Australasian and Pacific history Books

Book SynopsisLittle 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.Trade Review'This clearly-written, accessible and strongly-argued book contends that the British Government committed genocide in Van Diemen's Land/Tasmania - and, by implication, in other parts of the British Empire. This study, whilst obviously controversial, provides an important contribution to the current public debate that is reassessing the record of the British Empire following the recent emergence of new archival sources.' John S. Connor, author of The Australian Frontier Wars "The Last Man enhances our knowledge of British imperial history as it played out in one of its most distant colonies, Tasmania. It shows how British policies and practice meant that Aboriginal society there was almost destroyed. In using the international scholarship on genocide along with its own original and detailed empirical historical study, it reminds us of the enormity of what happened. As if that were not enough, The Last Man then goes on to show how understandings of this Tasmanian genocide have since reverberated through British culture, right up to the present. In doing so, it asks us to reconsider the nature and meaning of British history for us now." Ann Curthoys, author of Freedom RideTable of ContentsIntroduction: History, Memory and Genocide in Tasmania Chapter 1: Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing 1804-1832 Chapter 2: Saving Souls and Cultural Genocide 1832-1876 Chapter 3: Memory and Return: Genocide in British Culture 1804-2011 Conclusion

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe 'whole mess' as Stan put it, began on 7 December 1941, when the Japanese government attacked the United States Pacific fleet in Hawaii. On the following day the United States declared war on Japan and for those of Japanese decent, most of whom were American Citizens, life would never be the same. Stan's diary serves as witness to a dark time in our history and is told through the eyes of a teenager who will soon be expected to take up the responsibility of a man. As you read his diary, you will discover Stan's creative talents, as well as his idealism, his optimism, and his aspirations. He has a quirky sense of humour, along with a more serious side, and dreams of a 'United Nations of Earth'. He talks to his diary as a confidant, a safe place to express his opinions and record the everyday events of his life. No one told him he had to keep a journal. He wrote because he needed a private place to keep his ideas and think through the contradictions of his life. Stan and his family were swept up in the largest mass roundup in our country's history. On 14 May 1942 the Hayamis, along with thousands of others, were taken to the Pomona Fairgrounds, one of 16 Assembly Centres where the Nikkei (people of Japanese ancestry) were temporarily imprisoned until more permanent Relocation Centres were built. The Hayamis were moved from Pomona to Heart Mountain in Wyoming. In November 1942, Stan Hayami began keeping a diary that captures the harsh reality of Wyoming and his personal struggles as a student, son, brother, friend, and citizen of the world, who despite all obstacles, holds onto his dreams of the future. It is his optimism that continues to shine through his diary, and his determination to improve himself as well as the world. His dreams will continue to inspire those who work to build a world where differences are not met with racism and war, but with respect for others and kindness that allows all people to live in harmony and with dignity.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe adoption of White Australia as government policy in 1901 demonstrates that whiteness was crucial to the ways in which the new nation of Australia was constituted. And yet, historians have largely overlooked whiteness in their studies of Australia's racial past. Creating White Australia takes a fresh approach to the question of 'race' in Australian history. It demonstrates that Australia's racial foundations can only be understood by recognising whiteness too as 'race'. Including contributions from some of the leading as well as emerging scholars in Australian history, it breaks new ground by arguing that 'whiteness' was central to the racial ideologies that created the Australian nation.This book pursues the foundations of white Australia across diverse locales. It also situates the development of Australian whiteness within broader imperial and global influences. As the recent apology to the Stolen Generations, the Northern Territory Intervention and controversies over asylum seekers reveal, the legacies of these histories are still very much with us today.Trade Review'Making White Australia provides a complex and thoughtful addition to the study of race and Australian history. The chapters invite readers to revisit and reimagine familiar histories through the lens of whiteness studies.' -- Tikka Wilson * Aboriginal History *Table of ContentsContributors Introduction: creating White Australia – new perspectives on race, whiteness and history Jane Carey and Claire McLiskyPart 1: global framings – Australian whiteness in an international context 1. White, British and European: historicising identity in settler societies Ann Curthoys 2. Reworking the tailings: new gold histories and the cultural landscape Benjamin Mountford and Keir Reeves 3. Trans/national history and disciplinary amnesia: historicising White Australia at two fins de siecles Leigh BoucherPart 2: whiteness on Indigenous missions and reserves 4. Colouring (in) virtue? Evangelicalism, work and whiteness on Maloga Mission Claire McLisky 5. ‘A most lowering thing for a lady’: aspiring to respectable whiteness on Ramahyuck Mission, 1885–1900 Joanna Cruickshank 6. Calculating colour: whiteness, anthropological research and the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Reserve, May and June 1938 Fiona DavisPart 3: writing and performing race – creation and disavowal 7. Theatre or corroboree, what’s in a name? Framing Indigenous Australian 19th-century commercial performance practices Maryrose Casey 8. The wild white man: ‘an event under description’ Maggie Scott 9. Perpetuating White Australia: Aboriginal self-representation, white editing and preferred stereotypes Jennifer JonesPart 4: gender and whiteness 10. A word of evidence: shared tales about infanticide and others-not-us in colonial Victoria Marguerita Stephens 11. White anxieties and the articulation of race: the women’s movement and the making of White Australia, 1910s–1930s Jane Carey 12. Whiteness, maternal feminism and the working mother, 1900–1960 Shurlee Swain, Patricia Grimshaw and Ellen Warne

Read more less