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Books > History > Australasian & Pacific history
Christmas Island is a small territory of Australia located in the
Indian Ocean. It is home to three main ethnic groups, the smallest
of which are European Australians. Christmas Island is also where
those who arrive "illegally" to seek asylum in Australia are
accommodated. Christmas Island has played a key role in Australian
security, located as it is at the northern extremity of Australian
territory; much closer to Indonesia than to the nation to which it
belongs, and from whose territory it has recently been excised for
migration purposes. As a migration exclusion zone, Christmas is
both within and without of the nation, and has gone from a place
known among nature lovers for its unique red crabs and bird life to
the highly politicised subject of national concern and heated
debate. But what is it like to be at home on Christmas Island? How
do locals make and come to be at home in a place both within and
without of the nation? This anthropological exploration--the very
first one ever undertaken of this strategically important
island--focuses closely on the sensual engagements people have with
place, shows how Christmas Islanders make recourse to the animals,
birds and topographic features of the island to create uniquely
islandic ways of being at home--and ways of creating "others" who
will never belong--under volatile political circumstances. This
original ethnography reveals a complex island society, whose
presence at the very edge of the nation reveals important
information about a place and a group of people new to ethnographic
study. In and through these people and their relationships with
their unique island place, this ethnographic exploration reveals a
nation caught in the grip of intensive national angst about its
borders, its sense of safety, its struggles with multiculturalism,
and its identity in a world of unprecedented migratory movement. As
the first book in the discipline of anthropology to study Christmas
Island in ethnographic terms, Christmas Island is a critical work
for all collections in anthropology and Australian Studies.
"Christmas Island is described by Simone Dennis as 'the last
outpost of the nation', that is, a multicultural microcosm of
contemporary Australia, worried by a search for a national identity
in touch with the past but not limited by it...In Simone Dennis,
Christmas Island has its consummate ethnographer and analyst." -
Professor Nigel Rapport, University of St. Andrews
This book considers the law, policy and procedure for child
witnesses in Australian criminal courts across the twentieth
century. It uses the stories and experiences of over 200 children,
in many cases using their own words from press reports, to
highlight how the relevant law was - or was not - applied
throughout this period. The law was sympathetic to the plight of
child witnesses and exhibited a significant degree of pragmatism to
receive the evidence of children but was equally fearful of
innocent men being wrongly convicted. The book highlights the
impact 'safeguards' like corroboration and closed court rules had
on the outcome of many cases and the extent to which fear - of
children, of lies (or the truth) and of reform - influenced the
criminal justice process. Over a century of children giving
evidence in court it is `clear that the more things changed, the
more they stayed the same'.
This book offers the first in-depth enquiry into the origins of 135
Indigenous Australian objects acquired by the Royal Navy between
1795 and 1855 and held now by the British Museum. In response to
increasing calls for the 'decolonisation' of museums and the
restitution of ethnographic collections, the book seeks to return
knowledge of the moments, methods, and motivations whereby
Indigenous Australian objects were first collected and sent to
Britain. By structuring its discussion in terms of three key
'stages' of a typical naval voyage to Australia-departure from
British shores, arrival on the continent's coasts, and eventual
return to port-the book offers a nuanced and multifaceted
understanding of the pathways followed by these 135 objects into
the British Museum. The book offers important new understandings of
Indigenous Australian peoples' reactions to naval visitors, and
contains a wealth of original research on the provenance and
meaning of some of the world's oldest extant Indigenous Australian
object collections.
From its rise in the 1830s to its pinnacle in the 1930s, the opium
trade was a guiding force in the Chinese political economy. Opium
money was inextricably bound up in local, national, and imperial
finances, and the people who piloted the trade were integral to the
fabric of Chinese society. In this book, Peter Thilly narrates the
dangerous lives and shrewd business operations of opium traffickers
in southeast China, situating them within a global history of
capitalism. By tracing the evolution of the opium trade from
clandestine offshore agreements in the 1830s, to multi-million
dollar prohibition bureau contracts in the 1930s, Thilly
demonstrates how the modernizing Chinese state was infiltrated,
manipulated, and profoundly transformed by opium profiteers. Opium
merchants carried the drug by sea, over mountains, and up rivers,
with leading traders establishing monopolies over trade routes and
territories and assembling "opium armies" to protect their
businesses. Over time, and as their ranks grew, these organizations
became more bureaucratized and militarized, mimicking-and then
eventually influencing, infiltrating, or supplanting-the state.
Through the chaos of revolution, warlordism, and foreign invasion,
opium traders diligently expanded their power through corruption,
bribery, and direct collaboration with the state. Drug traders
mattered-not only in the seedy ways in which they have been
caricatured but also crucially as shadowy architects of statecraft
and China's evolution on the world stage.
