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One Woman At War: Letters of Olive King 1915–1920
by Hazel King (Ed)Olive King was born in Sydney in 1885. She offered her services as an ambulance driver soon after war broke out in 1914. She joined a small private organization early in 1915 and went to Belgium. In May 1915 she joined the Scottish Women's Hospitals and her letters, until now unpublished, date from that time. She joined the Serbian Army in 1916 and subsequently rose to the rank of sergeant. Driving on hazardous roads to the Front and to the Adriatic coast, she was often in danger. She was awarded a Serbian silver medal for bravery, and later a gold medal. Her letters not only give a picture of daily life under wartime conditions and in the immediate post-war years. They also show how a woman of the time regarded herself and her place in society.
Dangerous to Know: An Australasian Crime Compendium: Updated Edition
by Susanna LobezDangerous to Know documents murders known and not so well known, conmen and their victims, street gangs of the early twentieth century, crime lords of the 1920s, dock wars of the 1970s, bikers, sex offenders, and the drug gangs of today as well as the wrongly accused and wrongly convicted. They're all here, as well as some of the police, lawyers and judges who have tried to deal with them.
Crisis Of Zionism
by Peter BeinartA dramatic shift is taking place in Israel and America. In Israel, the deepening occupation of the West Bank is putting Israeli democracy at risk. In the United States, the refusal of major Jewish organisations to defend democracy in the Jewish state is alienating many young liberal Jews from Zionism itself. In the next generation, the liberal Zionist dream, the dream of a state that safeguards the Jewish people and cherishes democratic ideals, may die. In The Crisis of Zionism, Peter Beinart lays out in chilling detail the looming danger to Israeli democracy and the American Jewish establishment's refusal to confront it. And he offers a fascinating, groundbreaking portrait of the two leaders at the centre of the crisis: Barack Obama, America's first 'Jewish president', a man steeped in the liberalism he learned from his many Jewish friends and mentors in Chicago; and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who considers liberalism the Jewish people's special curse. These two men embody fundamentally different visions, not just of American and Israeli national interests, but of the mission of the Jewish people itself. Beinart concludes with provocative proposals for how the relationship between American Jews and Israel must change, and with an eloquent and moving appeal for American Jews to defend the dream of a democratic Jewish state before it is too late.
Georgiana: A biography of Georgiana McCrae, painter, diarist, pioneer
by Brenda NiallAfter a childhood among artists, French �migr�s and English radicals in Regency London, Georgiana lived as a young woman at her father's castle in the Highlands. A gifted portraitist, professionally trained in London, she earned her own living in Edinburgh before making the choice between marriage and a career. After marrying Andrew McCrae in 1830 she followed her husband in his erratic progress from Edinburgh to London and then to Port Phillip, where he was successively lawyer, squatter and goldfields magistrate. The varied fortunes of the McCraes are recounted in a story whose tragic elements are counter-balanced by the strength of mind, the lively wit and creativity of Georgiana. By allowing Georgiana's own voice to be heard through her letters and journals Brenda Niall has brought a legendary colonial figure into authentic vibrant life.
Sex and Suffering: Women's Health and a Women's Hospital
by Janet McCalmanSex and Suffering is a ground-breaking work. It tells the often shocking story of women's desperation to gain control over their lives and their health, and of medicine's struggle to comprehend and manage the mysteries of nature. It offers a graphic and revealing history of childbirth in Australia; of the medical care of women; of nursing and gender roles; and of the impact of immigration on Australian society. Remarkably, thousands of detailed case notes, from the 1850s to the 1930s, survived intact at the Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne. For the first time in the English-speaking world a historian was allowed to work directly from these confidential patient records. Janet McCalman vividly recreates the lives of patients and the daily work of a hospital. She enables readers to follow the institution through times of growth and economic depression, through the grim history of criminal abortion, and through the inspiring story of medical science and surgery since the coming of anaesthesia. Sex and Suffering is a vivid and absorbing social history of women's health, seen through the work of Australia's oldest women's hospital.
On the Home Front: Melbourne in Wartime: 1939—1945
by Kate Darian-SmithWhat really happened on the Australian home front during the Second World War?For the people of Melbourne these were years of social dislocation and increased government interference in all aspects of daily life. On the Home Front is the story of their work, leisure, relationships and their fears—for by 1942 the city was pitted with air raid trenches, and in the half-light of the brownout Melburnians awaited a Japanese invasion.As women left the home to replace men in factories and offices, the traditional roles of mothers and wives were challenged. The presence of thousands of American soldiers in Melbourne raised new questions about Australian nationalism and identity, and the 'carnival spirit' of many on the home front created anxiety about the issues of drunkenness, gambling and sexuality.Kate Darian-Smith's classic and evocative study of Melbourne in wartime draws upon the memories of men and women who lived through those turbulent years when society grappled with the tensions between a restrictive government and new opportunities for social and sexual freedoms.
Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writings By Indigenous Australians
by Michele GrossmanWritten by established and emerging Indigenous intellectuals from a variety of positions, perspectives and places, these essays generate new ways of seeing and understanding Indigenous Australian history, culture, identity and knowledge in both national and global contexts. From museums to Mabo, anthropology to art, feminism to film, land rights to literature, the essays collected here offer provocative insights and compelling arguments around the historical and contemporary issues confronting Indigenous Australians today.
American Citizens, British Slaves
by Cassandra Pybus Hamish Maxwell-StewartWe hardly had our feet on the soil, when almost the first objects that greeted our vision were gibbets, and men toiling in the most abject misery, looking more degraded even than so many dumb beasts. Such sights, and the supposition that such might be our fate, served to sink the iron still deeper in our souls.This book tells the strange story of almost a hundred United States citizens who were transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1839-40.As members of the Patriot Army that had conducted border raids into the colony of Upper Canada in 1838, they saw themselves as courageous republican activists, impelled by a moral duty to liberate their northern neighbours from British oppression. Instead of heroic liberators, they became political prisoners of Her Majesty's government.Sent to Van Diemen's Land by Lieutenant-Governor Arthur—in the hope of deterring any more Yankees from exporting their abhorrent ideology to the Queen's domain—the Patriot exiles endured years of harsh treatment before they were eventually pardoned. Not being British subjects, their transportation was almost certainly illegal.Eleven of the Patriots wrote narratives about their time in Van Diemen's Land. From these interlocking accounts, Cassandra Pybus and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart have constructed a compelling story of the Patriots' experiences as convicts, drawing also on unpublished letters, newspaper reports and government archives.This vivid and intimate story of political exile and punishment provides a window into the everyday life of the many thousands of forgotten men and women who endured the calculated cruelties of penal transportation.Virtually unknown until brought to life in this remarkable book, the story of the Patriots also considers the political and legal issues of penal transportation as a tool of political repression.
Sting: Australia's Plot To Crack A Global Drug Empire
by Nick McKenzieIt was a David and Goliath style battle: Australian investigators up against a global organised crime empire. What seemed like an impossible task resulted in one of the most ambitious investigations in the world, infiltrating international money laundering streams and exposing the global crime bosses in control of the world's drug trade. The Sting is the never-before-told story of the ongoing efforts of Australia's most secretive and powerful law enforcement agency to topple the new face of organised crime. This is a tech-savvy, billion-dollar empire with tentacles reaching across the world, from outlaw motorcycle gangs to powerful Asian crime syndicates to law and government agencies. This is not a conventional story of good versus evil. It chronicles criminal, law enforcement and political tactics through the eyes of its major players - the criminal investigators, the international crime bosses, the senator, the drug cook and the investigative journalist - and exposes what many in power don't want the public to know.
Sky Travellers: Journeys in New Guinea 1938–1939
by Gammage, BillThe extraordinary story of the world's last major exploration and experience of first-contact-a 1938-39 Australian expedition of three thousand kilometres by foot, through the mountainous western highlands of Papua New Guinea. The pale skin of the strangers suggested that they were spirits-sky people. How should they be treated? Local people repeatedly asked 'Why have you come?' Jim Taylor, with John Black and Pat Walsh, led a patrol of over 350 people. Most were carriers from Highlands areas already familiar with Europeans; about 40 were new Guinea police from the coast. with war looming, records of their remarkable experience were officially suppressed. Bill Gammage has talked to many of the people who were there-both the visitors and those visited. With the rigour of a committed historian and a rare skill as a storyteller he traces a complex journey of minds as well as bodies. Every participant in this adventure was changed irrevocably. Readers, too, can expect an exhilarating mind shift.
Essays that Changed Australia: Meanjin 1940 to today
by Esther AnatolitisSince the 1940s, Meanjin essays have set the national cultural agenda. Arthur Phillips' idea of 'cultural cringe' has become a household word, instantly conveying Australians' sense of place in the world while expressing our frustrations and our ambitions - yet very few of us know it came from an essay first published in Meanjin. Over half a century later, Chelsea Watego's 2021 'Always bet on Black (power)' roars with the fire of a manifesto; Hilary Charlesworth's 1992 'A law of one's own?' challenges Australia's legal system with a formidable feminist ethic; Tim Rowse's 1978 'Heaven and a Hills Hoist' passionately defends suburbia; David Yencken's 1988 'Creative City' sparks a global urban planning movement with artists at the centre. This anthology brings togethers twenty impactful Meanjin essays for the first time. An introduction by editor Esther Anatolitis offers critical context and scrutiny, illustrating how profoundly Meanjin essays have changed Australia.
