For a British Empire that stretched across much of the globe at the start of the nineteenth century, the interiors of Africa and Australia remained intriguing mysteries. The challenge of opening these continents to imperial influence fell to a proto-professional coterie of determined explorers. They sought knowledge, adventure, and fame, but often experienced confusion, fear, and failure. The Last Blank Spaces follows the arc of these explorations, from idea to practice, from intention to outcome, from myth to reality. Those who conducted the hundreds of expeditions that probed Africa and Australia in the nineteenth century adopted a mode of scientific investigation that had been developed by previous generations of seaborne explorers. They likened the two continents to oceans, empty spaces that could be made truly knowable only by mapping, measuring, observing, and preserving. They found, however, that their survival and success depended less on this system of universal knowledge than it did on the local knowledge possessed by native peoples. While explorers sought to advance the interests of Britain and its emigrant communities, Dane Kennedy discovers a more complex outcome: expeditions that failed ignominiously, explorers whose loyalties proved ambivalent or divided, and, above all, local states and peoples who diverted expeditions to serve their own purposes. The collisions, and occasional convergences, between British and indigenous values, interests, and modes of knowing the world are brought to the fore in this fresh and engaging study.

Arthur Cornwallis Evans (1860 1935) was chaplain on the steamship HMS Calliope on a three-year voyage to Asia and Australia (January 1887 to April 1890) that covered 76,814 nautical miles (88,395 miles), with more than 500 days spent at sea. He compiled this lively account of the voyage at the request of his shipmates, drawing information from several of their journals, and published it in Portsmouth in 1890 before the crew dispersed. It contains both brief factual entries about the progress of the voyage and more sustained descriptions of life on board ship and in port, including some naval culinary 'delicacies', an encounter with a robber in Hong Kong, the Russian foritifications at Vladivostok, fireworks in Sydney celebrating the centenary of New South Wales, the opening of Calliope Dock in Auckland (still in use today), visits to several Pacific islands, cricket matches and regattas, and an eclipse of the sun."

This two-volume work by Captain Phillip Parker King (1791-1856) was published in 1827, and describes the Royal Navy's 1817-22 surveying expedition to chart the coastal regions of Australia. King carried out the surveys in two successive ships, the Mermaid, which was declared unseaworthy in 1820, and the newly commissioned Bathurst. He worked on the charts, which were published by the Hydrographic Office, for two years after his return to England. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and later undertook a similar surveying voyage, in which he was accompanied by Captain Fitzroy on the Beagle, around the coast of South America. The book is derived from the author's journal, and describes not only the voyages but also the towns and settlements of the region. Volume 2 continues the survey along the north and west coasts of Australia, and contains an appendix describing winds, currents, ports and islands.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796-1862) was a colonial advocate and political theorist, who was influential in the early colonisation of New Zealand and South Australia. Wakefield read widely on contemporary economics and social questions, and his theory of colonisation helped shape the British Empire. He formed the New Zealand Association in 1837 to create a new colony in that country, finally emigrating himself in 1852. His son, the editor of this volume of letters, was appointed secretary of the first settler expedition to New Zealand in 1839, and was elected political representative for Canterbury in 1854. The letters in the volume, published in 1868, which span the period 1847-50, trace the history of the town of Canterbury from Wakefield senior's suggestion of church-led settlement in the 1840s to its foundation in 1850-1. A planned second volume was never published.

Educated at Sandhurst, Sir George Grey (1812 98) became Governor of South Australia when he was not yet thirty. Later he served as Governor of New Zealand and High Commissioner for South Africa, and in the 1870s he enjoyed a period as premier of New Zealand. Although he liked to portray himself as 'good Governor Grey', some of his contemporaries found him ruthless and manipulative. Like many other Victorian administrators, he was convinced that the 'savage' natives needed to be 'improved' in order to become more like Europeans. In this 1841 publication, Grey writes about two expeditions to North West Australia that took place under his leadership in 1837 9. Both expeditions encountered difficulties, and Grey himself was seriously wounded. In Volume 2, Grey focuses on the language and culture of the native Australians, and reveals his plans for 'raising' the Aborigines to what he regards a 'civilised' level.

In 1822, an ambitious but bankrupt mariner named James Mudie arrived in Australia. With the support and patronage of the Colonial Office he was appointed justice of the peace and went on to acquire a reputation as one of the harshest and most brutal magistrates in New South Wales. Published in 1837, as a gesture of protest against Sir Richard Burke's relative leniency, Mudie's account of the 'social, moral and political condition' of the penal colony terrified British readers. Using dramatic imagery and anecdotes to support his argument, the author recommends a three-pronged attack on the 'depraved appetites and vicious courses' of convicts. Advocating strict discipline, the subjection of the will of the prisoner to that of the master, and 'religious impression', Mudie's treatise reveals not only the challenges facing nineteenth-century magistrates, but also the brutal treatment that awaited those whose punishment began with transportation to Australasia.

