Breaker Morant by Peter FitzSimons

$49.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

The epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet - murderer or hero? Most Australians have heard of the Boer War of 1899 to 1902 and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. Born in England and emigrating to Qu eensland in 1883 in his early twenties, Morant was a charming but reckless man who established a reputation as a rider, polo player and writer. He submitted ballads to The Bulletin that were published under the name 'The Breaker' and counted Banjo Paterson as a friend. When appeals were made for horsemen to serve in the war in South Africa, Morant joined up, first with the South Australian Mounted Rifles and then with a South African irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers. In September 1901 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. Does Breaker Morant deserve his iconic status? Who was Harry Morant? What events and passions led him to a conflict that was essentially an Imperial war, played out on a distant continent under a foreign flag? Was he a scapegoat for British war crimes or a criminal himself? With his trademark brilliant command of story, Peter FitzSimons unravels the many myths and fictions that surround the life of Harry Morant. The truths FitzSimons uncovers about 'The Breaker' and the part he played in the Boer War are astonishing - and, in the hands of this master storyteller, make compelling reading.   ...Show more

STORIES OF THE SOUTHSIDE VOL 2 by ROBERTS, BERYL

$17.00 AUD

Category: Queensland History

Bees and Their Keepers - In Religion, Revolution and Evolution by Frank Perry (Translator); Lotte Möller

$39.99 AUD

Category: World History

A beautifully illustrated and thoroughly engaging cultural history of beekeeping - packed with anecdote, humour and enriching historical detail. The perfect gift. Beekeeper and garden historian Lotte Möller explores the activities inside and outside the hive while charting the bees' natural order and ha bits. With a light touch she uses her encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject to shed light on humanity's understanding of bees and bee lore from antiquity to the present. A humorous debunking of the myths that have held for centuries is matched by a wry exploration of how and when they were replaced by fact. In her travels Möller encounters a trigger-happy Californian beekeeper raging against both killer bees and bee politics, warring beekeepers on the Danish island of Læso, and Brother Adam of Buckfast Abbey, breeder of the Buckfast queen now popular throughout Europe and beyond, as well a host of others as passionate as she about the complex world of apiculture both past and present. Translated from the Swedish by Frank Perry - Sweden's Gardening Book of the Year 2019, shortlisted for the August Prize 2019 ...Show more

Closer Look at Salisbury by Beryl

$20.00 AUD

Category: Queensland History

Eleven Bats: A Story of Combat, Cricket and the SAS by Anthony 'Harry' Moffitt

$34.99 AUD

Category: Post WW2 Military History

Anthony 'Harry' Moffitt spent more than twenty years in the SAS. His decades of service and his multiple tours in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan made him one of the regiment's most experienced and recognised figures.   Alongside the SAS, Harry's other lifetime love is cricket. An improvised game of c ricket was often the circuit-breaker Harry and his team needed after the tension of operations. He began a tradition of organising matches wherever he was sent, whether it was in the mountains of East Timor with a fugitive rebel leader, or on the dusty streets of Baghdad, or in exposed Forward Operating Bases in the hills of Afghanistan. Soldiers, locals and even visiting politicians played in these spontaneous yet often bridge-building games. As part of the tradition, Harry also started to take a cricket bat with him on operational tours, eleven of them in total. They'd often go outside the wire with him and end up signed by those he met or fought alongside. These eleven bats form the basis for Harry's extraordinary memoir. It's a book about combat, and what it takes to serve in one of the world's most elite formations. It's a book about the toll that war takes on soldiers and their loved ones. And it's a book about the healing power of cricket, and how a game can break down borders in even the most desperate of circumstances. ...Show more

City in Masks - How Brisbane Fought the Spanish Flu by Matthew Wengert; Caitlin Morgan (Cover Design by, Designed by, Editor)

$15.00 AUD

Category: Queensland History

Narrative history of Brisbane's experience during the 'Spanish Flu' epidemic in 1919. Non-fiction for a general audience. Research funded by Brisbane City Council (Lord Mayor's Helen Taylor History Research Award).

Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other by Sam Heughan; G. McTavish

$32.99 AUD

Category: World History

From their faithful camper van to boats, kayaks, bicycles, and motorbikes, join stars of Outlander Sam and Graham on a road trip with a difference, as two Scotsmen explore a land of raw beauty, poetry, feuding, music, history, and warfare. Unlikely friends Sam and Graham begin their journey in the hear t of Scotland at Glencoe and travel from there all the way to Inverness and Culloden battlefield, where along the way they experience adventure and a cast of highland characters. In this story of friendship, finding themselves, and whisky, they discover the complexity, rich history and culture of their native country. ...Show more

On Radji Beach by Ian W. Shaw

$24.99 AUD

Category: World War 2 History

When Singapore fell dramatically to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, hundreds of people scrambled to the docks to flee. Amongst the evacuees were 65 Australian nurses who boarded a coastal freighter named the Vyner Brooke. They only made it as far as the waters off Muntok Island near Sumatra. There, Ja panese bombers sank the small ship. Those who survived the sinking drifted for up to three days before making landfall on one of the many beaches on Muntok. A group of about 60 shipwreck survivors, including 22 nurses, gathered at Radji Beach. They voted to surrender to the Japanese rather than slowly starve to death, but the Japanese patrol that found them did not accept their surrender. Instead, it divided the Europeans into three groups and killed them all in turn. The Australian nurses were in the third group, and 21 of them died in a hail of bullets as they walked, abreast, into the sea. Miraculously, there was one survivor, Vivian Bullwinkel, who brought the truth about this appalling atrocity to light, and who went on to experience the internment camps, starvation and disease that took away many of her friends.On Radji Beach tells the story of the 65 nurses from the Vyner Brooke: their service in Singapore and on the Malay peninsula, their desperate voyage to escape capture by the Japanese, and their courage, compassion, ingenuity and fortitude in the unthinkable events that followed. ...Show more

Red Lead: The Legendary Australian Ship's Cat Who Survived the Sinking of HMAS Perth and the Thai-Burma Railway by Roland Perry

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

The legendary Australian ship's cat who survived the sinking of HMAS Perth and the Thai-Burma Railway. Just after midnight on the 1st March 1942, Australia's most celebrated cruiser, HMAS Perth, was sunk by Japanese naval forces in the Sunda Strait off the coast of Java. Of the 681 men aboard, 328 survi ved the sinking and made it to shore - and one cat. Her name was Red Lead, and she was the ship's cat, beloved by the crew and by HMAS Perth's legendary captain Hec Waller. But surviving shell fire, torpedoes and the fierce currents of the Sunda Strait was only the start of the terrible trials Red Lead and the surviving crew were to face over the next three and a half years. From Java to Changi and then on the Thai-Burma Railway, Red Lead was to act as a companion, mascot and occasional hunter of food for a small group of sailors who made it their mission to keep her alive in some of the most hellish prison camps on earth.Red Lead's extraordinary story is one of courage, loyalty and love amidst battle, imprisonment and death, brought vividly to life by bestselling author Roland Perry.   ...Show more

The Most Dangerous Man in Australia? by Barbara Winter

$32.95 AUD

Category: Australian History

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 politician s 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! ...Show more

Booze Built Australia

$24.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

Stories of the Southside - Volume 1 by Beryl Roberts

$8.00 AUD

Category: Queensland History