- Table View
- List View
The Making of the Aborigines
by Bain AttwoodBefore 1788, the peoples of this continent did not consider themselves 'Aboriginal'. They only became 'Aborigines' in the wake of the British invasion. In this startling and original study, Bain Attwood reveals how relationships between black Australians and European colonisers determined the hearts and minds of the indigenous peoples, making them anew as Aboriginals.In examining the period after the 'killing times', this young historian provides new perspectives on racial ideology, government policy, and the rule of law. In examining European domination, he unravels the patterns of associations which were woven between European and Aborigine, and shows the complex meanings and significance these relationships held for both groups.In this book, the dispossessed are not cast as merely passive victims; they appear as real characters, men and women who adapted to European colonisation in accordance with their own historical and cultural experience. Out of this exchange the colonised created a new consciousness and began to forge a common identity for themselves.A story of cultural change and continuity both poignant and disturbing in its telling, this important book is sure to provoke controversy about what it means to be Aboriginal.'This intelligent and impeccably researched book seeks to advance our understanding of the story of white/Aboriginal contact. It will be required reading for anyone working in the field.' - Henry Reynolds'Colonisation is both destructive and creative of peoples. Recent historians have revealed the extensive destruction of black Australians and their cultures. But now Bain Attwood, in this finely crafted and highly original series of case studies. plots the complex human relations and historical forces that re-made these indigenous people into the Aborigines.' - Richard Broome
A Question of Commitment: Australian literature in the twenty years after the war
by Susan LeverIn the years since the Second World War, Australia has seen a period of literary creativity which outshines any earlier period in the nation's literary history. This creativity has its beginnings in the arguments and alignments which emerged at the end of the War, and the changes in perceptions of art and society which occurred during the fifties and early sixties.A Question of Commitment examines the attitudes of writers as diverse as James McAuley, Frank Hardy, Judith Wright, Patrick White and A. D. Hope, as they responded to a changing Australian society during the postwar years. Through their work and that of many others, it considers the debates about literary nationalism, the artistic politics of the Cold War, the threat of technology to art in the Atomic Age, and the nature of the writer's role in the new society. It documents the way in which the political commitments of some writers and the resistance to commitment of others were challenged by political and social changes of the late fifties.Susan McKernan's lively exploration of Australia's writers in a time of innovation provides the reader with the context needed to understand the creative choices they made and, in so doing, introduces wider intellectual and cultural issues which remain relevant to this day.
My Place for Younger Readers: My Place For Young Readers - Part 3
by Sally MorganSince its publication in 1987, Sally Morgan's My Place has sold more than half a million copies in Australia, been translated and read all over the world, and been reprinted dozens of times. Sally's rich, zesty and moving work is perhaps the best loved biography of Aboriginal Australia ever written. My Place for Younger Readers is an abridged edition that retains all the charm and power of the original.
One for the Road: An Outback Adventure
by Tony Horwitz"A high-spirited, comic ramble into the savage Outback populated by irreverent, beer-guzzling frontiersmen." --Chicago Tribune"A fascinating insight into what we're all about on the highways and byways along the outback track." --The Telegraph (Sydney)Swept off to live in Sydney by his Australian bride, American writer Tony Horwitz longs to explore the exotic reaches of his adopted land. So one day, armed only with a backpack and fantasies of the open road, he hitchhikes off into the awesome emptiness of Australia's outback. What follows is a hilarious, hair-raising ride into the hot red center of a continent so desolate that civilization dwindles to a gas pump and a pub. While the outback's terrain is inhospitable, its scattered inhabitants are anything but. Horwitz entrusts himself to Aborigines, opal diggers, jackeroos, card sharks, and sunstruck wanderers who measure distance in the number of beers consumed en route. Along the way, Horwitz discovers that the outback is as treacherous as it is colorful. Bug-bitten, sunblasted, dust-choked, and bloodied by a near-fatal accident, Horwitz endures seven thousand miles of the world's most forbidding real estate, and some very bizarre personal encounters, as he winds his way to Queensland, Alice Springs, Perth, Darwin--and a hundred bush pubs in between. Horwitz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of two national bestsellers, Confederates in the Attic and Baghdad Without a Map, is the ideal tour guide for anyone who has ever dreamed of a genuine Australian adventure."Lively, fast-paced and amusing . . . a consistently interesting and entertaining account." --Kirkus Reviews"Ironical, perceptive and subtle . . . will have readers getting out their maps and itching to follow Horwitz's tracks. . . . The internal journey is his finest achievement; he allows the reader into his heart, to go travelling with him there, sharing his adventures of the spirit." --Sunday Times (London)From the Trade Paperback edition.
