Australasian and Pacific history Books

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Sivasundaram guides the reader smoothly through the expanses of the oceanic south. His account, enriched by deep archival research and the use of visual and material evidence, has a human scale and texture sometimes lacking in similar global histories. . . . The familiar ideas and figures of the Atlantic revolutionary era, from democracy to George Washington, are at best ghostly presences in this reoriented revolutionary history. Mr. Sivasundaram instead gives main billing to a 'surge of indigenous politics' that tilted heavily toward monarchism. . . . The great achievement of Waves Across the South​ is that its shift of perspective lets us reconsider the meaning of revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries." -- Nathan Perl-Rosenthal * Wall Street Journal *“Waves Across the South turns conventional wisdom upside down, and invites us to follow the making of the modern world from the Pacific. . . . This is Big History. . . If you long for an intellectual journey, then you should go and ride these waves across the south and explore the making of the modern world.” -- Frank Trentmann * The Spectator *"Fascinating. . . Waves Across the South is an ambitious attempt to tell world history from the viewpoint of the south. . . . Sivasundaram brings to life the 'surge of indigenous politics' that marked this era." -- Tony Barber * Financial Times *"Sivasundaram brings these vast expanses alive by seeking out 'key life stories' that offer glimpses of forgotten struggles. . . He follows little-known voyages across the southern oceans accomplished by multi-ethnic crews. . . He deftly outlines the singularity of the British Empire, though in a pre-telegraphic era of poor communication its expansion was hardly strategic. . . As Sivasundaram convincingly argues in the global South this revolutionary age was defined by the way indigenous peoples responded to Western invasion." -- Margarette Lincoln * Literary Review *“Waves Across the South exemplifies the very best of current writing in global history. Sivasundaram confidently surfs a dynamic wave of scholarship that has transformed the histories of the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific by looking from below—through the eyes of Indigenous peoples, the enslaved, the subjected and the global South, instead of those of the colonizer, the enslavers, the dominant or the global North. His aim is nothing less than ‘to turn the story of the dawn of our times inside out,’ by locating the birth of the modern world in the great Indo-Pacific arc from the Persian Gulf to Polynesia. . . . To call this ambitious would be an understatement. . . By recasting empire—especially the British empire—as the countervailing force in this turbulent arena, Sivasundaram brilliantly restores counter-revolution to its proper place in the Age of Revolutions.” -- David Armitage * Times Literary Supplement *“An Apollyonic straddling of an entire hemisphere. . . . Scrupulously, Sivasundaram tells much of this history from the ground up, from the perspectives of the colonized, and for this purpose, he taps the archives of a cast of astonishing, enjoyable characters—not rulers or officials, but regular folk.” -- Samanth Subramanian * The Guardian *"Waves Across the South brilliantly reconstructs how empire was made through voyages across oceans. . . . This book is an exemplar of historical writing [that] makes the oceans explode into the land." -- Dilip Menon * BBC History Magazine *"With Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire, Sujit Sivasundaram has written a big history: big in geographical and temporal scope and in ambition. Calling his work a new history of revolution and empire, he carries forward this promise by, in effect, going small. He focuses on islands and ports, webs of engagements, and the radiating effects of overlapping and interconnected locales from the Indian Ocean and Tasman Sea to Mauritius, Tonga, Aotearoa New Zealand, the Sri Lankan and Burmese coastal kingdoms, Chinese and Chilean ports, and the Cape of South Africa. It is these places, he says, in a tilt against more conventional historiographies, that shaped—and sometimes led—upheavals against colonial orders and the generation of political modernity, long a foundation of Atlantic histories in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries." -- Matt Matsuda * Journal of British Studies *"All readers will surely recognise that Sivasundaram is making a highly original and powerfully argued intervention in a great debate about a crucial point in world history. The age of revolutions was the political context for the beginning of Kenneth Pomeranz’s ‘great divergence’ between the economies of western Europe and those of Asia. Sivasundaram’s book raises important questions about that context." -- P.J. Marshall * English Historical Review *“Waves Across the South is an eye-opening work of global history. It globalizes the Age of Revolutions by viewing it from the Indian and Pacific Oceans, flipping the traditional narrative that places the Atlantic revolutions at the center of modern world history. With awe inspiring transnational research and interpretive imagination, Sivasundaram shows that the forces of revolution were global, and how the forces of radical change in the watery spaces of the south battled with the counter-revolution of the British Empire. This is a pioneering work that brings together the histories of empire and revolutions in a single frame.” * Gyan Prakash, Princeton University *“This is a breathtaking book. Sivasundaram takes the familiar story of the ‘age of revolutions’ and turns it upside down, putting the voices, the hopes, and the struggles of the seafaring peoples of the Indian and Pacific oceans at the heart of his account of how the modern world was forged. . . Global history at its finest: eloquent, surprising, and deeply moving.” * Sunil Amrith, Yale University *“Fresh, sparkling and ground-breaking, Waves Across the South helps re-centre how we look at the world and opens up new perspectives on how we can look at regions, peoples and places that have been left to one side of traditional histories for far too long.” * Peter Frankopian, Oxford University *“A magisterial intervention in world history, subverting and inverting our established, Atlantic conceptions of the age of revolutions by taking account of the myriad histories of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and their 'sea of islands' … This deeply researched and richly illustrated study not only demonstrates that 'we are all islanders', but also all heirs of empires forged in the oceanic South.” * Margot Finn, president, Royal Historical Society *“Sivasundaram’s outstanding volume takes us on a gripping journey across the globe.… [This] magisterial book brings to light a world history that has so far been cast aside by many world historians. The history of colonisation has rarely established bridges between the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific worlds. The volume presents us with fascinating stories of communities that had strong and powerful histories and whose experiences were shaped by global forces and foreign occupation … A master class in history writing.” * Olivette Otele, Bristol University *"Waves across the South presents us with a new vision of a crucial period in global history, one that introduces new places and peoples and themes and destabilizes our sense of the normal." * Journal of Asian Studies *Table of ContentsA Note on Transliteration and Images List of Images Timeline Maps Introduction 1 Travels in the Oceanic South 2 In the South Pacific: Travellers, Monarchs and Empires 3 In the Southwest Indian Ocean: Worlds of Revolt and the Rise of Britain 4 In the Persian Gulf: Tangled Empires, States and Mariners 5 In the Tasman Sea: The Intimate Markers of a Counter-Revolution 6 At India’s Maritime Frontier: Waterborne Lineages of War 7 In the Bay of Bengal: Modelling Empire, Globe and Self 8 Across the Indian Ocean: Comparative Glances in the South Conclusion Afterword Acknowledgements References Index Image Credits