On Arthur Boyd
by Brenda NiallThe brilliant painter Arthur Boyd (1920-99) was a member of Australia's most famous artistic dynasty. This excerpt from Brenda Niall's prize-winning study, The Boyds , reveals Arthur Boyd as a man who lived in a private world of painting, family, friends and familiar surroundings, yet developed into an iconic Australian artist, celebrated at home and abroad.
London
by Tanya DalziellJoan London's remarkable body of work, including the award-winning novels and short fiction The Golden Age, Gilgamesh and Sister Ships, tells everyday stories of family, love and loss, with her signature poetic vision. London's stories portray how ordinary people get caught up in extraordinary circumstances and come to live in a world of violence and fear, of beauty and hope. In London Tanya Dalziell takes the reader through the literary career of the Western Australian living treasure, journeying through space and time to offer a unique insight into the development of Australian literature and women's writing across the past four decades. London engages deeply with Joan London's work to reflect on its artistry and the conversations it provokes with the changing times. Dalziell invites readers to traverse London's writing and discover the significant contributions she has made to the contemporary literary landscape.
Rural Australia and the Great War: From Tarrawingee to Tangambalanga
by John McQuiltonIn the cities and in the countryside of Australia, the Great War of 1914 - 1918 marched to somewhat different tempos. John McQuilton evokes the wartime experience of all rural Australians by capturing the moods of the country towns and hamlets of North Eastern Victoria. Every aspect of the war - recruiting, fund-raising and, eventually, homecoming and the design of the war memorial - was marked by a mixture of small-minded local politics, heroism and sacrifice, and grief. Individuals, whether journalists, town councillors or leading local citizens, shaped the recurring battles on the home front. The conscription debates were particularly vicious, as the countryside exhausted its pool of volunteers long before the cities. In small communities the 'shirker' could not hide; everyone knew which families had sent men to the front, and who had genuine reasons for staying home. This intimacy worked in favour of the many German Australians: country people knew them as trusted neighbours, but in the cities they were reviled as enemy aliens. Rural Australia and the Great War is unique among writing on the First World War in creating a richly detailed picture of wartime in a particular part of country Australia. For country and city readers alike, this is fascinating social history.
Medievalism And The Gothic In Australian Culture
by Stephanie TriggThis collection opens up a new field of academic and general interest: Australian medievalism. That is, the heritage and continuing influence of medieval and gothic themes, ideas and cultural practices. Geographically removed from Europe, and distinguished by its eighteenth-century colonial settlement, Australia is a fascinating testing-ground on which to explore the cultural residues of medieval and gothic tradition. These traditions take a distinctive form, once they have been 'transported' to a different topographical setting, and a cultural context whose relationship with Europe has always been dynamic and troubled. Early colonists attempted to make the unfamiliar landscape of Australia familiar by inscribing it with European traditions: since then, a diverse range of responses and attitudes to the medieval and gothic past have been played out in Australian culture, from traditional forms of historical reconstruction through to playful postmodernist pastiche. These essays examine the early narratives of Australian 'discovery' and the settlement of what was perceived as a hostile, gothic environment; exercises of medieval revivalism and association consonant with the British nineteenth-century rediscovery of chivalric ideals and aesthetic, spiritual and architectural practices and models; the conscious invocation and interrogation of medieval and gothic tropes in Australian fiction and poetry, including children's literature; the transformation of those tropes in fantasy, role-playing games and subcultural groups; and finally, the implication of the medieval past for discussions of Australian nationalism.
Inside the Wilderness of Mirrors: Australia and the threat from the Soviet Union in the Cold War and Russia today
by Paul DibbThroughout the Cold War Paul Dibb worked with the highest levels of Australian and American intelligence, and was one of very few Australian officials to be given the top-secret security clearance for access to Pine Gap. Only the most senior intelligence officers in both the US and Australia held this clearance—and even then on a strict 'need to know' basis. Inside the Wilderness of Mirrors is Paul's unique insight into how Australia saw the threat from the Soviet Union during the Cold War era and beyond. This insider's account of Australian defence strategy reveals the crucial importance of the US-Australian base at Pine Gap and why Moscow targeted it for nuclear attack, and how it felt to be an expert on the Soviet Union at a time when those who dared to study the Soviet Union were necessarily subject to suspicion from their Australian colleagues. Inside the Wilderness of Mirrors concludes by examining the ways in which contemporary Russia presents a continuing threat to the international order.
