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Books > Humanities > History > Australasian & Pacific history > General
'The most significant issue that Dockrill addresses is that of how
Japan views the war in retrospect, a question which not only tells
us a lot about how events were seen in Japan in 1941 but is also, a
matter still of importance in contemporary East Asian politics.'
Antony Best, London School of Economics This multi-authored work,
edited by Saki Dockrill, is an original, unique, and controversial
interpretation of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific. Dr
Dockrill, the author of Britain's Policy for West German
Rearmament, has skilfully converted the proceedings of an
international conference held in London into a stimulating and
readable account of the Pacific War. This is a valuable
contribution to our knowledge of the subject.
Who was "the most dangerous man in Australia" in the years before
World War II? Was it the geologist who obtained nickel and
molybdenite to prolong the life of Krupp guns and help "our dear F
hrer" to win the next war? Or perhaps the journalist who took
Japanese money in return for persuading politicians that the
peace-loving Japanese were no threat to Australia? Or the Vichy
French Consul-General who urged the Japanese to seize New
Caledonia, while he threatened the lives of Free French supporters
in Australia? These are some of the intriguing characters to be
found in this book. Judge for yourself who deserves the distinction
After the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor the Pacific based
squadrons of RNZAF began to receive modern US warplanes. Under the
command of Squadron Leader T.J. McLean de Lange, No.25 Squadron was
created on 31 July 1943, as the RNZAF's sole SBD Dauntless dive
bomber squadron. In March 1944, No.25 began operations on
Guadalcanal; objective Rabaul. In eight weeks 530 sorties were
flown for the loss of only five aircraft. However, due to the
outdated nature of the Dauntless, the Squadron was disbanded at the
end of May and surviving pilots transferred to RNZAF Corsair
squadrons. Revised edition 2015 which includes a page on the
British SBD-5s.
An examination of France's presence in the South Pacific after the
takeover of Tahiti. It places the South Pacific in the context of
overall French expansion and current theories of colonialism and
imperialism and evaluates the French impact on Oceania.
- When was Aotearoa discovered? - How was Maori society organised
in pre-European times? - What is traditional Maori art? - How does
the Treaty of Waitangi affect us today? History and culture, from
the great Polynesian migration to present-day sport and politics,
are explored in this introduction to the world of the Maori.
This historical study of the development of social welfare systems
in divergent countries draws on a variety of essays to examine the
work of each country in turn, followed by a comparison of all three
and an examination of social experiments in regions of recent
settlement.
The question is as searing as it is fundamental to the continuing
debate over Japanese culpability in World War II and the period
leading up to it: "How could Japanese soldiers have committed such
acts of violence against Allied prisoners of war and Chinese
civilians?" During the First World War, the Japanese fought on the
side of the Allies and treated German POWs with respect and
civility. In the years that followed, under Emperor Hirohito,
conformity was the norm and the Japanese psyche became one of
selfless devotion to country and emperor; soon Japanese soldiers
were to engage in mass murder, rape, and even cannibalization of
their enemies. Horror in the East examines how this drastic change
came about. On the basis of never-before-published interviews with
both the victimizers and the victimized, and drawing on
never-before-revealed or long-ignored archival records, Rees
discloses the full horror of the war in the Pacific, probing the
supposed Japanese belief in their own racial superiority, analyzing
a military that believed suicide to be more honorable than
surrender, and providing what the Guardian calls "a powerful,
harrowing account of appalling inhumanity...impeccably researched."
Fiji by the year 1900 after a generation as a British Crown Colony
was a multi-racial nation with a combined indentured and free
Indian component, which was about to expand on a large scale, and
contest political predominance with indigenous Fijians and a small
but dominant European minority among other ethnic groups. Drawn
from primary sources, and packed with original quotations and
statistics, "Fiji and the Franchise" illuminates the history of the
struggle that followed. This book introduces modern readers to life
in the Fiji islands from 1900 to 1937, when the ultimate question
for its inhabitants was how political representation should be
achieved, and on what basis. "Fiji and the Franchise" was Dr. Ali's
eminently readable and well-grounded Australian National University
doctoral thesis. It was presented in 1973 but still remained
unpublished when he suddenly became ill on a visit to India and, as
bravely as he had always lived, passed away in 2005. Now, Dr. Ali's
work lives on as a tribute to and record of this amazing island
nation.
