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Books > History > Australasian & Pacific history
When the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany partitioned Poland in
September of 1939, thousands of Jews fled Poland into Lithuania and
fled across the USSR to Japan. With the help of Jan Zwartendijk,
acting Dutch consul, and Chiune Sugihara, Japan's vice consul in
Lithuania, the refugees obtained documents for their perilous
escape from Nazi persecution. From Japan, many refugees moved on to
Dutch-controlled Curacao or other final destinations. Decades after
the war, and one year before his death in 1986, Sugihara was
finally honored by Israel with the "Righteous Among the Nations"
Award for the help he gave to the Jews in 1940. He also received
the Raoul Wallenburg Award posthumously in 1990. However, in Japan
little was known about Sugihara's heroic actions for more than five
decades. The author, Seishiro Sugihara (no relation to Chiune),
reveals a pattern of deception and obfuscation by Japan's foreign
ministry to obstruct recognition of Sugihara's philanthropy. The
Sugihara episode, the author contends, is only one in a long line
of scandalous cover-ups which have plagued the Ministry, including
its ill-fated Twenty-One Demands upon Nationalist China in 1915;
and more infamously the failure of its Washington Embassy to follow
orders and deliver the "declaration of war" on December 7, 1941
which resulted in the Pearl Harbor operation being stigmatized as a
"sneak attack." His book is the first to demonstrate that, while
Japan's military was abolished during the Occupation, the Foreign
Ministry secured its own future at the expense of Japan and the
Japanese people, and deliberately and systematically placed
Sugihara's act of kindness beyond public scrutiny.
From 2011 to 2014, the Australian Generations Oral History Project
recorded 300 interviews with Australians born between 1920 and
1989. The contributions to this book, a result of this project,
reflect on the practice of oral history and how interviews can
illuminate Australian social and cultural history. Three of the
chapters consider oral history innovations: focusing on the
potential for oral history in a digital age, the pioneering
technologies that underpinned Australian Generations and the
ethical issues posed by online digital oral history, and the
challenges and opportunities for radio oral history. In addition,
four chapters demonstrate how oral history interviews can be used
as rich evidence for historical research: examining the
interconnections between class, social equity, and higher education
in post-war Australia; how life histories can transform
understandings of mental ill-health; considering how oral history
interviews with Australians of all ages confound stereotypical
notions about generations; and investigating the ways in which
family relationships mediate identities and how remembered places
and objects provide points of anchor in a rapidly changing world.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Australian
Historical Studies.
Sport and war have been closely linked in Australian and New
Zealand society since the nineteenth century. Sport has, variously,
been advocated as appropriate training for war, lambasted as a
distraction from the war effort, and resorted to as an escape from
wartime trials and tribulations. War has limited the fortunes of
some sporting codes - and some individuals - while others have
blossomed in the changed circumstances. The chapters in this book
range widely over the broad subject of Australian and New Zealand
sport and their relation to the cataclysmic world wars of the first
half of the twentieth century. They examine the mythology of the
links between sport and war, sporting codes, groups of sporting
individuals, and individual sportspeople. Revealing complex and
often unpredictable effects of total wars upon individuals and
social groups which as always, created chaos, and the sporting
field offered no exception. This book was originally published as a
special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.
Imperial spaces takes two of the most influential minority groups
of white settlers in the British Empire - the Irish and the Scots -
and explores how they imagined themselves within the landscapes of
its farthest reaches, the Australian colonies of Victoria and New
South Wales. Using letters and diaries as well as records of
collective activities such as committee meetings, parades and
dinners, the book examines how the Irish and Scots built new
identities as settlers in the unknown spaces of Empire. Utilizing
critical geographical theories of 'place' as the site of memory and
agency, it considers how Irish and Scots settlers grounded their
sense of belonging in the imagined landscapes of south-east
Australia. Imperial spaces is relevant to academics and students
interested in the history and geography of the British Empire,
Australia, Ireland and Scotland. -- .