The Songlines (Picador Bks.)
by Bruce ChatwinBruce Chatwin, author of In Patagonia, ventures into the desolate land of Outback Australia to learn the meaning of the Aboriginals' ancient "Dreaming-tracks." Along these timeless paths, amongst the fortune hunters and redneck Australians, racist policemen and mysterious Aboriginal holy men, he discovers a wondrous vision of man's place in the world. A blend of travelogue, memoir, history, philosophy, science, meditation, and commonplace book... Chatwin's astonishing style captures the metamorphoses of his own 'Walkabout' He takes the travel genre beyond exoticism and the simple picturesque into the metaphysical.
Whale Rider
by Witi IhimaeraEight-year-old Kahu, a member of the Maori tribe of Whangara, New Zealand, fights to prove her love, her leadership, and her destiny. Her people claim descent from Kahutia Te Rangi, the legendary "whale rider." In every generation since Kahutia, a male heir has inherited the title of chief. But now there is no male heir, and the aging chief is desperate to find a successor. Kahu is his only great-grandchild--and Maori tradition has no use for a girl. But when hundreds of whales beach themselves and threaten the future of the Maori tribe, it is Kahu who saves the tribe when she reveals that she has the whale rider's ancient gift of communicating with whales.
The Fatal Shore: The epic of Australia's founding (Harvill Panther Ser.)
by Robert HughesThe history of the birth of Australia which came out of the suffereing and brutality of England's infamous convict transportation system. With 16 pages of illustrations and 3 maps.From the Trade Paperback edition.
The Fire Raiser
by Maurice GeeThe night Dargie's stables burns down, Kitty Wix is knocked tumbling to the ground by strange, loping man fleeing the scene. Who is the fire-raiser who has been terrorizing the small town? Kitty and her friend Irene begin to have their suspicions as to who has been committing the crimes, as do Kitty's brother Noel and his friend Phil. Their curiosity leads them to reluctantly join forces to try and track down the arsonist. The children know they will have to act fast and catch the fire-raiser in the act for anyone to believe them. While Noel and Phil keep watch, the fire-raiser a madman with fires constantly burning in his head, strikes again -- and this time there are lives at stake....
The Catalogue of the Universe
by Margaret MahyConfident Angela and intellectual Tycho seem an unlikely pair. They share a passion for deciphering the universe outside their own personal struggles. To Angela and Tycho, it seems the universe can be ordered; their own lives cannot. As their family struggles swirl around them, they are suddenly desperate to discover where they fit in.
The Diggers of Colditz: The classic Australian POW story about escape from the impossible
by Jack Champ Colin BurgessColditz Castle was Nazi Germany’s infamous ‘escape-proof’ wartime prison, where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful Allied prisoners were sent. Despite having more guards than inmates, Australian Lieutenant Jack Champ and other prisoners tirelessly carried out their campaign to escape from the massive floodlit stronghold, by any means necessary. In this riveting account – by turns humorous, heartfelt and tragic – historian Colin Burgess and Lieutenant Jack Champ, from the point of view of the prisoners themselves, tell the story of the twenty Australians who made this castle their ‘home’, and the plans they made that were so crazy that some even achieved the seemingly impossible – escape! ‘A stirring testimony of mateship . . . We are often on tenterhooks, always impressed by their determination, industry and courage’ Australian Book Review
An Institutionalist Guide to Economics and Public Policy
by Marc R. ToolThis narrative recounts the 18th and 19th century "shipping out" of Pacific islanders aboard European and American vessels, a kind of "counter-exploring", that echoed the ancient voyages of settlement of their island ancestors.
Quilt: A Collection of Prose
by Finola MoorheadAward-winning author, Finola Moorhead stitches together essays, reviews and short stories that make an incisive comment of the process of writing.
The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance
by Margaret MahyWhen her little brother seems to become possessed by an evil spirit, fourteen-year-old Laura seeks the help of the strangely compelling older boy at school who she is convinced has supernatural powers.