During World War II Australia was under threat of invasion. Could
Australia be invaded by the Japanese? Even with the heavy
censorship by the government many certainly thought so and the
nation was gripped by fear that the danger would soon be on their
doorstep. The Japanese appeared to be looming closer; there were
submarines in Sydney Harbour, Japanese planes flying overhead and
harassment on our coastline. Australians were fearful for their
safety. Anxious parents made decisions to protect their children,
with or without government sanction. Small children were sent away,
often unaccompanied, by concerned parents to friends, relatives, or
even strangers living in `safer' parts of the country. Some had
little comprehension of what was happening and thought they were
going on holiday to the country. The history of these child
evacuees in Australia remains largely hidden and their experiences
untold. Author Ann Howard, who was evacuated with her mother from
the UK during World War II, has set the records straight. A
combination of extensive research and the first-hand stories of the
evacuees captures the mood of the time and the social and political
environment that they lived in. Unlike the sometimes sad and
horrible experiences of their UK counterparts, for many Australian
child evacuees there enforced `holiday' was a surprisingly happy
time. A Carefree War tells the story of the largest upheaval in
Australia since white settlement using oral memoirs and box camera
photos, all placed within the frameworks of history. The voices of
over one hundred contributors join together to paint a vivid
picture of wartime Australia; the fear, the chaos and civilians
floundering under the impact of a war that would change their way
of life forever.
In this companion to the HBO(r) miniseries-executive produced by
Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman-Hugh Ambrose reveals
the intertwined odysseys of four U.S. Marines and a U.S. Navy
carrier pilot during World War II.
Between America's retreat from China in late November 1941 and the
moment General MacArthur's airplane touched down on the Japanese
mainland in August of 1945, five men connected by happenstance
fought the key battles of the war against Japan. From the debacle
in Bataan, to the miracle at Midway and the relentless vortex of
Guadalcanal, their solemn oaths to their country later led one to
the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and the others to the coral
strongholds of Peleliu, the black terraces of Iwo Jima and the
killing fields of Okinawa, until at last the survivors enjoyed a
triumphant, yet uneasy, return home.
In "The Pacific," Hugh Ambrose focuses on the real-life stories of
the five men who put their lives on the line for our country. To
deepen the story revealed in the miniseries and go beyond it, the
book dares to chart a great ocean of enmity known as The Pacific
and the brave men who fought. Some considered war a profession,
others enlisted as citizen soldiers. Each man served in a different
part of the war, but their respective duties required every ounce
of their courage and their strength to defeat an enemy who
preferred suicide to surrender. The medals for valor which were
pinned on three of them came at a shocking price-a price paid in
full by all.
War has shaped Australian society profoundly. When we commemorate
the sacrifices of the Anzacs, we rightly celebrate their bravery,
but we do not always acknowledge the complex aftermath of combat.In
The Cost of War, Stephen Garton traces the experiences of
Australia's veterans, and asks what we can learn from their
stories. He considers the long-term effects of war on returned
servicemen and women, on their families and communities, and on
Australian public life. He describes attempts to respond to the
physical and psychological wounds of combat, from the first victims
of shellshock during WWI to more recent understandings of
post-traumatic stress disorder. And he examines the political and
social repercussions of war, including debates over how we should
commemorate conflict and how society should respond to the needs of
veterans.When the first edition of The Cost of War appeared in
1996, it offered a ground-breaking new perspective on the Anzac
experience. In this new edition, Garton again makes a compelling
case for a more nuanced understanding of the individual and
collective costs of war.
In 1787, the twenty-eighth year of the reign of King George III, the British Government sent a fleet to colonize Australia… An epic description of the brutal transportation of men, women and children out of Georgian Britain into a horrific penal system which was to be the precursor to the Gulag and was the origin of Australia. The Fatal Shore is the prize-winning, scholarly, brilliantly entertaining narrative that has given its true history to Australia.