This book seeks to highlight the influence of the Enlightenment
idea of social progress on the character of the "civilising
mission" in early Australia by tracing its presence in the various
"civilising" attempts undertaken between 1788 and 1850. It also
represents an attempt to marry the history of the British
Enlightenment and the history of settler-Aboriginal interactions.
The chronological structure of the book, as well as the breadth of
its content, will facilitate the readers' understanding of the
evolution of "civilising attempts" and their epistemological
underpinnings, while throwing additional light on the influence of
the Enlightenment on Australian history as a whole.
This is a pathbreaking comparative and trans-national study of the
neglected influences of nation, empire and race upon the
development and electoral fortunes of the Labour Party in Britain
and the Australian Labor Party from their formative years of the
1900s to the elections of 2010. Based upon extensive primary and
secondary source-based research in Britain and Australia over
several years, it makes a new and original contribution to the
fields of labour, imperial and 'British world' history. The book
offers the challenging conclusion that the forces of nation, empire
and race exerted much greater influence upon Labour politics in
both countries than suggested by 'traditionalists' and
'revisionists' alike. The book will appeal to undergraduates,
postgraduates, scholars in history and politics and all those
interested in and concerned with the past, present and future of
Labour politics in Britain, Australia and more generally. -- .
Told in his vivid and entertaining style, Louis Nowra writes
Woolloomooloo's biography, drink in hand, from the vantage point of
the Old Fitzroy Hotel, the cosy, eccentric and wonderful pub on
Dowling Street, Woolloomooloo. It's a world of sex, sin, sly grog,
sailors, razor gangs, larrikins, workers, artisans, fishermen,
activists, drinkers, fashion designers, tradies, and artists. It's
also a story of courage, resilience, tolerance, compassion. And
though the pub has a real theatre, it's the cast of real-life
characters that are the stars of this show. Woolloomooloo's past
wraps around its present. Louis - often accompanied by Coco the
Chihuahua and other two-legged locals, often walks the streets,
uncovering history - some official, some never revealed. He
stumbles across pockets of beauty and charm, and the derelict and
abandoned. Unforgettable - and unspellable - Woolloomooloo in this
book is a place as fascinating as its name.
Historians have long claimed that a tradition of fear of Japan
dominated Australian thinking about foreign affairs and defense
after Japan's defeat of Russia in 1905 and that this fear remained
widespread throughout the Australian population until the Pacific
War. This study of Australian reporting on Japan challenges that
claim by exposing a culture of state censorship, intimidation of
the media, and neglect of official public discussion of foreign
affairs in the years 1931-1941 which resulted in newspapers, radio,
and news reels projecting a collective national consciousness of
Japan as a nation of little import despite very real fears in
senior political ranks about Japanese designs on Australia. Jacqui
Murray's argument for the Australian media's underestimation of
Japan's threat is sustained by close examination of media
practices, publications, and broadcasts which clearly show
misleading representations of Japan before the Pacific War.
Watching the Sun Rise details not only government peace-time media
censorship but also war-time propaganda flows from Australian,
British, and Japanese sources into the Australian media and
examples of cooperation and/or espionage among media personnel."
Democracy, the second of three volumes in the awardwinningseries
The Europeans in Australia, shows whatthe Europeans did with
Australia and why during thefirst four or five generations of
invasion and settlement,so as to secure great wealth and the
beginnings ofdemocracy. During the period from around 1815 to the
early 1870sAustralia began to find its place. The pace of
colonialexpansion accelerated while a kind of democracyemerged.
More than a story of geography and politics,Democracy describes the
way people thought and felt -what drove them, what troubled them.
By analysing thelives of both powerful and ordinary men and
women,Atkinson sets out the ideas that moved and marked them,in a
history of 'common imagination'.