James Tuckey (1776-1816) was a naval officer who was appointed first lieutenant on H.M.S. Calcutta. In 1802 the ship was given orders to sail to New South Wales, Australia, to survey the harbour at Port Phillip, and to establish a colony. The Calcutta departed from Portsmouth in April 1803 and arrived in New South Wales in October. After Tuckey returned from the assignment, he published this account in 1805. He begins the work by explaining the motives behind establishing the colony - it was to be used for convicts, some of whom he was transporting on the ship. The first four chapters discuss the journey but the final chapter focuses on the attempts to establish a colony and encounters with the indigenous population, and gives a survey of the coastline. Port Phillip became the city Melbourne, and this work is a valuable source about its early years of settlement.

A unique and outstanding military and industrial achievement, the Collins class submarine project was also plagued with difficulties and mired in politics. Its story is one of heroes and villains, grand passions, intrigue, lies, spies and backstabbing. It is as well a story of enormous commitment and resolve to achieve what many thought impossible. The building of these submarines was Australia's largest, most expensive and most controversial military project. From initiation in the 1981 82 budget to the delivery of the last submarine in 2003, the total cost was in excess of six billion dollars. Over 130 key players were interviewed for this book, and the Australian Defence Department allowed access to its classified archives and the Australian Navy archives. Vividly illustrated with photographs from the collections of the Royal Australian Navy and ASC Pty Ltd, The Collins Class Submarine Story: Steel, Spies and Spin, first published in 2008, is a riveting and accessibly written chronicle of a grand-scale quest for excellence.

"Asia, the Pacific Islands and the coasts of the Americas have long been studied separately. This essential single-volume history of the Pacific traces the global interactions and remarkable peoples that have connected these regions with each other and with Europe and the Indian Ocean, for millennia. From ancient canoe navigators, monumental civilisations, pirates and seaborne empires, to the rise of nuclear testing and global warming, Matt Matsuda ranges across the frontiers of colonial history, anthropology and Pacific Rim economics and politics, piecing together a history of the region. The book identifies and draws together the defining threads and extraordinary personal narratives which have contributed to this history, showing how localised contacts and contests have often blossomed into global struggles over colonialism, tourism and the rise of Asian economies. Drawing on Asian, Oceanian, European, American, ancient and modern narratives, the author assembles a fascinating Pacific region from a truly global perspective"--

In May 1787 a fleet of ships carrying convicts left England bound for Botany Bay, New South Wales, where they were to establish a settlement. One of the crew on board the Charlotte was Watkin Tench (c.1758-1833), who wrote about the voyage of what was later known as the First Fleet. He remained in New South Wales, living in Port Jackson (part of present-day Sydney) from 1788 to 1791, and in this work, published in 1793, he gives a vivid, first-hand account of the early years of British settlement. The chapters are chronologically organised and discuss the many challenges settlers in the fledgling colony faced in staying alive, such as illness and lack of food and other provisions. He also recounts the often violent encounters and 'unabated animosity' between the settlers and the aboriginal people, making this work an important source on the colonisation of Australia.

Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) joined the Royal Navy at fifteen, later claiming to have been inspired by Robinson Crusoe. He served under William Bligh, and charted the Bass Strait in 1798. In 1801 he was commissioned to chart 'New Holland', and so became the first to circumnavigate the island he referred to as Australia. After being shipwrecked on the Barrier Reef and imprisoned for six years on Mauritius on suspicion of spying, he returned to England in 1810 and began work on A Voyage to Terra Australis. He died the day after his book and maps were published. This biography, published in 1914 to mark the centenary of his death, was the first comprehensive study of this central figure of Australian maritime exploration. The leading Australian historian Ernest Scott (1868-1939) based his account on material held in private collections in France as well as on documents deposited in Australian libraries.

This two-volume work by Captain Phillip Parker King (1791-1856) was published in 1827, and describes the Royal Navy's 1817-22 surveying expedition to chart the coastal regions of Australia. King carried out the surveys in two successive ships, the Mermaid, which was declared unseaworthy in 1820, and the newly commissioned Bathurst. He worked on the charts, which were published by the Hydrographic Office, for two years after his return to England. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and later undertook a similar surveying voyage, in which he was accompanied by Captain Fitzroy on the Beagle, around the coast of South America. The book is derived from the author's journal, and describes not only the voyages but also the towns and settlements and the natural history of the region, often making comparisons with Captain Cook's account. Volume 1 covers the south, east and north coasts of Australia.