'The Earth is a Common Treasury', proclaimed the English
Revolutionaries in the 1640s. Does the principle of the commons
offer us ways to respond now to the increasingly destructive
effects of neoliberalism? With insight, passion and an eye on
history, Jane Goodall argues that as the ravages of neo-liberalism
tear ever more deeply into the social fabric, the principle of the
commons should be restored to the heart of our politics. She looks
in particular at land and public institutions in Australia and
elsewhere. Many ordinary citizens seem prepared to support
governments that increase national debt while selling off publicly
owned assets and cutting back on services. In developed countries,
extreme poverty is becoming widespread yet we are told we have
never been so prosperous. This important book calls for a radically
different kind of economy, one that will truly serve the common
good. Topical and constructive - this book argues for the
restoration of the principle of the commons as a way of reclaiming
the social fabric from the ravages of neo-liberalism Questions why
so many citizens support governments that increase national debt
while selling off publicly owned assets Asks how and why our
political culture and economic policies have become so hostile to
communal resources and public ownership Has an eye on the history
of the commons as well as those who advocate for it in a modern
form: Bill Shorten and Sally McManus for example in Australia;
Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the US.
An on-the-spot history of a fight in the Pacific during World War
II, "Island Victory" was the first battle history written by
then-Lieutenant Colonel S. L. A. Marshall, a veteran of World War I
who would serve in Korea and Vietnam and become a brigadier general
in the process. After the Seventh Infantry Division drove across
Kwajalein Atoll in the first days of February 1944, successfully
wresting control of the strategic southern tip from the Japanese,
Marshall was charged with producing an accurate and comprehensive
account of the fight. His solution: bring the front-line soldiers
together at once and interview them as a group, tapping the
collective memory of a platoon fresh from battle. In this book,
readers get a rare, firsthand sense of all the emotions that
soldiers in combat experience. Numerous maps and photographs help
us visualize precisely what took place. A compelling work of
military history, and the first book of its kind, "Island Victory"
is itself an important chapter in the history of how military
exploits are described and recorded.
Nelson French joined the Orient Line as an Assistant Purser when he
was released from the Army in 1947. He was appointed Purser in 1954
and thereafter served in every ship of the Orient fleet. He was
involved in the commissioning and the Maiden Voyage of the last
great Orient Liner, ORIANA. On leaving the sea, Nelson French
became a Bursar at St. Catherine's College, Oxford. He retired in
1981 and now lives in Oxfordshire.
This book tells of one of the most expansive and rapid phases of
human migration in prehistory, a period during which Polynesians
reached and settled nearly every archipelago scattered across some
28 million square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean, an area now
known as East Polynesia. Through an engaging narrative and over 400
maps, diagrams, photographs, and illustrations, Crowe conveys some
of the skills, innovation, resourcefulness, and courage of the
people that drove this extraordinary feat of maritime expansion. In
this masterful work, Andrew Crowe integrates a diversity of
research and viewpoints in a format that is both accessible to the
lay reader and required reading for any serious scholar of this
fascinating region.
Australia and the World celebrates the pioneering role of Neville
Meaney in the formation and development of foreign relations
history in Australia and his profound influence on its study,
teaching and application.The contributors to the volume -
historians, practitioners of foreign relations and political
commentators, many of whom were taught by Meaney at the University
of Sydney over the years - focus especially on the interaction
between geopolitics, culture and ideology in shaping Australian and
American approaches to the world.Individual chapters examine a
number of major themes informing Neville Meaney's work, including
the sources and nature of Australia's British identity; the
hapless, if dedicated, efforts of Australian politicians, public
servants and intellectuals to reconcile this intense cultural
identity with Australia's strategic anxieties in the Asia-Pacific
region; and the sense of trauma created when the myth of
'Britishness' collapsed under the weight of new historical
circumstances in the 1960s. They survey relations between Australia
and the United States in the years after World War Two. Finally,
they assess the US perceptions of itself as an 'exceptional' nation
with a mission to spread democracy and liberty to the wider world
and the way in which this self-perception has influenced its
behaviour in international affairs.
A Primer for Teaching Pacific Histories is a guide for college and
high school teachers who are teaching Pacific histories for the
first time or for experienced teachers who want to reinvigorate
their courses. It can also serve those who are training future
teachers to prepare their own syllabi, as well as teachers who want
to incorporate Pacific histories into their world history courses.
Matt K. Matsuda offers design principles for creating syllabi that
will help students navigate a wide range of topics, from settler
colonialism, national liberation, and warfare to tourism, popular
culture, and identity. He also discusses practical pedagogical
techniques and tips, project-based assignments, digital resources,
and how Pacific approaches to teaching history differ from
customary Western practices. Placing the Pacific Islands at the
center of analysis, Matsuda draws readers into the process of
strategically designing courses that will challenge students to
think critically about the interconnected histories of East Asia,
Southeast Asia, Australia, the Pacific Islands, and the Americas
within a global framework.
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