Last Of The Lunatics
by John CawteJohn Cawte looks back in amazement to his years as a young doctor in an Australian madhouse. He now recognises the people he treated in the early 1950s as 'the last of the lunatics'. Anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs were unknown. Bursting asylums, housing an uproar of insanity, were wastelands of stigma and dread. 'Management' techniques ranged from straitjackets and padded cells to isolation and primitive shock treatments. Miraculously, Cawte's case notes were saved from destruction. Rereading them after forty years, he was gripped by the horror they revealed and the questions they raised. Much has changed for the better. Many of the fearful illnesses he recorded have disappeared, treatments are vastly more effective and stigma has lessened. But his notes hold a surprising and challenging lesson—that temporary 'asylum' from the stresses of life is often all that a disturbed person needs for recovery. The Last of the Lunatics is rich and moving. The personal stories recorded by a perceptive young man have been filtered by experience and sharpened by telling literary references. Doctors, psychiatrists, those who remember and those who wonder about the human condition will be touched by this compassionate book.
Steel Town: The Making and Breaking of Port Kembla
by Eklund, ErikThe sun moves across the narrow coastal plain that borders the range to the north . . . It shows once separate places now merged into one suburban entity, a ribbon of residential, commercial and industrial development . . . There is a commercial centre whose tall metallic and glass structures reflect the light, and celebrate an industrial heritage. And to the south, an area where a mass of industrial buildings converge around a large harbour. This area stands as a telling symbol of the region's golden industrial age. To most Australians Port Kembla is a grimy, polluted, industrial wasteland located down the coast from Sydney. Such images were formed over fifty years ago when industrial development in the town was at its height, and when the expanse of breathtaking coast had been colonised by the stacks and furnaces of heavy industry. Yet the vision of stacks and pollution from furnaces was never the whole story—there was always more to Port Kembla. Although these ideas persist even today, they obscure the real experiences of the people of the port. Steel Town illuminates our understanding of the processes of industrial and social change. Port Kembla was unique in Australian terms—an urban environment where industrial society shaped local life and politics like nowhere else. This book explores the advent and implications of industrial society—and the impact of economic decline and deindustrialisation. In his comprehensive and persuasive account of local life Erik Eklund draws together themes of migration, gender, class and identity. Using archival records, oral history interviews and company documents, Steel Town charts the relationship between economic change and the human experience of that change. The story of Port Kembla is the story of the 'big issues' of Australian history writ small on the lives of three generations of local people. The legacy of industrial society is a mixed one; its experiences and consequences are full of contradictions. And that, of course, is the beauty of history.
Detainee 002: The Case of David Hicks
by Leigh SalesIn a remote American military base at Guantanamo Bay, 385 enemy combatants sit waiting for their day in court. Among them is David Hicks, who was detained for five years until the March 2007 hearing where he pleaded guilty to the charge of providing material support for terrorism. Detainee 002 reveals in unprecedented detail how an Australian citizen wound up in the War on Terror. Based on more than five years of reporting and dozens of interviews with insiders, Leigh Sales explains the intricacies of Hicks's case, from his capture in Afghanistan, to life in Guantanamo Bay, to the behind-the-scene establishment and workings of the military commissions. Sales' impeccable research takes us from top-secret negotiations at the White House and Pentagon to the domestic fallout Hicks's incarceration has had on his family, to the campaign that Major Michael Mori, the marine who becomes his greatest advocate, waged on his behalf. David Hicks's case is emblematic of some of the greatest challenges facing the world today: the rise of Islamic extremism, terrorism and the accountability of governments towards their citizens. It is a chilling reminder that, in a war with ever-changing rules and no end in sight, there are no limits.
Kings Of Stings
by Susanna Lobez James MortonDo you want to...Help distribute money to the poor and be given a fee to do so? Share in Al Qaeda's hidden gold? Help a young girl orphaned in the tsunami? In their highly entertaining and often shocking new book James Morton and Susanna Lobez follow up their bestselling Gangland Australia by delving into the world of Australian con artists such as Mario Condello, Helen Demidenko, Christopher Skase, Brenton Jarrett, Peter Foster, Lola Montez and Fairlie Arrow. Here are highly talented men and women and their tricks: changing paper into banknotes, selling other people's property, faking deaths, and forging paintings; promising miracle cures and impersonating aristocracy, preachers, military gents, lawyers and doctors. In fact, whatever it takes to separate the unwary from their money. Read about the scams and think twice about that offer that seems almost too good to be true.