The Foundation of Australia's Capital Cities is the story of how
the places chosen for Australia's seven colonial capitals came to
shape their unique urban character and built environments. Tony
Webster traces the effects of each city's geologically diverse
coastal or riverine landform and the local natural materials that
were available for construction, highlighting how the geology and
original landforms resulted in development patterns that have
persisted today.
In 2002, Governor General Michael Jeffrey stated that 'we
Australians had everything under control in Phuoc Tuy Province'.
This referred not only to military control, but to the policy of
'pacification' employed by the Republic of Vietnam and external
'Free World' allies such as the US and Australia. In the hopes of
stemming the tide of Communism, pacification aimed to win the
allegiance of the populace through political, economic and social
reform. In this new work, Thomas Richardson explores the 1st
Australian Task Force's (1ATF) implementation of this policy in
Phuoc Tuy between 1966 and 1972. Using material from US and
Australian archives, as well as newly translated Vietnamese
histories, Destroy and Build: Pacification in Phuoc Tuy, 1966-1972
challenges the accepted historiography of the Western forces' fight
against insurgency in Vietnam.
From its rise in the 1830s to its pinnacle in the 1930s, the opium
trade was a guiding force in the Chinese political economy. Opium
money was inextricably bound up in local, national, and imperial
finances, and the people who piloted the trade were integral to the
fabric of Chinese society. In this book, Peter Thilly narrates the
dangerous lives and shrewd business operations of opium traffickers
in southeast China, situating them within a global history of
capitalism. By tracing the evolution of the opium trade from
clandestine offshore agreements in the 1830s, to multi-million
dollar prohibition bureau contracts in the 1930s, Thilly
demonstrates how the modernizing Chinese state was infiltrated,
manipulated, and profoundly transformed by opium profiteers. Opium
merchants carried the drug by sea, over mountains, and up rivers,
with leading traders establishing monopolies over trade routes and
territories and assembling "opium armies" to protect their
businesses. Over time, and as their ranks grew, these organizations
became more bureaucratized and militarized, mimicking-and then
eventually influencing, infiltrating, or supplanting-the state.
Through the chaos of revolution, warlordism, and foreign invasion,
opium traders diligently expanded their power through corruption,
bribery, and direct collaboration with the state. Drug traders
mattered-not only in the seedy ways in which they have been
caricatured but also crucially as shadowy architects of statecraft
and China's evolution on the world stage.
Spanning four centuries and vast space, this book combines the
global history of ideas with particular histories of encounters
between European voyagers and Indigenous people in Oceania (Island
Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific
Islands). Douglas shows how prevailing concepts of human
difference, or race, influenced travellers' approaches to
encounters. Yet their presuppositions were often challenged or
transformed by the appearance, conduct, and lifestyle of local
inhabitants. The book's original theory and method reveal traces of
Indigenous agency in voyagers' representations which in turn
provided key evidence for the natural history of man and the
science of race. In keeping with recent trends in colonial
historiography, Douglas diverts historical attention from imperial
centres to so-called peripheries, discredits the outmoded
stereotype that Europeans necessarily dominated non-Europeans, and
takes local agency seriously.
Despite the Australian Constitution having been one of the most
stable since its commencement in 1901, it is becoming fatally
flawed. The Naked Australian Constitution examines these flaws and
the lack of public appreciation of those defects. This is due to
several serious errors, including the racial basis of its origin,
and the misleading nature of its text-with the High Court having
interpreted it in a remarkably subjective manner, undermining the
few express requirements and freedoms in the Constitution while
also applying concepts that are not required by the constitutional
text. As a result, the Constitution is now what the High Court says
it is, instead of what it was expected to be by its drafters. Most
Australians have no knowledge of the Constitution or its operation,
but with the growing subjective application of the Constitution,
this constitutional digression requires remedy by a Constitutional
review. Ian Killey argues that without review, the Australian
people will eventually see the Australian Constitution for what it
is rapidly becoming-an Emperor with no clothes.
This book is the first history of commercial television in regional
Australia, where diverse communities are spread across vast
distances and multiple time zones. The first station, GLV Latrobe
Valley, began broadcasting in December 1961. By the late 1970s,
there were 35 independent commercial stations throughout regional
Australia, from Cairns in the far north-east to Bunbury in the far
south-west. Based on fine-grained archival research and extensive
interviews, the book examines the key political, regulatory,
economic, technological, industrial, and social developments which
have shaped the industry over the past 60 years. Regional
television is often dismissed as a mere extension of - or footnote
to - the development of Australia's three metropolitan commercial
television networks. Michael Thurlow's study reveals an industry
which, at its peak, was at the economic and social heart of
regional communities, employing thousands of people and providing
vital programming for viewers in provincial cities and small towns
across Australia.
