The Second World War was a dominant experience in Australian history. For the first time the country faced the threat of invasion. The economy and society were mobilised to an unprecedented degree, with 550 000 men and women, or one in twelve of a population of over 7 million, serving in the armed forces overseas. Social patterns and family life were disrupted. Politically, the war gave a new legitimacy to the Australian Labor Party which had been confined to the wilderness of the Opposition at the Federal level for most of the inter-war years. The powers of the Federal government increased and a new momentum for social reform was generated at the popular and governmental level. In the international sphere, the war fundamentally shook Australian confidence in the power on which it had relied for generations, Great Britain. It generated a sense of independence in Australian foreign policy and initiated a new, if halting and problematic, realignment towards the United States. In this accessible book Joan Beaumont, Kate Darian-Smith, David Lee, David Lowe, Marnie Haig-Muir, Roy Hay and David Walker consider the range of Australia's experience of this conflict. In a single volume they draw together the many aspects of the war and distil the current state of historical scholarship. Australia's War 1939-45 will be invaluable to tertiary students and of enormous interest to the reader concerned with the social, political and military history of Australia. A companion volume on the First World War is also available.

A study of nation-building processes in the young state of Papua New Guinea, and of opposition against these in one of the country's peripheral provinces, Manus. Intense resistance is offered there by a movement called Wind Nation. Wind Nation is nothing less than the old Paliau Movement, made famous by the two American anthropologists Margaret Mead and Theodore Schwartz. Paliau Maloat, Wind Nation's late founder and leader, has introduced a quasi-biblical ideology which labels the state as "Lucifer", and his movement fights Lucifer by means of riots, demonstrations and court-cases. Throughout Papua New Guinea movements with similar objectives make up a policentric process, of some bearing for the identity of the young state and its citizens.

'This is a provocative re-examination of our legal history appearing at a time when Australians are reconsidering both their past and their future.' - The Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG, President of the New South Wales Court of AppealThe imperial view of Australian law was that it was a weak derivative of English law. In An Unruly Child, Bruce Kercher rewrites history. He reveals that since 1788 there has been a contest between the received legal wisdom of Mother England and her sometimes unruly offspring. The resulting law often suited local interests, but was not always more just.Kercher also shows that law has played a major role in Australian social history. From the convict settlements and the Eureka stockade in the early years to the Harvester Judgement, the White Australia Policy and most recently the Mabo case, central themes of Australian history have been framed by the legal system.An Unruly Child is a groundbreaking work which will influence our understanding of Australia's history and its legal system.

Australia's War, 1914-18 explores Australia's involvement in the First World War and the effect this had on the nation' s society. In this very accessible book, Joan Beaumont, Pam Maclean, Marnie Haig-Muir and David Lowe focus on: where Australians fought and why; the tensions and realignments within Australian politics in the period of 1914-18; the stresses of the war on Australian society, especially on women and those whom wartime hysteria cast in the role of the 'enemy' at home; the impact of the war on the country's economy; the role played by Australia in international diplomacy; and finally, the creation and influence of the Anzac legend.Once dominated by the battlefield and official accounts of the war correspondent and official historian, C.E.W. Bean, Australian writing on the war has acquired a new depth and sophistication. Studies of the home front reveal a society riven by divisions without precedent in the nation's history.This single volume will be invaluable to tertiary students and of enormous interest to the reader concerned with the social, political and military history of Australia.

Little more than seventy years after the British settled Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania) in 1803, the indigenous community had been virtually wiped out. Yet this genocide at the hands of the British is virtually forgotten today. The Last Man is the first book specifically to explore the role of the British government and wider British society in this genocide. It positions the destruction as a consequence of British policy, and ideology in the region. Tom Lawson shows how Britain practised cultural destruction and then came to terms with and evaded its genocidal imperial past. Although the introduction of European diseases undoubtedly contributed to the decline in the indigenous population, Lawson shows that the British government supported what was effectively the ethnic cleansing of Tasmania - particularly in the period of martial law in 1828-1832. By 1835 the vast majority of the surviving indigenous community had been deported to Flinders Island, where the British government took a keen interest in the attempt to transform them into Christians and Englishmen in a campaign of cultural genocide. Lawson also illustrates the ways in which the destruction of indigenous Tasmanians was reflected in British culture - both at the time and since - and how it came to play a key part in forging particular versions of British imperial identity. Laments for the lost Tasmanians were a common theme in literary and museum culture, and the mistaken assumption that Tasmanians were doomed to complete extinction was an important part of the emerging science of human origins. By exploring the memory of destruction, The Last Man provides the first comprehensive picture of the British role in the destruction of the Tasmanian Aboriginal population.

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.