First published anonymously in 1863, this classic book recounts the experiences of Frederick Edward Maning (c.1811-83), an Anglo-Irish trader who emigrated to Tasmania with his family as a boy and later relocated to New Zealand. A self-styled 'Pakeha-Maori' ('Pakeha' is the Maori word for a white New Zealander), Maning acquired land and settled down with a Maori woman, occupying a tenuous position between the two cultures. Observing that the old Maori way of life was rapidly disappearing due to the increased European presence in New Zealand, Maning endeavoured to record Maori customs and material culture before all knowledge of them disappeared. Old New Zealand is a mixture of history, autobiography and anecdote, and the author insists all the incidents and people described are real. The language is informal, and the narrative vigorous and rapid, with lively dialogues and occasional Maori phrases. A glossary explains Maori words and concepts.

Originally published in 1884, this work by the relatively unknown 'gentleman explorer' James Henry Kerry-Nicholls (d. 1888) focuses on nineteenth-century New Zealand. It recounts the journey into what he describes as terra incognita, the area known as the King Country, almost exclusively Maori and little explored by Europeans due to political difficulties and Maori hostility. Travelling with only three horses and what he could carry on them, and accompanied by an interpreter, he endeavoured to cover and accurately record details of an area totalling 10,000 square miles; owing to good contacts, he was even able to meet Maori King Tawhiao. Writing in what now seems an imperialist style, he recounts a history of Maori-European relations, notes potential sites for European settlement, includes geographical surveys and descriptions of the landscapes, and supplies a map which gives the 'most complete chart of the interior of the North Island as yet published'.

The island of Bougainville in the South Pacific was the site of one of the largest and most gruelling campaigns fought by Australian forces during the Second World War. During the offensive against the Japanese from November 1944 to August 1945, more than 500 Australians were killed and two Victoria Crosses were awarded. A veteran later described Bougainville as 'one long bloody hard slog'. Despite this, little is known about the campaign, which was dismissed as an unnecessary and costly operation. In the first major study of the Bougainville campaign since publication of the official history in 1963, Karl James argues that it was in fact a justifiable use of Australia's military resources. He draws on original archival research, including wartime reports and soldiers' letters and diaries, to illustrate the experience of Australian soldiers who fought in the campaign. James shows that it fulfilled the Australian government's long-standing plans for victory in the Second World War. Generously illustrated with over forty photographs, this important book tells the story of a campaign often overlooked or ignored in Australia's military history.

Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847 1903), writer and social reformer, rose to prominence as one of America's first muckraker journalists. Born in New York City, Lloyd started his journalism career at the Chicago Tribune and went on to expose the abuse of power in American oil companies. He also pursued a career in politics. In 1899 he travelled to New Zealand and Australia, the 'political laboratories' of Great Britain, to investigate how they resolved the conflict between organised capital and organised labour, and how they promoted social welfare. This book, published in 1900, praises New Zealand's system of compulsory arbitration and describes many instances of successful dispute resolution, from clothing manufacture to newspaper typesetting. The book includes an introduction by William Pember Reeves (1857 1932), liberal newspaper editor and writer, who as New Zealand's minister of labour had brought in the Arbitration Act of 1894 and other important labour legislation."

The politician, landowner and journalist W. C. Wentworth (1790-1872), was an energetic and controversial character in the early history of modern Australia. Together with Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson, he was the first to cross Australia's Blue Mountains. A well-known public figure in the colony of New South Wales, he founded a newspaper called The Australian (in 1824) and campaigned, among other things, for a free press, trial by jury, rights for emancipated convicts, public education, and a representative government. He also became extremely wealthy. In this book, first published in 1819, Wentworth argues that the Australian colonies are a better choice than the United States of America for European emigrants. The book contains a vast amount of information about the colonies of New South Wales and Tasmania, together with Wentworth's suggestions for the improvement of their government, and remains an important source for historians.

Written in 1914 by Alice, Lady Lovat (1846-1938), a cousin, this biography of Sir Frederick Aloysius Weld (1823-91) is characterised by its subtitle, 'a pioneer of empire'. The young Weld emigrated to New Zealand with a cousin to establish sheep stations. Entering politics, he became Minister for Native Affairs and then Premier; his Native Rights Act of 1865 redressed many of the grievances which had led to the Maori Wars. In 1868 he was appointed Governor of Western Australia, where he brought in a degree of representative government and helped develop the telegraph and transport infrastructure. In 1874 he became Governor of Tasmania, and in 1880 was promoted to the Straits Settlements, where his period as a colonial administrator was notable for the increase of British influence among the princely rulers of the Malay States. Retiring in 1887 for health reasons, he died in England in 1891.