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This book details how international resource management perspectives conflict with local values: ‘the question of how to manage and preserve Marquesan heritage tangles intimately with how to ensure sustainable local livelihoods, now and into the future.’ Well-researched, this book commendably documents multiple Marquesan viewpoints. It recommends limiting heritage tourism in favor of agricultural use and advocates incorporating indigenous concerns." * Choice *"This study...lies at the intersection of various topics and approaches in social anthropology, history and heritage studies and offers an insightful perspective on the case of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia...[B]oth timely and necessary." * Journal of Pacific History *"This well-written and powerful book blends together theoretical foundations, ethnographic examples, and Donaldson’s own extensive anthropological fieldwork, presented as a series of vignettes and case studies. Taken together it is a valuable contribution to academic and applied work in heritage studies, development encounters, and tourism in the Pacific." * Pacific Affairs *"Working with the Ancestors is a fascinating book. Embedded in the values of place, knowledge of place and power, this book furthers current debates within humangeography, anthropology and environmental sustainability concerning posthumanism, especially in terms of how posthumanistic notions can play out within the everydaylives of Indigenous people...In the tradition of the best anthropological books, Working with the Ancestors transports the reader to a foreign land and allows them to learn from local people themselves. It is a journey worth taking." * Archaeology in Oceania *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The printed quality of these rare illustrations meets the highest standards." * Choice *

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Book SynopsisStretching 1,400 miles along the Australian coast and visible from space, the Great Barrier Reef is home to three thousand individual reefs, more than nine hundred islands, and thousands of marine species, and has alternately been viewed as a deadly maze, an economic bounty, a scientific frontier, and a precarious World Heritage site. Now the historian and explorer Iain McCalman takes us on a new adventure into the reef to reveal how our shifting perceptions of the natural world have shaped this extraordinary seascape. Showcasing the lives of twenty individuals spanning more than two centuries, The Reef highlights our profound desire to conquer, understand, embrace, and ultimately save the world''s most complex ocean ecosystem.Opening with the story of Captain James Cook, who sailed unknowingly into the southwest entrance of this vast network of coral outcroppings, McCalman shows how Cook spent months navigating this treacherous underwater labyrinth, struggling to kee

