Australiana > History

Breaking the Sheep's Back is the untold story of Australia's biggest business disaster. It involves government complicity, and it is a political scandal that reaches into the offices of Cabinet ministers and prime ministers across six federal governments. In only twenty years, from 1989 to the present, the Australian wool industry - once the nation-building iconic representation of the country - has been cut to only a third of its size, due in large part to this disaster. When the Australian Wool Corporation's Reserve Price Scheme ... read more

The eighteenth century was an era when brave mariners took their ships beyond the horizon in search of an unknown world. Those chosen to lead these expeditions were exceptional navigators, men who had shown brilliance as they ascended the ranks in the Royal Navy. They were also bloody good sailors.
From ship's boy to vice-admiral, discover how much more there was to Captain Bligh than his infamous bad temper. Meet a 24-year-old Master Bligh as he witnesses the demise of his Captain and mentor Cook; a 34-year-old Lieutenant B... read more

It is a summer's night in 1860. In an elegant detached Georgian house in the village of Road, Wiltshire, all is quiet. Behind shuttered windows the Kent family lies sound asleep. At some point after midnight a dog barks. The family wakes the next morning to a horrific discovery: an unimaginably gruesome murder has taken place in their home. The household reverberates with shock, not least because the guilty party is surely still among them. Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, the most celebrated detective of his day, reaches Road Hill H... read more

Douglas Mawson, born in 1882 and knighted in 1914, was Australia's greatest Antarctic explorer. On 2 December, 1911, he led an expedition from Hobart to explore the virgin frozen coastline below, 2000 miles of which had never felt the tread of a human foot. After setting up Main Base at Cape Denision and Western Base on Queen Mary Land, he headed east on an extraordinary sledging trek with his companions, Belgrave Ninnis and Dr Xavier Mertz. After five weeks, tragedy struck. Ninnis was swallowed whole by a snow-covered crevasse, an... read more

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On 19 November 1838 James Bell, then aged 21, set out in the sailing vessel the Planter from St Katharine Docks in London to travel to Adelaide, an infant colony half a world away and not yet two years old. He left behind family, good friends and the mysterious 'C.P.', a young woman with whom he hoped one day to be reunited. The journey usually took 130 days, but due to the incompetence of the captain and the many misadventures encountered it took the Planter almost six months to reach its destination. Along the way it lost a crew,... read more

The siege of Glenrowan is more than just an Australian legend. The 41 hours when the Kelly Gang took over Ann Jones' Glenrowan Inn and held the police at bay have become a part of the Australian psyche.
Most people know the bare bones of the story, but few know the names and actions of some of those who literally made history over those two days. In this impeccably researched work and vivid retelling, Ian Shaw brings the characters to life through their own words and the observations of those who were there. The real he... read more

This stunningly produced book draws together a complete history of Australia from the geological super-continent of Gondwanaland to its modern incarnation as one of the most vibrant countries in the world.

Across Australia, early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park. With extensive grassy patches and pathways, open woodlands and abundant wildlife, it evoked a country estate in England. Bill Gammage has discovered this was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than we have ever realised. For over a decade, he has examined written and visual records of the Australian landscape. He has uncovered an extraordinarily complex system of land management using... read more

In this companion volume of Thomas Keneally's widely acclaimed history of the Australian people, the vast range of characters who have formed our national story are brought vividly to life. Immigrants and Aboriginal resistance figures, bushrangers and pastoralists, working men and pioneering women, artists and hard-nosed radicals, politicians and soldiers all populate this richly drawn portrait of a vibrant land on the cusp of nationhood and social maturity. From the 1860s to the great rifts wrought by World War I, an era commenced... read more

An expose of two cover-ups: one the death of a swagman by a billabong; the other, a torrid affair between Banjo Paterson and his fiancee's best friend, and how the two events come together in Australia's best-loved national song.

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This book is the first book since Charles Bean's Official History to provide a detailed narrative of the bloody and tragic battle for Hill 60, along with the other engagements that went on until the very last days at Anzac - viewed from both sides of the trenches. It also examines in detail the planning and execution of the evacuation of the troops from Anzac - the most successful part of the whole Gallipoli fiasco.

In 1835 an illegal squatter camp was established on the banks of the Yarra River. In defiance of authorities in London and Sydney, Tasmanian speculators began sending men and sheep across Bass Strait - and so changed the shape of Australian history. Before the founding of Melbourne, British settlement on the mainland amounted to a few pinpoints on a map. Ten years later, it had become a sea of red. In 1835 James Boyce brings this pivotal moment to life. He traces the power plays in Hobart, Sydney and London, the key personalities o... read more

In 1860 the Australian interior was unmapped and unknown to European settlers. When the Victorian Exploring Expedition tasked Robert O'Hara Burke, William John Wills and a party of nineteen men with crossing the country from South to North, this was soon to change. Following their slow and arduous journey from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria, John Van der Kiste gets to the heart of the expedition and the men involved. This book explores the way in which poor leadership skills, explosive characters and limited rations pushed th... read more

'Her superb research and sympathetic reconstructions of 19th century Scotland and Australia bring to life a long-forgotten but fascinating group of women.' - Sian Rees, author of The Floating Brothel In the early 19th century crofters and villagers streamed into the burgeoning cities of Scotland, settling in the crowded and damp tenements of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Orphan girls, single mothers, women with feckless husbands and widows all struggled to feed and clothe themselves, and were left with few options other than theft and pro... read more

History looks back on John Hunter with mixed reviews. Some biographers are critical of his leadership style as the Governor of Port Jackson (Sydney). Others say he was a failure at sea. Linda Groom, however, disagrees on both counts, claiming that Hunter was an outstanding seaman whose mere survival as governor was an achievement for his time. Hunter grew up in Leith, near Edinburgh. In 1754 he joined the Royal Navy and in 1768, when Hunter was 30, he was made master. By 1786 he was captain, and appointed by Lord Howe to the Sirius... read more

In 1915 Lt Roy Irwin goes missing at Gallipoli. The young woman who loves him, and the men who fought beside him, begin their search. In 1919, historian CEW Bean returns to Anzac Cove with artist George Lambert and soldier Harry Vickers to solve the greatest mystery of the campaign, to discover Gallipolis secret. Forward to 2015, and Dr Mark Troys quest to preserve the peninsula from roadworks is sidetracked by political intervention and diplomatic intrigue. But a flirtation with a dynamic young woman from Army Intelligence uncover... read more