English-born Thomas Morland Hocken (1836-1910), doctor, historian, and bibliographer, arrived in New Zealand in 1862 after abandoning his career as a ship's surgeon. After establishing a general practice in Dunedin, Hocken began to take a keen interest in the country's recent past. Published in 1898, this book was Hocken's first major work on New Zealand. The book focuses on the history of European settlement in the southern province of Otago in the years preceding the gold rush. Hocken begins with an account of the first pioneers' arrival in New Zealand, and the 'Wakefield Scheme' of assisted passage. The book describes the lives of the founding fathers of Dunedin, the migration of settlers to the area and the establishment of churches, and ends with the discovery of gold. Hocken wrote several other accounts of New Zealand history and was elected Fellow of the Linnean Society for his contribution to botany.

In October 1854 the Taranaki Herald reported the return to New Zealand of Charles Hursthouse, who 'for years past has been in England the untiring advocate of New Zealand emigration, and by his writings and lectures has materially contributed to the colonization of the settlement'. In this updated 1861 version of his 1857 book, Hursthouse promises 'a fair and honest picture of New Zealand as she is today' and expresses his belief that thousands of struggling British people from all walks of life would be 'saved' by emigrating. He describes New Zealand's history, climate, natural history, population, government, exports and markets, agricultural pursuits and trades, and includes a revealing chapter on war and 'native policy'. Hursthouse explains his own reasons for emigrating, and provides practical advice on official regulations, travel insurance, choice of ship, the best times to sail and how to keep occupied during the voyage.

Published in 1892, this two-volume biography chronicles the remarkable life and career of Sir George Grey (1812-98), the 11th premier of New Zealand. William Lee Rees (1836-1912), lawyer, politician and well-known supporter of Grey, co-wrote this work with his daughter Lily, and the books outline how Grey became arguably the most influential figure during the European settlement of New Zealand in the nineteenth century. The volumes proceed chronologically and are organised by the main events in Grey's life. Volume 2 covers Grey's second governorships of Cape Colony and New Zealand, his engagement in English politics and his return to New Zealand in 1870. It concludes with an assessment of Grey's personal characteristics, successes and failures. In addition to recounting the incidents, adventures and achievements of Grey's life, Rees also conveys Grey's principles and aspirations, giving the reader an insight into the character of this servant of the empire.

Arthur S. Thomson (1816-60) was a Scottish military surgeon and medical scientist who was posted to New Zealand in the late 1840s. During his eleven years in the country, settlement increased and British sovereignty over the colony was extended. Thomson felt that previous historical accounts of New Zealand all demonstrated a certain political, colonial or religious bias, and decided to write his own comprehensive history of the islands, which was published in 1859. Volume 1 begins with a focus on the geography and climate of New Zealand. Thomson then describes the physical appearance of the New Zealanders, their way of life, their culture, their property laws and the origin of their (now abandoned) cannibalism. Next he describes the history of discovery and settlement by Europeans, who brought 'true civilisation' to the islands. Thomson gives especial credit to the Christian missionaries for having introduced progress and enlightenment.

Arthur S. Thomson (1816-60) was a Scottish military surgeon and medical scientist who was posted to New Zealand in the late 1840s. During his eleven years in the country, settlement increased and British sovereignty over the colony was extended. Thomson felt that previous historical accounts of New Zealand all demonstrated a certain political, colonial or religious bias, and decided to write his own comprehensive history of the islands, which was published in 1859. In Volume 2, Thomson continues the story of European discovery and settlement. He justifies the progress of British colonisation by arguing that it brought civilisation to the native people, fully supporting the introduction of English (property) law and the introduction of Christianity. Thomson advocates that the Maoris be taught English, as this is the only way to give them hope that they can 'rise above the hewers of wood and drawers of water'.

The first attempt by Europeans to settle in the area that eventually became the state of Victoria, Australia, was led by Colonel David Collins in 1803. Melbourne was founded in 1835, and after the discovery of gold in 1851 became the financial centre of Australia. This authoritative two-volume history of the state's first century, published in 1904 by the banker Henry Gyles Turner (1831-1920), is based on parliamentary records and information from leading political figures with whom the author was personally acquainted. Volume 1 traces Victoria's development from its early settlement to its establishment as an independent colony and the discovery of gold. It explores the region's progress and the challenges it faced as the gold rush led to overpopulation, high living costs, and mining disputes. The book gives first-hand insights into a time of rapid political, social and economic change.

The first attempt by Europeans to settle in the area that eventually became the state of Victoria, Australia, was led by Colonel David Collins in 1803. Melbourne was founded in 1835, and after the discovery of gold in 1851 became the financial centre of Australia. This authoritative two-volume history of the state's first century, published in 1904 by the banker Henry Gyles Turner (1831-1920), is based on parliamentary records and information from leading political figures with whom the author was personally acquainted. Volume 2 continues Turner's discussion of the gold rush, and covers the management of the goldfields, the imprisonment of unlicensed miners, and the miners' revolts against taxes. The book sets events in the context of the region's changing political landscape, and documents the struggle to establish an efficient government. It ends with a thorough account of Victoria's integration into the Commonwealth of Australia.