Located in the Blue Mountains southwest of Sydney, the Blue Plateau is a contrary collection of canyons and creeks, cow paddocks and eucalyptus forests, the first people and ranchers. This book reveals the plateau through its inhabitants: the Gundungurra people who were there first and still remain; the Maxwell family, who tried, but failed, to tame the land; the affable, impoverished, often drunken ranchers and firefighters; and the author himself, a poet trying to insinuate his citified self into a rugged landscape defined by drought, fire, and scarcity. Like the works of Peter Mathiessen, Barry Lopez, and William Least Heat-Moon, "The Blue Plateau" is a deep examination of place that transcends genre, incorporating poetry, people's history, ecology, mythology, and memoir to reveal how humanity and nature intertwine to create a home. Elegiac and intimately composed, this vivid portrait of a rugged wilds expands readers' sense of the place they call home.

50 years ago, Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and brought a reluctant America into World War II. Armed with fresh materials, which have become available only in the last decade, Renzi and Roehrs take a critical look at the decisive Japanese-American episodes in "The Great Pacific War". Unlike standard histories of World War II, "Never Look Back" includes the Japanese perspective, bringing to light challenging facts: in "Operation Flying Elephant" the Japanese attempted to cause forest fires in the American West by releasing hydrogen-filled balloons. When Americans of Japanese ancestry were interned during the conflict, word reached Japan of their plight and resulted in even greater mistreatment of American POWs in Japan. It is argued that Japan did not surrender because of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or because of the conventional firebombing or because of the US submarine campaign, but because the USSR entered the war.

The essays in Australia and the Wider World bring together a lasting contribution to the story of Australia and the history of ideas in this country.Since the 1960s Neville Meaney has been asking probing questions about social change and the rise of nationalism, especially as found in the making of Australia's self-image and its engagement with the world. His efforts to unravel what he once called 'the riddle of Australian nationalism' have raised important, and often unsettling, challenges for Australians. Bringing together the cultural, intellectual, political and diplomatic dimensions of the national experience, Meaney's work has been dominated by two overarching and interconnected questions: how Australians should resolve the tension between the 'community of culture' and the 'community of interest' and how they should reconcile their British heritage with their Asian moorings?A number of topics standout out in the essays - racial discrimination and immigration, the evolution of Australia's Pacific policy, the coming of the Cold War, doubts about the American alliance, the Communist threat and relations with Asia, notably Japan. His treatment of all of them shows how Australia was involved with the wider world and how politicians and policymakers responded to these momentous issues.If, as Neville Meaney once wrote, the purpose of studying the past is 'to clarify the argument, mediate the passion and enlighten the judgment' then these essays, when considered singly or together, will undoubtedly have an enduring value.

This is the story of Operation Jericho, the spectacular prison break staged by an elite group of British, Australian and New Zealand bomber pilots, who flew a daring low-level mission to blow holes in the walls of Amiens jail and free French Resistance prisoners under the sentence of death during World War II. With D-Day looming, early 1944 was a time of massive intelligence activity across northern France, and many resistants were being captured and imprisoned by the Germans. Among the jails full of French agents was Amiens, where hundreds awaited likely execution for their activities. To repay their debt of honour, MI6 requested an air raid with a seemingly impossible brief: to simultaneously blow holes in the prison walls, free as many men and women as possible while minimizing casualties, and kill German guards in their quarters. The crews would have to fly their bomb-run at an altitude of just 20ft. Despite the huge difficulties, the RAF decided that the low-level specialists of No. 140 Wing had a chance of success. With the aid of first-hand accounts, explanatory 3D diagrams and dramatic original artwork, the eminent historian Robert Lyman explains how one of the most difficult and spectacular air raids of World War II was pulled off, and debunks some of the myths over why the raid was ordered in the first place.

This study deals with the period after "The Killing Times". It examines the cultural forms of domination, supported by force, which enabled European colonizers to make "Aborigines". But Aborigines were not merely passive victims: out of the exchange came a transformed consciousness for the dispossessed, shaped by European culture and their own. The book is aimed at students in the politics of development, politics, and anthropology.

First published in 2006. A traveller's tale set in the islands of Samoa with the legendary traveller Robert Louis Stevenson as guide, this book is valuable not only for its enjoyment as a tale of adventure, but also for its record of Stevenson himself - a literacy figure more commonly seen as author and not subject.

With their power to create a sense of proximity and empathy, photographs have long been a crucial means of exchanging ideas between people across the globe; this book explores the role of photography in shaping ideas about race and difference from the 1840s to the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. Focusing on Australian experience in a global context, a rich selection of case studies - drawing on a range of visual genres, from portraiture to ethnographic to scientific photographs - show how photographic encounters between Aboriginals, missionaries, scientists, photographers and writers fuelled international debates about morality, law, politics and human rights.Drawing on new archival research, Photography, Humanitarianism, Empire is essential reading for students and scholars of race, visuality and the histories of empire and human rights.

