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

Closer Look at Salisbury by Beryl

$20.00 AUD

Category: Queensland History

The Luck of the Draw : The Story of Allen May, Forward Scout, Battle of Long Tan, 18th August 1966 by Karen Eastwood

$29.99 AUD

Category: Post WW2 Military History

Brisbane Bricks by Virginia Russell (Cover Design by, Designed by, By (photographer)); Joanne Heath (By (photographer))

$45.00 AUD

Category: Queensland History

An ecclectic photographic narrative of brick buildings in Brisbane, Australia, old and new

Castaway by Robert Macklin

$32.99 AUD

Category: Queensland History

The astonishing and unknown story of Narcisse Pelletier - a French cabin boy cast away in 1858 on the Daintree coast of far north Queensland, where he was adopted by the local Aborigines for 17 years - as a full member of the tribe, and had a family. He was then in effect kidnapped and returned to Franc e, where he settled unhappily, married and became a lighthouse keeper - but his heart was always back with his 'tribe'... ...Show more

Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture by Bruce Pascoe

$19.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

'Dark Emu injects a profound authenticity into the conversation about how we Australians understand our continent ... [It is] essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what Australia once was, or what it might yet be if we heed the lessons of long and sophisticated human occupation.' Jud ges for 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating, and storing -- behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books support this premise but Pascoe takes this further and challenges the hunter-gatherer tag as a convenient lie. Almost all the evidence in Dark Emu comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources.   Bruce's comments on his book compared to Gammage's: " My book is about food production, housing construction and clothing, whereas Gammage was interested in the appearance of the country at contact. [Gammage] doesn't contest hunter gatherer labels either, whereas that is at the centre of my argument." ...Show more

Stories of the Southside - Volume 1 by Beryl Roberts

$8.00 AUD

Category: Queensland History

The Seventies: The Personal, the Political and the Making of Modern Australia by Michelle Arrow

$34.99 AUD

Category: Australian History | Reading Level: 4

In 1970 homosexuality was illegal, God Save the Queen was our national anthem and women pretended to be married to accessthe pill. By the end of the decade conscription was scrapped, tertiary education was free, access to abortion had improved, the White Australia policy was abolished and a woman read t he news on the ABC for the first time. The Seventies was the decade that shaped modern Australia. It was the decade of 'It's Time', stagflation and the Dismissal, a tumultuous period of economic and political upheaval. But the Seventies was also the era when the personal becamepolitical, when we had a Royal Commission into Human Relationships and when social movements tore down the boundary between public and private life. Women wantedchildcare, equal pay, protection from violence and agency to shape their ownlives. In the process, the reforms they sought -- and achieved, at least in part -- reshaped Australia's culture and rewrote our expectations of government. In a lively and engaging style, Michelle Arrow has written a new history of this transformative decade; one that is more urgent, and more resonant, than ever. 'At last, personal politics as national history. In lucid and nimble prose, Michelle Arrow demonstrates that -- in the 1970s at least -- it was about the relationships, stupid. A revelation.' -- Clare Wright ...Show more

Under the Lino - The Mystery the History the Community by Caylie Jeffrey

$30.00 AUD

Category: Queensland History

The story of an historical discovery under the flooring of a 1912 Brisbane Queenslander that turned into a major collaborative community project, tapping into Queensland's history all the way back to its separation from NSW. Iconic Brisbane provides many cameos throughout this fascinating story, togethe r with cautionary tales of murder and intrigue. ...Show more

Australia's Vietnam - Myth vs History by Mark Dapin

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

When Mark Dapin first interviewed Vietnam veterans and wrote about the war, he swallowed (and regurgitated) every misconception. He wasn't alone. In Australia's Vietnam, Dapin reveals that every stage of Australia's commitment to the Vietnam War has been misunderstood, misinterpreted and shrouded in myt h. From army claims that every national serviceman was a volunteer; and the level of atrocities committed by Australian troops; to the belief there were no welcome home parades until the late 1980s and returned soldiers were met by angry protesters. Australia's Vietnam is a major contribution to the understanding of Australia's experience of the war and will change the way we think about memory and military history. ...Show more

By Steppe, Desert, & Ocean : The Birth of Eurasia by Barry Cunliffe

$46.95 AUD

Category: World History

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today. Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering over 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century AD. An unashamedly 'big history', it charts the development of European, Near Eastern, and Chinese civilizations and the growing links between them by way of the Indian Ocean, the silk Roads, and the great steppe corridor (which crucially allowed horse riders to travel from Mongolia to the Great Hungarian Plain within a year). Along the way, it is also the story of the rise and fall of empires, the development of maritime trade, and the shattering impact of predatory nomads on their urbanneighbours. Above all, as this immense historical panorama unfolds, we begin to see in clearer focus those basic underlying factors - the acquisitive nature of humanity, the differing environments in which people live, and the dislocating effect of even slight climatic variation - which have driven change throughout the ages, and which help us better understand our world today. ...Show more

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

$25.00 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).