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Book SynopsisThe planning, the strategy, the sacrifices and heroics—on both sides—illuminating the greatest naval war in history.Trade Review"An entertaining, impressively researched chronicle of the tense period between the bombing of Pearl Harbor and American victory at the battle of Midway." -- Kirkus"The research is thorough, the writing clear, and the narrative flow exemplary...it is difficult to think of a recent book on this subject that is of such consistently outstanding value." -- Booklist"Well documented—albeit from previously published materials—and well written. Experienced World War II history buffs may bypass if they feel no need to read another retelling of this phase of the Pacific War, but nonspecialists and general readers will want to consider it." -- LibraryJournal.com

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Book SynopsisMalaita traces the history and culture of a Pacific island from the 19th to 21st centuries through over 600 images drawn from the archives of the British Museum and public and private photographic collections around the world.

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Book SynopsisProvides an absorbing insight into a century and a half of printing history. Beginning in the early 1860s when the first typographical unions were formed in Dunedin and Wellington, this history ends in 1996 when printers and journalists amalgamated with the Engineers Union to form NZ's largest private sector trade union.

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Book SynopsisProviding a vital background to some of the pressing issues in contemporary New Zealand politics, this novel perspective on the distinctive foundations of the countryâs welfare state raises issues concerning modern-day concepts of citizenship as this welfare state comes under challenge. Government policy has been linked to this evolving social contract between wage earners and the state; With the contractâs genesis in the migration of wage earners from Britain in the 1840s, New Zealand became an experimental laboratory, first promoting settlement of the land, then safeguarding the economic position of the male breadwinner, andâwith the emergence of the welfare state in the early 20th centuryâprotecting the standard of living of families. As it explains the social policies and how they changed over time, this book reveals how honoring this contract was the driving force behind its evolution.

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Book SynopsisNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific—the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary—into terms we mortals can grasp.”—Tom HanksIn The Wall Street Journal, Victor Davis Hanson named With the Old Breed one of the top five books on epic twentieth-century battles. Studs Terkel interviewed the author for his definitive oral history, The Good War. Now E. B. Sledge’s acclaimed first-person account of fighting at Peleliu and Okinawa returns to thrill, edify, and inspire a new generation. An Alabama boy steeped in American history and enamored of such heroes as George Washington and Daniel Boone, Eugene B. Sledge became part of the war’s famous 1st Marine Division—3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. Even after intense training, he was shocked to be thrown into the battle of Peleliu, where “the world was a nightmare of flashes, explosions, and snapping bullets.” By the time Sledge hit the hell of Okinawa, he was a combat vet, still filled with fear but no longer with panic. Based on notes Sledge secretly kept in a copy of the New Testament, With the Old Breed captures with utter simplicity and searing honesty the experience of a soldier in the fierce Pacific Theater. Here is what saved, threatened, and changed his life. Here, too, is the story of how he learned to hate and kill—and came to love—his fellow man.“In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge’s. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of—not the ‘good war’—but the worst war ever.”—Ken Burns

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Book SynopsisThe most recent state to join the union, Hawaii is the only one to have once been a royal kingdom. After its discovery by Captain Cook in the late 18th Century, Hawaii was fought over by European powers determined to take advantage of its position as the crossroads of the Pacific. The arrival of the first missionaries marked the beginning of the struggle between a native culture with its ancient gods, sexual libertinism and rites of human sacrifice, and the rigid values of the Calvinists. While Hawaii''s royal rulers adopted Christianity, they also fought to preserve their ancient ways. But the success of the ruthless American sugar barons sealed their fate and in 1893, the American Marines overthrew Lili''uokalani, the last queen of Hawaii.James L. Haley''s Captive Paradise is the story of King Kamehameha I, The Conqueror, who unified the islands through terror and bloodshed, but whose dynasty succumbed to inbreeding; of Gilded Age tycoons like Claus Spreckels w