Violence and intimacy were critically intertwined at all stages of the settler colonial encounter, and yet we know surprisingly little of how they were connected in the shaping of colonial economies. Extending a reading of 'economies' as labour relations into new arenas, this innovative collection of essays examines new understandings of the nexus between violence and intimacy in settler colonial economies of the British Pacific Rim. The sites it explores include cross-cultural exchange in sealing and maritime communities, labour relations on the frontier, inside the pastoral station and in the colonial home, and the material and emotional economies of exploration. Following the curious mobility of texts, objects, and frameworks of knowledge, this volume teases out the diversity of ways in which violence and intimacy were expressed in the economies of everyday encounters on the ground. In doing so, it broadens the horizon of debate about the nature of colonial economies and the intercultural encounters that were enmeshed within them.

This book explores the relationship between political memories of migration and the politics of migration, following over two hundred years of commemorating Australia Day. References to Europeans' original migration to the continent have been engaged in social and political conflicts to define who should belong to Australian society, who should gain access, and based on what criteria. These political memories were instrumental in negotiating inherent conflicts in the formation of the Australian Commonwealth from settler colonies to an immigrant society. By the second half of the twentieth century, the Commonwealth employed Australia Day commemorations specifically to incorporate new arrivals, promoting at first citizenship and, later on, multiculturalism. The commemoration has been contested throughout its history based on two distinct forms of political memories providing conflicting modes of civic and communal belonging to Australian politics and policies of migration. Introducing the concept of Political Memories, this book offers a novel understanding of the social and political role of memories, not only in regard to migration.

The epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet - murderer or hero?

Most people have heard of the Boer War and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. But Morant was a complicated man. Born in England and immigrating to Queensland in 1883, he established a reputation as a rider, polo player and poet who submitted ballads to The Bulletin and counted Banjo Paterson as a friend. Travelling on his wits and the goodwill of others, Morant was quick to act when appeals were made for horsemen to serve in the war in South Africa. He joined up, first with the South Australian Mounted Rifles and then with a South African irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers.

The adventure would not go as Breaker planned. In October 1901 Lieutenant Harry Morant and two other Australians, Lieutenants Peter Handcock and George Witton, were arrested for the murder of Boer prisoners. Morant and Handcock were court-martialled and executed in February 1902 as the Boer War was in its closing stages, but the debate over their convictions continues to this day.

With his masterful command of story, Peter FitzSimons takes us to the harsh landscape of southern Africa and into the bloody action of war against an unpredictable force using modern commando tactics. The truths FitzSimons uncovers about 'the Breaker' and the part he played in the Boer War are astonishing - and finally we will know if the Breaker was a hero, a cad, a scapegoat or a criminal.

Examining the role of Asian and indigenous male servants across the Asia Pacific from the late-19th century to the 1930s, this study shows how their ubiquitous presence in these purportedly 'humble' jobs gave them a degree of cultural influence that has been largely overlooked in the literature on labour mobility in the age of empire. With case studies from British Hong Kong, Singapore, Northern Australia, Fiji and British Columbia, French Indochina, the American Philippines and the Dutch East Indies, the book delves into the intimate and often conflicted relationships between European and American colonists and their servants. It explores the lives of 'houseboys', cooks and gardeners in the colonial home, considers the bell-boys and waiters in the grand colonial hotels, and follows the stewards and cabin-boys on steamships travelling across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This broad conception of service allows Colonialism and Male Domestic Service to illuminate trans-colonial or cross-border influences through the mobility of servants and their employers. This path-breaking study is an important book for students and scholars of colonialism, labour history and the Asia Pacific region.

This book provides a concise and innovative history of Italian migration to Australia over the past 150 years. It focuses on crucial aspects of the migratory experience, including work and socio-economic mobility, disorientation and reorientation, gender and sexual identities, racism, sexism, family life, aged care, language, religion, politics, and ethnic media. The history of Italians in Australia is re-framed through key theoretical concepts, including transculturation, transnationalism, decoloniality, and intersectionality. This book challenges common assumptions about the Italian-Australian community, including the idea that migrants are 'stuck' in the past, and the tendency to assess migrants' worth according to their socio-economic success and their alleged contribution to the Nation. It focuses instead on the complex, intense, inventive, dynamic, and resilient strategies developed by migrants within complex transcultural and transnational contexts. In doing so, this book provides a new way of rethinking and remembering the history of Italians in Australia.

