and often defeated the new arrivals. The meeting of the two cultures is one of the most difficult and complex meetings in recorded history. In this book Professor Geoffrey Blainey returns first to the subject of his celebrated works on Australian history, Triumph of the Nomads (1975) and A Land Half Won (1980), retelling the story of our history up until 1850 in light of the latest research. He has changed his view about vital aspects of the Indigenous and early British history of this land, and looked at other aspects for the first time. Compelling, groundbreaking and brilliantly readable, The Story of Australia's People- The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia is the first instalment of an ambitious two-part work, and the culmination of the lifework of Australia's most prolific and wide-ranging historian. 'Absorbing and important ... the first volume of an ambitious work on the peopling of this continent from its human origins to our own day...bold, rich, wise, authioritative and questioning.' Peter Stanley, The Age 'The Story of Australia's People- The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia situates pre-invasion Aboriginal society as a triumphant culture with much to celebrate.' John Maynard, The Age 'Blainey has produced a book that all Australians could and, dare I say it, should read . . . I very much look forward to the next instalment of his bold, rich, wise, wry, authoritative and questioning trilogy.' Canberra Times 'This is the real story of Australia, at last.' Courier Mail 'Blainey delivers a brilliant narrative on Australia's settlement.' Australian Geographic ...Show more