The story of an essential Australian Army Corps
As all students of the First World War know, Britain expected,
called for and received the support of fighting men from her
colonies during the conflict. Imperial forces saw action against
Germany and notably against Germany's Turkish ally. Anzac troops,
travelling from the southern hemisphere, were consolidated in Egypt
for service in the abortive Gallipoli offensive in the Dardanelles
and also for the defence of the Suez Canal. As the Palestine
campaign progressed, colonial troops, particularly those who by
virtue of their training as mounted infantry were ideally suited
for the task, advanced north through the Sinai desert, into
Palestine itself and then on to Syria. Allied forces were based in
Egypt for sound strategic and logistical reasons, which meant that
much of the regional infrastructure of command and administration
was centralised there for the duration of the war. Essential among
these services was the Australian Army Medical Corps. The duties of
the corps included the care of wounded in the field, the
establishment of hospitals, the treatment of disease, convalescent
units and evacuations. The work of the outstanding doctors and
nurses of the Australian Army Medical Corps as it operated in the
middle east through the campaign is thoroughly described in this
book, which is recommended to anyone interested in obtaining a more
complete view of the role of the Australian Army during the Great
War.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each
title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our
hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their
spines and fabric head and tail bands.
This book examines how convicts played a key role in the
development of capitalism in Australia and how their active
resistance shaped both workplace relations and institutions. It
highlights the contribution of convicts to worker mobilization and
political descent, forcing a rethink of Australia's foundational
story. It is a book that will appeal to an international audience,
as well as the many hundreds of thousands of Australians who can
trace descent from convicts. It will enable the latter to make
sense of the experience of their ancestors, equipping them with the
necessary tools to understand convict and court records. It will
also provide a valuable undergraduate and postgraduate teaching
tool and reference for those studying unfree labour and worker
history, social history, colonization and global migration in a
digital age.
The New Port Moresby: Gender, Space, and Belonging in Urban Papua
New Guinea explores the ways in which educated, professional women
experience living in Port Moresby, the burgeoning capital of Papua
New Guinea. Drawing on postcolonial and feminist scholarship, the
book adds to an emerging literature on cities in the "Global South"
as sites of oppression, but also resistance, aspiration, and
activism. Taking an intersectional feminist approach, the book
draws on a decade of research conducted among the educated
professional women of Port Moresby, offering unique insight into
class transitions and the perspectives of this small but
significant cohort. The New Port Moresby expands the scope of
research and writing about gendered experiences in Port Moresby,
moving beyond the idea that the city is an exclusively hostile
place for women. Without discounting the problems of uneven
development, the author argues that the city's new places offer
women a degree of freedom and autonomy in a city predominantly
characterized by fear and restriction. In doing so, it offers an
ethnographically rich perspective on the interaction between the
"global" and the "local" and what this might mean for feminism and
the advancement of equity in the Pacific and beyond. The New Port
Moresby will find an audience among anthropologists, particularly
those interested in the urban Pacific, feminist geographers
committed to expanding research to include cities in the Global
South and development theorists interested in understanding the
roles played by educated elites in less economically developed
contexts. There have been few ethnographic monographs about Port
Moresby and those that do exist have tended to marginalize or
ignore gender. Yet as feminist geographers make clear, women and
men are positioned differently in the world and their relationship
to the places in which they live is also different. The book has no
predecessors and stands alone in the Pacific as an account of this
kind. As such, The New Port Moresby should be read by scholars and
students of diverse disciplines interested in urbanization, gender,
and the Pacific.
Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (1916) explores Hawaiian folktales
and myths collected by W. D. Westervelt. Connecting the origin
story of Hawaii to the traditions of other Polynesian cultures,
Westervelt provides an invaluable resource for understanding the
historical and geographical scope of Hawaiian culture. Beginning
with the origin story of Pele, the goddess of volcanoes, Westervelt
introduces his groundbreaking collection of legends on the volcanic
nature of the Hawaiian Islands. When the goddess Pele comes to the
island of Hawaii seeking a permanent home, she finds Ai-laau,
another god of fire, already in possession of the territory.
Despite his fearsome power over creation and destruction, Ai-laau
disappeared the moment he became aware of Pele's presence. Having
traveled across the limitless ocean, her name was already known far
and wide, along with her reputation for strength, anger, and envy.
Establishing herself within the crater of Kilauea, Pele quickly
took command over the gods, ghost-gods, and the people inhabiting
the islands. Central to Hawaiian history and religion, Pele
continues to be celebrated in Hawaii and across the Pacific today.