Hope at Sea
by Teresa ShewryAs far back as Thomas More's Utopia and Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, the Pacific Ocean has inspired literary creations of promising worlds. Hope at Sea asks how literary writers have more recently conceived the future of ocean living. In doing so, it provides a new perspective on art and imagination in the face of enormous environmental change.Drawing together ecocriticism, theories of hope, and literary analysis, this book explores how literary writers evoke hope in engaging with environmental upheavals that are reshaping life in the Pacific Ocean. Teresa Shewry considers contemporary poetry, short stories, novels, art, and journalistic pieces from Australia, New Zealand, Hawai'i, and other ocean sites, examining their imaginative accounts of present life and future living in places where humans coexist with environmental loss: rivers that no longer reach the sea, dwindling populations of ocean life, the effects of nuclear weapons testing, and more. These works are connected by their views of a future that includes hope.Until now, hope has never been theorized in a direct, sustained way in ecocriticism. Hope at Sea makes an argument for hope as a lens for creative and critical confrontation with environmental disruptions and the resulting sense of loss. It also reflects on the critical approaches that hope as an analytic category opens up for the study of environmental literature.With hope as a critical perspective, Shewry develops a method for reading environmental literature: literary writers create new ways to apprehend existing environmental realities and craft stories about seas, forests, cities, and rivers that could be--not as literal plans but as ways of imagining promising lives in the present world and in the world to come.
Tracks: One Woman's Journey Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback (Vintage Departures Ser.)
by Robyn DavidsonThe incredible true story of one woman&’s solo adventure across the Australian outback, accompanied by her faithful dog and four unpredictable camels.I arrived in the Alice at five a.m. with a dog, six dollars and a small suitcase full of inappropriate clothes. . . . There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns. For Robyn Davidson, one of these moments comes at age twenty-seven in Alice Springs, a dodgy town at the frontier of the vast Australian desert. Davidson is intent on walking the 1,700 miles of desolate landscape between Alice Springs and the Indian Ocean, a personal pilgrimage with her dog—and four camels. Tracks is the beautifully written, compelling true story of the author&’s journey and the love/hate relationships she develops along the way: with the Red Centre of Australia; with aboriginal culture; with a handsome photographer; and especially with her lovable and cranky camels, Bub, Dookie, Goliath, and Zeleika. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver, Tracks is an unforgettable story that proves that anything is possible. Perfect for fans of Cheryl Strayed&’s Wild.
Inventing Australia: Images And Identity, 1688-1980 (Australian Experience Ser. #No. 3)
by Richard White'White sets himself a most ambitious task, and he goes remarkably far to achieving his goals. Very few books tell so much about Australia, with elegance and concision, as does his' - Professor Michael Roe'Stimulating and informative. an antidote to the cultural cringe' - Canberra Times'To be Australian': what can that mean? Inventing Australia sets out to find the answers by tracing the images we have used to describe our land and our people - the convict hell, the workingman's paradise, the Bush legend, the 'typical' Australian from the shearer to the Bondi lifesaver, the land of opportunity, the small rich industrial country, the multicultural society.The book argues that these images, rather than describing an especially Australian reality, grow out of assumptions about nature, race, class, democracy, sex and empire, and are 'invented' to serve the interests of particular groups.There have been many books about Australia's national identity; this is the first to place the discussion within an historical context to explain how Australians' views of themselves change and why these views change in the way they do.
My People
by OodgerooImmerse yourself in the poetry of one of Australia’s foremost Indigenous artists My People is a compilation of the poetry of Oodgeroo, of the tribe Noonuccal, Custodian of the land Minjerribah. This collection of captivating poetry detailing the struggle of Australia’s Indigenous peoples is more relevant today than ever before. While she passed away in 1993, Oodgeroo remains one of Australia’s most influential Aboriginal poets. Her poetry leaves little room to argue why that shouldn’t be the case. Razor-sharp and incisive, while simultaneously haunting and beautiful, Oodgeroo’s poems will enchant both young and old alike. My People is a bewitching collection of Oodgeroo’s poems that belongs on the bookshelves of every art lover and anyone with an appreciation of the written word.
