Australia Oceania category: 2401 books

A New Life in our History offers a fresh view of Australian and New Zealand history. It tells, for the first time, the epic story of their settlement from the perspective of ordinary people.Beginning with the arrest of Solomon Bockerah and his transportation to Sydney on the notorious Second...

   My Crowded Solitude is the story of Jack McLaren who went ashore at Cape York (Australia) to establish a coconut plantation in 1911. The book traces his encounters with Aborigines who were still living as they had in the stone age and his discovery that life in the wilderness can be rich...

Scandals, disasters, shocks and crises: 1932 could truly be described as one of the most electrifying years in Australian history, alive with unforgettable characters and momentous events. Looking back, it's hard to believe how much happened in that fateful year to become the stuff of enduring...

In photographs and words, this beautiful book rekindles memories of the 1960s in Australia: the Vietnam War and the conscription lottery; the Swinging Sixties, with its mini-skirts and changing fashions, the Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Seekers; the loss of a Prime Minister by drowning; the building...

On 3 December 1854 a bloody battle between gold miners, soldiers and police raged for fifteen minutes at the Eureka Lead in Ballarat. But this brief conflict, which had been brewing for years, would have momentous consequences overturning the accepted social order and bringing democracy to Victoria. EUREKA introduces you to the people and events that shaped this key moment in Australias history.

When was the first Melbourne cup, and which horse won? Who was the first woman to stand for federal parliament? What’s the second verse of ‘Advance Australia Fair’? And why was Vegemite renamed Parwill in 1928? Here, in one handy reference, are the dates and deeds, the heroes and villains, the...

The writing of "Evolution of a Family" has been a four year project which was primarily started as a method to uncover my family secrets, but ended up as a tribute to an extraordinary, resilent family. Along the way I found it advantageous to include the social and political demographics...

The truly classic Australian story of Tom Kruse - legendary mailman of the Birdsville Track. For the people who lived in the desert between Marree and Birdsville, contact with the outside world was hard and sporadic - but one man was their lifeline: Tom Kruse. For more than twenty years he...

Thirty years ago, on Christmas Day 1974, Australia woke up to the news that Darwin had been devastated by Cyclone Tracy. Only hours before, the town of Darwin was winding down for the holiday season. Like many people that day, Josephine Foreman spent the morning cooking a large turkey for Christmas...

From the iconic poems of Bonjo Paterson to todays international bestsellers by Peter Carey and Bryce Courtenay, Australian literature has reflected the changes in Australias national development until today it stands proudly on the world stage. At the same time, indigenous writing has come into its own,...

This is the journal of the two famous explorers who travelled the inland route to Port Phillip, Australia, in 1824. The Hume and Hovell expedition was one of the most important journeys of explorations undertaken in eastern Australia. In 1824 the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas...

In this volume of a unique history of Australia where people are always centre stage, bestselling author Thomas Keneally brings to life the vast range of characters who have formed our national story. Convicts and Aborigines, settlers and soldiers, patriots and reformers, bushrangers and gold...

The luck of the Irish was chronic bad luck, as their sad history attests. That's how it looked for 250 Irish convicts when their ship, the Hive, sank ignominiously off the New South Wales coast in 1835. Miraculously all survived, guided to safety by local Aboriginal people. They landed at a...

William Cox (17641837) was a soldier, road builder, and pioneering pastoralist in the colony of New South Wales. He made his name building the road across the Blue Mountains in 1814. In just over six months, his team of 30 convicts hacked out 163 kilometres of road through appalling terrain, without...