This book examines the distinctive aspects that insiders and
outsiders perceived as characteristic of Irish and Scottish ethnic
identities in New Zealand. When, how, and why did Irish and Scots
identify themselves and others in ethnic terms? What
characteristics did the Irish and the Scots attribute to themselves
and what traits did others assign to them? Did these traits change
over time and if so how? Contemporary interest surrounding issues
of ethnic identities is vibrant. In countries such as New Zealand,
descendants of European settlers are seeking their ethnic origins,
spurred on in part by factors such as an ongoing interest in
indigenous genealogies, the burgeoning appeal of family history
societies, and the booming financial benefits of marketing
ethnicities abroad. This fascinating book will appeal to scholars
and students of the history of empire and the construction of
identity in settler communities, as well as those interested in the
history of New Zealand. -- .
This is the second installment in the acclaimed three-volume
history of Australia. Atkinson's aim is to show what the European
did with Australia--and why they did it--what drove them, what
troubled them--during the first four or five generations of
colonization, up to the end of the Great War. This volume takes the
story from around 1815 to the early l870s. Atkinson tells of the
expansion and enrichment of the colonies and the emergence of
democracy.
This book examines the Empire's Patriotic Fund, established in
Victoria, Australia, in 1901 to assist the dependants of the men
serving in the Boer War and the men invalided home because of
wounds or illness. Acting as an autonomous body and drawing on
funds raised through a public appeal, its work marked one of the
first attempts in Australia to deal with the consequences of
Australian participation in a sustained war. This is the first full
study of an Australian fund established to support those affected
by a sustained war being fought for Empire by Australians. Rather
than casting those affected by war as victims, John McQuilton
examines how a body of middle class men attempted to come to grips
with an experience that lay outside prevailing notions of social
welfare. Based on applications submitted to the Empire's Patriotic
Fund where both class and gender played their roles, this book
opens up further study of such funds and the question of
antecedents in the history of repatriation in Australia in the
early twentieth century.
This book reveals the business history of the Australian Government
Clothing Factory as it introduced innovative changes in the
production and design of the Australian Army uniform during the
twentieth century. While adopting a Schumpeterian interpretation of
the concept of innovation, Anneke van Mosseveld traces the driving
forces behind innovation and delivers a comprehensive explanation
of the resulting changes in the combat uniform. Using an array of
archival sources, this book displays details of extensive
collaborations between the factory, the Army and scientists in the
development of camouflage patterns and military textiles. It
uncovers a system of intellectual property management to protect
the designs of the uniform, and delivers new insights into the
wider economic influences and industry linkages of the Government
owned factory.
This book considers the role played by co-operative agriculture as
a critical economic model which, in Australia, helped build public
capital, drive economic development and impact political
arrangements. In the case of colonial Western Australia, the story
of agricultural co-operation is inseparable from that of the story
of Charles Harper. Harper was a self-starting, pioneering
frontiersman who became a political, commercial and agricultural
leader in the British Empire's most isolated colony during the
second half of the Victorian era. He was convinced of the
successful economic future of Western Australia but also pragmatic
enough to appreciate that the unique challenges facing the colony
were only going to be resolved by the application of unorthodox
thinking. Using Harper's life as a foil, this book examines
Imperial economic thinking in relation to the co-operative form of
economic organisation, the development of public capital, and
socialism. It uses this discussion to demonstrate the transfer of
socialistic ideas from the centre of the Empire to the farthest
reaches of the Antipodes where they were used to provide a
rhetorical crutch in support of purely pragmatic co-operative
establishments.