John Costello's The Pacific War has now established itself as the standard one-volume account of World War II in the Pacific. Never before have the separate stories of fighting in China, Malaya, Burma, the East Indies, the Phillipines, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Aleutians been so brilliantly woven together to provide a clear account of one of the most massive movements of men and arms in history. The complex social, political, and economic causes that underlay the war are here carefully analyzed, impelling the reader to see it as the inevitable conclusion to a series of historical events. And the bloody fighting that indelibly recorded names like Midway and Iwo Jima in the annals of human conflict is described in detail, through its ominous conclusion in the mushroom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's great epics - and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty's crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave. Under the leadership of Fletcher Christian most of the crew mutinied soon after sailing from Tahiti, setting Captain William Bligh and 18 loyal crewmen adrift in a small open boat. In one of history's great feats of seamanship, Bligh navigated this tiny vessel for 3618 nautical miles to Timor. Fletcher Christian and the mutineers sailed back to Tahiti, where most remained and were later tried for mutiny. But Christian, along with eight fellow mutineers and some Tahitian men and women, sailed off into the unknown, eventually discovering the isolated Pitcairn Island - at the time not even marked on British maps - and settling there. This astonishing story is historical adventure at its very best, encompassing the mutiny, Bligh's monumental achievement in navigating to safety, and Fletcher Christian and the mutineers' own epic journey from the sensual paradise of Tahiti to the outpost of Pitcairn Island. The mutineers' descendants live on Pitcairn to this day, amid swirling stories and rumours of past sexual transgressions and present-day repercussions. Mutiny on the Bounty is a sprawling, dramatic tale of intrigue, bravery and sheer boldness, told with the accuracy of historical detail and total command of story that are Peter FitzSimons' trademarks.

The Battle for the Falklands is a thoughtful and informed analysis of an astonishing chapter in modern British history from journalist and military historian Sir Max Hastings and political editor Simon Jenkins. Ten weeks. 28,000 soldiers. 8,000 miles from home. The Falklands War in 1982 was one of the strangest in British history. At the time, many Britons saw it as a tragic absurdity - thousands of men sent overseas for a tiny relic of empire - but the British victory over the Argentinians not only confirmed the quality of British arms but also boosted the political fortunes of Thatcher's Conservative government. However, it left a chequered aftermath and was later overshadowed by the two Gulf wars. Max Hastings' and Simon Jenkins' account of the conflict is a modern classic of war reportage and the definitive book on the conflict.

First Published in 1973. Forming part of a collection on general African studies, this text presents records of the Gold Coast Settlements from 1750 to 1874, by the Colonial Secretary of Sierra Leone, Major Crooks. It covers the period from the formation of the last African Company of Merchants in 1750 until the conclusion of the third Ashantee War in 1874.

This book offers a fresh perspective on the Chinese diaspora. It is about the mobilisation of knowledge across time and space, exploring the history of Chinese market gardening in Australia and New Zealand. It enlarges our understanding of processes of technological change and human mobility, highlighting the mobility of migrants as an essential element in the mobility and adaptation of technologies. Truly multidisciplinary, Chinese Market Gardening in Australia and New Zealand incorporates elements of economic, agricultural, social, cultural and environmental history, along with archaeology, to document how Chinese market gardeners from subtropical southern China adapted their horticultural techniques and technologies to novel environments and the demands of European consumers. It shows that they made a significant contribution to the economies of Australia and New Zealand, developing flexible strategies to cope with the vagaries of climate and changing business and social environments which were often hostile towards Asian immigrants. Chinese Market Gardening in Australia and New Zealand will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of the Chinese diaspora, in particular the history of the Chinese in Australasia; the history of technology; horticultural and garden history; and environmental history, as well as Asian studies more generally.

This comprehensive survey of the countries of East and South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, along with 22 Pacific islands, fully revised to reflect current economic and political developments, is an essential resource for the Asia-Pacific region. New content for the 2014 edition includes: in-depth analysis of the tensions on the Korean peninsula, following the imposition of UN sanctions on North Korea in response to its third nuclear test details of the transition to a new generation of leadership in the People's Republic of China, led by President Xi Jinping coverage of recent legislative and presidential elections, including those in Cambodia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines Calendar of Political Events A calendar of events provides a convenient reference guide to the year's main political developments General Survey Written by leading experts, this collection of essays provides incisive analysis of regional issues. Topics include the rise of China, relations between the USA and the Asia-Pacific region, the security challenges of East and South-East Asia, inter-Korean relations, a survey of environmental affairs in the region and new essays examining the importance of ASEAN-led regional architecture and exploring the refugee politics of Australia . Country Surveys Individual chapters on each country containing: essays on geography, history and the economy an economic and demographic survey of the latest available statistics on population, health and welfare, agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, industry, finance, trade, transport, tourism, communications and education a comprehensive directory of names and contact details covering the most significant political, financial and commercial institutions a country-specific bibliography An entire section is dedicated to the Pacific islands, including specially commissioned essays examining the contemporary politics of the islands, their economies, security concerns and the environmental issues confronting them Regional Information includes all major international organizations active in the region, their aims, activities, publications and principal personnel a detailed survey of major commodities in Asia and the Pacific a directory of research institutes specializing in the region select bibliographies of books and periodicals covering the Asia-Pacific region