Man Who Loved Children
by Christina SteadThe Man Who Loved Children is Christina Stead's masterpiece about family life. Set in Washington during the 1930s, Sam and Henny Pollit are a warring husband and wife. Their tempestuous marriage, aggravated by too little money, lies at the centre of Stead's satirical and brilliantly observed novel about the relations between husbands and wives, and parents and children. Sam, a scientist, uses words as weapons of attack and control on his children and is prone to illusions of power and influence that fail to extend beyond his family. His wife Henny, who hails from a wealthy Baltimore family, is disastrously impractical and enmeshed in her own fantasies of romance and vengeance. Much of the care of their six children is left to Louisa, Sam's 14-year-old daughter from his first marriage. Within this psychological battleground, Louisa must attempt to make a life of her own. First published in 1940, The Man Who Loved Children was hailed for its satiric energy. Now its originality is again lauded by novelist, Jonathan Franzen, in his illuminating new introduction.
Gough Whitlam: A Moment In History
by Jenny HockingThis moment was not his alone, nor could it ever have come about without him . Gough Whitlam turned to Graham Freudenberg, touched him lightly on the shoulder, saying, 'It's been a long road, Comrade, but we're there', and walked out to meet the spotlight. Acclaimed biographer Jenny Hocking's Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History is the first contemporary and definitive biographical study of the former Labor Prime Minister. From his childhood in the fledging city of Canberra to his first appearance as Prime Minister (playing Neville Chamberlain), to his extensive war service in the Pacific and marriage to Margaret, the champion swimmer and daughter of Justice Wilfred Dovey, the biography draws on previously unseen archival material, extensive interviews with family and colleagues, and exclusive interviews with Gough Whitlam himself. Hocking's narrative skill and scrupulous research reveals an extraordinary and complex man whose life is, in every way, formed by the remarkable events of previous generations of his family, and who would, in turn, change Australian political and cultural developments in the twentieth century.
Gangland Australia: Colonial Criminals to the Carlton Crew
by Susanna Lobez James MortonGangland Australia details the exploits of an unforgettable cast of villains, crooks and mobsters who have made up the criminal and gangland scene in Australia for over two centuries. In this fully updated and bestselling book, Britain's top true crime author James Morton and barrister and legal broadcaster Susanna Lobez track the rise and fall of Australia's talented contract killers, brothel keepers, club owners, robbers, bikers, standover men, conmen and drug dealers, and also examine the role of police, politicians and lawyers who have helped and hindered the growth of criminal empires. Vivid and explosive, Gangland Australia is compulsive reading.
Letters of Mary Gilmore
by Tom Inglis Moore William H. WildeMary Gilmore's life spanned almost a century of Australian history. She lived for ninety-seven years and this selection of her letters covers a period of almost seventy years, encompassing the social, political and literary scene of the period when Australia was changing from colony to nation. The letters contain perceptive judgements of indigenous literary talent as it was emerging; they contain reflections on the pioneer past as she herself had experienced it and reflections on the contemporary political and social environment. Sometimes they express her anger at injustice and deprivation wherever it occurred—in the treatment of the Aborigines, the returned soldiers, women, children, old people, the sick. As she said, 'There was no hunted one with whom I did not run.' Above all, the letters reflect her immense patriotism and love for her country, her enormous hopes for its future; and they give, often unintentionally, fascinating glimpses of events in which she participated—for example, the New Australia venture in Paraguay - events which are now part of our established history.
Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two-Party System
by Paul Strangio Nick DyrenfurthIn Confusion, some of Australia's foremost political historians including Judith Brett and Stuart Macintyre revisit the seminal moment when liberals threw in their lot with the conservatives. In May 1909, Alfred Deakin, the radical liberal doyen, struck an agreement for a controversial 'fusion' with the anti-Labor factions, with the new grouping later adopting the name 'Liberal Party'. After a heated campaign, Labor won the 1910 election, forming the first majority government in the history of the Commonwealth. The Australian party system; as we still largely know it one hundred years on; had crystallised. How had this occurred? For most of the previous decade Labor and Deakin had been allies. Was the anti-Labor alliance the inevitable outcome of middle-class men rallying against the growing electoral might of the workers' party? What were the long-term consequences for both sides of politics? With Labor in power federally and in all but one state, the non-Labor side of politics has been plunged into a period of introspection about its coalition arrangements, and about the legitimate traditions of Australian liberalism. Can the current Liberals learn from the events of a century ago?