With a professionally designed cover and manuscript, this edition
of W. D. Westervelt's Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes is a classic of
Hawaiian literature reimagined for modern readers. Add this
beautiful edition to your bookshelf, or enjoy the digital edition
on any e-book device.
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.
A colorful illustration of Hawaii's most cherished origin story,
the myth of Pele and Hiiaka. Pele and Hiiaka: A Myth From Hawaii
(1915) is a collection of folktales by Nathaniel B. Emerson.
Drawing from written histories, personal experience, and extensive
interviews, Emerson provides a lyrical account of the myth
surrounding these goddess sisters. Pele, the goddess of volcanoes
and ruler of Kilauea, and her sister Hiiaka encounter adventure,
tragedy, and love during their respective journeys. These stories
are not only appreciated for their beauty, but also their deep
religious and cultural impact. With a professionally designed cover
and manuscript, this edition of Nathaniel B. Emerson's Pele and
Hiiaka: A Myth From Hawaii is a classic of Hawaiian literature
reimagined for modern readers.
The incredible true story of one of the most extraordinary and
inspirational prison breaks in Australian history. New York, 1874.
Members of the Clan-na-Gael - agitators for Irish freedom from the
English yoke - hatch a daring plan to free six Irish political
prisoners from the most remote prison in the British Empire,
Fremantle Prison in Western Australia. Under the guise of a whale
hunt, Captain Anthony sets sail on the Catalpa to rescue the men
from the stone walls of this hell on Earth known to the inmates as
a 'living tomb'. What follows is one of history's most stirring
sagas that splices Irish, American, British and Australian history
together in its climactic moment. For Ireland, who had suffered
English occupation for 700 years, a successful escape was an
inspirational call to arms. For America, it was a chance to slap
back at Britain for their support of the South in the Civil War;
for England, a humiliation. And for a young Australia, still not
sure if it was Great Britain in the South Seas or worthy of being
an independent country in its own right, it was proof that Great
Britain was not unbeatable. Told with FitzSimons' trademark
combination of arresting history and storytelling verve, The
Catalpa Rescue is a tale of courage and cunning, the fight for
independence and the triumph of good men, against all odds.
Contemporary female novelists tend to portray the relationship between women and the state as profoundly negative, in contrast to various constructions in current feminist theory. Martine Watson Brownley analyzes novels by Margaret Atwood, Paule Marshall, Nadine Gordimer, and Margaret Drabble to explore the significance of this disparity. The book uses literary analysis to highlight elements of state power that many feminist theorists currently occlude, ranging from women’s still minimal access to state politics to the terrifying violence exercised by modern states. At the same time, however, feminist theory clarifies major elements in many contemporary women’s lives about which the novels are ambivalent or misleading, such as romantic love and the role of sexuality in state politics. Deferrals of Domain fills a double gap, both authorial and topical, in current critical treatments of women writers and will be of interest to both literary and women’s studies scholars.
Madness in the Family explores how colonial families coped with
insanity through a trans-colonial study of the relationships
between families and public colonial hospitals for the insane in
New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and New Zealand between 1860
and 1914.
Originally published in 1928, this book is a comprehensive study of
the Maori people - their inner lives, customs and beliefs - by one
who lived amongst them during a time before modern western
civilisation had much altered their existence. Many of the earliest
books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are
now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press
are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality,
modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Contents
Include: The Maori and his Surroundings - His Foods - Meat Foods -
His Language - Some Maori Customs, Muru - More Maori Customs, Tangi
- Maori Superstitions - The Maori and His Superstitions - More
Maori Superstitions, Makutu - The Maori as a Warrior - The Coming
of the White Man - The New Era - The New Era that Failed - Another
Era that Failed - The Maori Woman - The Haangi (Native Oven) - A
Few Closing Words - The Treaty of Waitangi - The Waitara Blunder -
Some Reasons for the Decline of the Maori - Where the White Man
Treads? - A Quaint Friendship - The Maori as a Storyteller - A Bit
of Diplomacy - Taranaki (Mount Egmont) - Where the White Man
Treads, and a Story - A Trait and an Incident - As He Saw it - A
Promise Redeemed - A Traveller's Musings - Some Native Traits - A
Maori Philosopher - A Twentieth Century Tohunga - The Pathos of it
All - His Simple Faith - Our First Steamboat - The Maori and Our
Duty - Mistaken Endeavour - The Old, Old Plea - The White Man's
Brain - Concerning Stone Axes - An Appeal - His First Romance - In
Various Moods - A New Year's Experience - A Final Word on
Tohungaism - The Maori as a Tradesman - A Native Plea - The Maori
Girls' School atTurakina - An Important Correction - Our
Half-Castle Population - Cornwall Park and It's Donor - Some
Outback Impressions - A Home in the Wilderness - A Plea for the
Pioneer - A Last Word
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