Plant Life of the Pacific World
by Elmer D. MerrillThis Asian ecology book offers an overview of the plant life of the vast Pacific region.Among the topics covered are the tropical forest and jungles, the grasslands, the primary and secondary forest, and the plants of the seashores. <P><P>Weeds and cultivated plants are also discussed with overviews of plant distribution and notes on specific islands and island groups.Plant Life of the Pacific World will fill a great need as an important reference source not only for the ethnobotanist but for the professional botanist and the student interested in the flora of the Pacific basin. The information it contains-adequately detailed and clearly presented-should also open the eyes of both visitors and inhabitants to the natural riches of the Pacific region.
Tracks
by Robyn DavidsonA cult classic with an ever-growing audience, Tracks is the brilliantly written and frequently hilarious account of a young woman's odyssey through the deserts of Australia, with no one but her dog and four camels as companions. Davidson emerges as a heroine who combines extraordinary courage with exquisite sensitivity.
The Great Piratical Rumbustification And The Librarian And The Robbers
by Margaret MahySummary: In these two stories the protagonists have mischievous fun with a former pirate [who uses a wheelchair] and a band of robbers [who might make good children's librarians]. Other books by Margaret Mahy are available in this library.
Vociferate
by Emily SunThe poems in Emily Sun's debut poetry collection Vociferate were inspired by diasporic-Asian feminist writers. Like these writers, Emily resists both Eurocentric and patriarchal tropes as she explores the complexities of national and transnational identities, reflects upon the concept of belonging, and questions what it means to be Asian-Australian.
What About Tomorrow
by Ivan SouthallIn Australia during the Depression, a fourteen-year-old boy runs away from home after a bike accident and sets in motion events that will determine his future.
The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont
by Louis De RougemontLouis de Rougemont (1847-1921) was a would-be explorer who claimed to have had adventures in Australasia. "de Rougemont" was born Henri Louis Grin in 1847 in Suchy, Switzerland. <P> <P> In 1898 he began to write about his invented adventures in the British periodical The Wide World Magazine under the name Louis de Rougemont. He described his alleged exploits in search of pearls and gold in New Guinea and claimed to have spent thirty years living with Indigenous Australians in the Australian outback. He claimed that the tribe with whom he had lived had worshipped him as a god. He also claimed to have encountered the Gibson expedition of 1874. Various readers expressed disbelief in his tales from the start, for example, claiming that no one can actually ride a turtle. He had also claimed to have seen flying wombats. The fact that he could not place his travels on the map aroused suspicion. Readers' arguments in the pages of London newspaper, the Daily Chronicle, continued for months.
The Battle of Long Tan
by Peter FitzSimonsFrom the bestselling author of Kokoda and Gallipoli comes the epic story of Australia's deadliest Vietnam War battle.4.31 pm: Enemy [on] left flank. Could be serious.5.01 pm: Enemy ... penetrating both flanks and to north and south.5.02: Running short of ammo. Require drop through trees.It was the afternoon of 18 August 1966, hot, humid with grey monsoonal skies. D Company, 6RAR were four kilometres east of their Nui Dat base, on patrol in a rubber plantation not far from the abandoned village of Long Tan. A day after their base had suffered a mortar strike, they were looking for Viet Cong soldiers. Then - just when they were least expecting - they found them. Under withering fire, some Diggers perished, some were grievously wounded, the rest fought on, as they remained under sustained attack.For hours these men fought for their lives against the enemy onslaught. The skies opened and the rain fell as ferocious mortar and automatic fire pinned them down. Snipers shot at close quarters from the trees that surrounded them. The Aussie, Kiwi and Yankee artillery batteries knew it was up to them but, outnumbered and running out of ammunition they fired, loaded, fired as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army forces just kept coming. And coming.Their only hope was if Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) could reach them before they were wiped out. The APCs did their best but low cloud and thunderstorms meant air support was stalled. A daring helicopter resupply mission was suggested but who would want to fly that? The odds against this small force were monumental...By far the deadliest battle for Australian forces in Vietnam, the Battle of Long Tan has a proud place in the annals of Australian military history - and every ANZAC who fought there could hold his head high.Peter FitzSimons, Australia's greatest storyteller, tells the real story of this classic battle. He reveals the horror, the bravery, the wins and the losses that faced our soldiers. He brings to life the personal stories of the men who fought, the events leading up to that memorable battle and the long war that followed, and the political decisions made in the halls of power that sealed their fates. The Battle of Long Tan is an engrossing and powerful history that shows the costs of war never end.