While inquiries into early encounters between East Asia and the
West have traditionally focused on successful interactions, this
collection inquires into the many forms of failure, experienced on
all sides, in the period before 1850. Countering a tendency in
scholarship to overlook unsuccessful encounters, it starts from the
assumption that failures can prove highly illuminating and provide
valuable insights into both the specific shapes and limitations of
East Asian and Western imaginations of the Other, as well as of the
nature of East-West interaction. Interdisciplinary in outlook, this
collection brings together the perspectives of sinology, Japanese
and Korean studies, historical studies, literary studies, art
history, religious studies, and performance studies. The subjects
discussed are manifold and range from missionary accounts, travel
reports, letters and trade documents to fictional texts as well as
material objects (such as tea, chinaware, or nautical instruments)
exchanged between East and West. In order to avoid a Eurocentric
perspective, the collection balances approaches from the fields of
English literature, Spanish studies, Neo-Latin studies, and art
history with those of sinology, Japanese studies, and Korean
studies. It includes an introduction mapping out the field of
failures in early modern encounters between East Asia and Europe,
as well as a theoretically minded essay on the lessons of failure
and the ethics of cross-cultural understanding.
In 1908 English gentleman, Ernest Westlake, packed a tent, a
bicycle and forty tins of food and sailed to Tasmania. On
mountains, beaches and in sheep paddocks he collected over 13,000
Aboriginal stone tools. Westlake believed he had found the remnants
of an extinct race whose culture was akin to the most ancient Stone
Age Europeans. But in the remotest corners of the island Westlake
encountered living Indigenous communities. Into the Heart of
Tasmania tells a story of discovery and realisation. One man's
ambition to rewrite the history of human culture inspires an
exploration of the controversy stirred by Tasmanian Aboriginal
history. It brings to life how Australian and British national
identities have been fashioned by shame and triumph over the
supposed destruction of an entire race. To reveal the beating heart
of Aboriginal Tasmania is to be confronted with a history that has
never ended.
From 2011 to 2014, the Australian Generations Oral History Project
recorded 300 interviews with Australians born between 1920 and
1989. The contributions to this book, a result of this project,
reflect on the practice of oral history and how interviews can
illuminate Australian social and cultural history. Three of the
chapters consider oral history innovations: focusing on the
potential for oral history in a digital age, the pioneering
technologies that underpinned Australian Generations and the
ethical issues posed by online digital oral history, and the
challenges and opportunities for radio oral history. In addition,
four chapters demonstrate how oral history interviews can be used
as rich evidence for historical research: examining the
interconnections between class, social equity, and higher education
in post-war Australia; how life histories can transform
understandings of mental ill-health; considering how oral history
interviews with Australians of all ages confound stereotypical
notions about generations; and investigating the ways in which
family relationships mediate identities and how remembered places
and objects provide points of anchor in a rapidly changing world.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Australian
Historical Studies.
In the first half of the twentieth century, a diverse community of
Australians settled in Shanghai. There they forged a 'China trade',
circulating goods, people and ideas across the South China Sea,
from Shanghai and Hong Kong to Sydney and Melbourne. This trade has
been largely forgotten in contemporary Australia, where future
economic ties trump historical memory when it comes to popular
perceptions of China. After the First World War, Australians turned
to Chinese treaty ports, fleeing poverty and unemployment, while
others sought to 'save' China through missionary work and socialist
ideas. Chinese Australians, disillusioned by Australian racism
under the White Australia Policy, arrived to participate in Chinese
nation building and ended up forging business empires which survive
to this day. This book follows the life trajectories of these
Australians, providing a means by which we can address one of the
pervading tensions of race, empire and nation in the twentieth
century: the relationship between working-class aspirations for
social mobility and the exclusionary and discriminatory practices
of white settler societies.
This study explores the pre-history of Irish convict transportation
to New South Wales which began with the Queen in April 1791. It
traces earlier attempts to revive the trans-Atlantic convict trade
and the frustrated efforts by Irish authorities to join in the
Botany Bay scheme after 1786. The nine Irish shipments to North
America and the West Indies are described in detail for the first
time, including the dramatic outcomes in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland
and the Leeward Islands which eventually forced the Home Office to
find space for Irish convicts on the Third Fleet. These events are
related against the background of Dublin's burgeoning crime rate in
the 1780s, the critical insecurity of its prison system and the
troubled political relationship between Ireland and Britain.
