A detailed description of Hovell and Hume's early 19th Century explorations in Victoria, Australia (now the location of Melbourne).

"Unlike cricket, which is a polite game, Australian Rules Football creates a desire on the part of the crowd to tear someone apart, usually the referee." This is only one of the entertaining and astute observations the U.S. military provided in the pocket guides distributed to the nearly one million American soldiers who landed on the shores of Australia between 1942 and 1945. Although the Land Down Under felt more familiar than many of their assignments abroad, American GIs still needed help navigating the distinctly different Aussie culture, and coming to their rescue was "Instruction for American Servicemen in Australia, 1942," The newest entry in the Bodleian Library's bestselling series of vintage pocket guides, this pamphlet is filled with pithy notes on Australian customs, language, and other cultural facts the military deemed necessary for every American soldier.
From the native wildlife--a land of "funny animals"--to the nation's colonial history to the general characteristics of Australians--"an outdoors sort of people, breezy and very democratic"--"Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia" gives a concise yet amazingly informative overview of the island nation. Regarding Aussie slang, it notes that "the Australian has few equals in the world at swearing. . . . The commonest swear words are 'bastard' (pronounced 'barstud'), 'bugger, ' and 'bloody, ' and the Australians have a genius for using the latter nearly every other word." The pamphlet also contains a humorous explanation of the country's musical traditions--including an annotated text of "Waltzing Matilda"--as well as amusing passages on sports, politics, and the Aussies' attitudes toward Yanks and Brits.
A fascinating look at a neglected Allied front in the Southern hemisphere, "Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia, 1942" follows its successful predecessors as a captivating historical document of a pivotal era in history.

Tall, sun-bronzed, hardy. Resourceful, independent, egalitarian. Scornful of authority, loyal to their mates. These mythical characteristics of the Anzac 'diggers' are central to our idea of what it is to be Australian. But did the soldiers themselves fit the stereotype? How closely does the myth match the reality? This penetrating study strips away celebratory generalisations and measures the Anzac legend against the actual experiences of one battalion that fought at Gallipoli and on the Western Front in World War I. The diaries and letters written by soldiers of the 1st Battalion reveal attitudes, insights, comments and criticisms that qualify and even contradict the Anzac legend. In Dinkum Diggers, Dale James Blair compares these first-hand accounts by front-line infantrymen with unit diaries, operational records, service and repatriation records, as well as with interviews with family members and statistical analysis, to present a well-rounded picture of the complexities of the 1st Battalion's experience. By narrowing the focus of Australian war experience to a single battalion, he demonstrates nuances and subtleties, showing how the men vie

This book provides a fully researched biography of the naval career of Matthew Flinders, with particular emphasis on his importance for the maritime discovery of Australia. Sailing in the wake of the eighteenth-century voyages of exploration by Captain Cook and others, Flinders was the first naval commander to circumnavigate Australia's coastline. He contributed more to the mapping and naming of places in Australia than virtually any other single person. His voyage to Australia on H.M.S. Investigator expanded the scope of imperial, geographical and scientific knowledge. This biography places Flinders's career within the context of Pacific exploration and the early white settlement of Australia. Flinders's connections with other explorers, his use of patronage, the dissemination of his findings, and his posthumous reputation are also discussed in what is an important new scholarly work in the field.

The years 1900 to 1954 marked the transformation from an exotic, colonized "Far East" to a more autonomous, prominent "Asia Pacific". This anthology examines the grand strategies of great powers as they vied for influence and ultimately hegemony in the region. At the turn of the twentieth century, the main contestants included the venerable British Empire and the aspiring Japan and United States. The unwieldy leviathan of China, the European imperial holdings in Southeast Asia, and the expanses of the western Pacific emerged as battlegrounds in literal and geopolitical terms. Other less powerful nations, such as India, Burma, Australia, and French Indochina, also exercised agency in crafting grand strategies to further their interests and in their interactions with those great powers. Among the many factors affecting all nations invested in the Asia Pacific were such traditional elements as economics, military power, and diplomacy, as well as fluid traits like ideology, culture, and personality. The era saw the decline of British and European influence in the Asia Pacific, the rise and fall of Japanese imperialism, the emergence of American primacy, the ongoing struggle for independence in Southeast Asia, and China's resurrection as a contender for hegemony. Great powers shifted and so too did their grand strategies.

This book draws on archival, oral history and public policy sources to tell a history of foster care in Australia from the nineteenth century to the present day. It is, primarily, a social history which places the voices of people directly touched by foster care at the centre of the story, but also within the wider social and political debates which have shaped foster care across more than a century. The book confronts foster care's difficult past-death and abuse of foster children, family separation, and a general public apathy towards these issues-but it also acknowledges the resilience of people who have survived a childhood in foster care, and the challenges faced by those who have worked hard to provide good foster homes and to make child welfare systems better. These are themes which the book examines from an Australian perspective, but which often resonate with foster care globally.

The Jerilderie and Cameron Letters are Ned Kelly's only extant writings.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of capital punishment in the Australian colonies for the very first time. The author illuminates all aspects of the penalty, from shortcomings in execution technique, to the behaviour of the dying criminal, and the antics of the scaffold crowd. Mercy rates, execution numbers, and capital crimes are explored alongside the transition from public to private executions and the push to abolish the death penalty completely. Notions of culture and communication freely pollinate within a conceptual framework of penal change that explains the many transformations the death penalty underwent. A vast array of sources are assembled into one compelling argument that shows how the 'lesson' of the gallows was to be safeguarded, refined, and improved at all costs. This concise and engaging work will be a lasting resource for students, scholars, and general readers who want an in-depth understanding of a long feared punishment. Dr. Steven Anderson is a Visiting Research Fellow in the History Department at The University of Adelaide, Australia. His academic research explores the role of capital punishment in the Australian colonies by situating developments in these jurisdictions within global contexts and conceptual debates.