The dreaming paths of Aboriginal nations across Australia formed
major ceremonial routes along which goods and knowledge flowed.
These became the trade routes that criss-crossed Australia and
transported religion and cultural values. This book highlights the
valuable contribution Aboriginal people made in assisting European
explorers, surveyors and stockmen to open the country for
colonisation, and explores the interface between Aboriginal
possession of the Australian continent and European colonisation
and appropriation. Instead of positing a radical disjunction
between cultural competencies, Dale Kerwin considers how European
colonisation of Australia appropriated Aboriginal competence in
terms of the landscape: by tapping into culinary and medicinal
knowledge, water and resource knowledge, hunting, food collecting
and path-finding. As a consequence of this assistance, Aboriginal
dreaming paths and trading routes also became the routes and roads
of colonisers. Indeed, the European colonisation of Australia owes
much of its success to the deliberate process of Aboriginal land
management practices. Dale Kerwin provides a social science context
for the broader study of Aboriginal trading routes by setting out
an historic interpretation of the Aboriginal/European contact
period. His book scrutinises arguments about nomadic and primitive
societies, as well as Romantic views of culture and affluence.
These circumstances and outcomes are juxtaposed with evidence that
indicates that Aboriginal societies are substantially sedentary and
highly developed, capable of functional differentiation and
foresight -- attributes previously only granted to the European
settlers. The hunter-gatherer image of Aboriginal society is
rejected by providing evidence of crop cultivation and land
management, as well as social arrangements that made best use of a
hostile environment. This book is essential reading for all those
who seek to have a better knowledge of Australia and its first
people: it inscribes Aboriginal people firmly in the body of
Australian history.
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Perth
(Paperback)
David Whish-Wilson
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R500
Discovery Miles 5 000
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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... we rarely travel far to swim. We occasionally cross the river
to Leighton or Cottesloe, where the white sand squeaks underfoot
and the champagne foam in the shallows tingles the legs and fizzes
over the shoreline and makes children giddy with delight.
Mid-morning, before the sun passes overhead and shears off the
ocean, the cirrus clouds above the horizon often resemble passages
of perfect cursive script written in soft white lines against the
bluest page. This is the picture of a Perth in harmony with the
stillness and space and silence that is its truest personality, the
only prick of drama being the spotter plane of the shark patrol
crawling over the sky. David Whish-Wilson's Perth - the river, the
coast, the plain and the light - is a place where deeper historical
currents are never far beneath the surface and cannot be ignored.
Like the Swan River that can flow in two directions at once, with
the fresh water flowing seawards above the salty water flowing in
beneath, Perth strikes perfect harmony with the city's
contradictions and eccentricities. Whish-Wilson takes us beyond the
near-constant sunshine, shiny glass facades, and boosterish talk of
mining booms and the gloom after the bust. Lyrical and sensitive,
Whish-Wilson introduces his readers to the richness of the natural
world and the trailblazers, the rebels, the occasional ghost and
the ordinary people that bring Australia's remotest capital city to
life. He reminds us that while the city's boundaries are porous as
people come and go, rates of Indigenous incarceration are high.
Carefully researched and full of personal reminiscences - including
many about fishing - and eye-opening facts, Perth now has a
remarkable new Postscript. Here Whish-Wilson returns to the city's
ghosts - some human, others the ancient jarrah trees, wildflowers
and wild birds that once flourished but no longer. And, as he walks
across the new Matagarup Bridge to watch the footy he reflects on
the city his children will inherit. New edition of a classic with a
new Postscript in which Whish-Wilson returns to the ghosts and
memories of his city and reflects on how much it has changed since
his book was first published in 2013 A beautiful portrait of Perth
that will move outsiders to revisit their preconceptions about the
place and inspire residents to renew their connections Acclaimed
for its poetic writing Author's reputation as a crime writer
growing with four thrillers -all set in Perth - out with Fremantle
since the publication of Perth Will be supported by major media and
publicity campaign
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