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Book SynopsisMeticulous detail and insightful analysis combine with a gripping chronological narrative to provide the essential guide to the Pacific Theater of World War II.On December 7, 1941, Japanese fighter planes appeared from the clouds above Pearl Harbor and fundamentally changed the course of history; with this one surprise attack the previously isolationist America was irrevocably thrown into World War II. This definitive history explores each of the major battles that America would fight in the ensuing struggle against Imperial Japan, from the naval clashes at Midway and Coral Sea to the desperate, bloody fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.Each chapter reveals both the horrors of the battle and the Allies'' grim yet heroic determination to wrest victory from what often seemed to be certain defeat, offering a valuable guide to the long road to victory in the Pacific.Table of ContentsForeword Introduction Pearl Harbor by Carl Smith Coral Sea by Mark Stille Midway by Mark Stille Guadalcanal by Joseph Mueller Tarawa by Derrick Wright Marshall Islands by Gordon L. Rottman Peleliu by Jim Moran and Gordon L. Rottman Leyte Gulf by Bernard Ireland Iwo Jima by Derrick Wright Okinawa by Gordon L. Rottman Index

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Book SynopsisThis classic Images of War book covers the dramatic events that befell both the Gilbert and Ellis Pacific island groups using a wealth of well-captioned photos and informed text. Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Gilbert Islands were occupied by the Japanese who built a seaplane base at Butaritari. In August 1942 this base was attacked by the US 2nd Raider Battalion (Carlson's Raiders). As a result the base was reinforced and a second built at Apamana. Betio Island on the Tarawa Atoll became the main Japanese strong point. Operation Galvanic, the US assault on Butarita, Apamana and Betio, was launched in November 1943 by the 2nd Marine Division and the 27th Infantry Division. While short in duration, the Betio battle has the dubious distinction of being the most costly in US Marine Corps history. Thanks to the author's in depth knowledge and access to superb contemporary images, this book will be of particular interest and value to historians and laymen.

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Book SynopsisAn award-winning scholar explores the sixty-thousand-year history of the Pacific islands in this dazzling, deeply researched account.One of the Best Books of 2021 — Wall Street JournalThe islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia stretch across a huge expanse of ocean and encompass a multitude of different peoples. Starting with Captain James Cook, the earliest European explorers to visit the Pacific were astounded and perplexed to find populations thriving thousands of miles from continents. Who were these people? From where did they come? And how were they able to reach islands dispersed over such vast tracts of ocean?  In Voyagers, the distinguished anthropologist Nicholas Thomas charts the course of the seaborne migrations that populated the islands between Asia and the Americas from late prehistory onward. Drawing on the latest research, including insights gained from genetics, linguistics, and archaeology, Thomas provides a dazzling account of these long-distance migrations, the seagoing technologies that enabled them, and the societies they left in their wake.

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Book SynopsisThe monumental statues of Easter Island, so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island's barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works? No such astonishing numbers of massive statues are found anywhere else in the Pacific. How could the islanders possibly have moved so many multi-ton monoliths from the quarry inland, where they were carved, to their posts along the coastline? And most intriguing and vexing of all, if the island once boasted a culture developed and sophisticated enough to have produced such marvelous edifices, what happened to that culture? Why was the island the Europeans encountered a sparsely populated wasteland?The prevailing accounts of the island's history tell a story of self-inflicted devastation: a glaring case of eco-suicide. The island was dominated by a powerful chiefdom that promulgated a cult of statue making, exercising a ruthless hold on the island's people and rapaciously destroying the environment, cutting down a lush palm forest that once blanketed the island in order to construct contraptions for moving more and more statues, which grew larger and larger. As the population swelled in order to sustain the statue cult, growing well beyond the island's agricultural capacity, a vicious cycle of warfare broke out between opposing groups, and the culture ultimately suffered a dramatic collapse.In this lively and fascinating account, Hunt and Lipo offer a definitive solution to the mystery of what really happened on the island. Far from irresponsible environmental destroyers, they show, the Easter Islanders were remarkably inventive environmental stewards, devising ingenious methods to enhance the island's agricultural capacity. They did not devastate the palm forest, and the culture did not descend into brutal violence. Perhaps most surprising of all, the making and moving of their enormous statutes did not require a bloated population or tax their precious resources; their statue building was actually integral to their ability to achieve a delicate balance of sustainability. The Easter Islanders, it turns out, offer us an impressive record of masterful environmental management rich with lessons for confronting the daunting environmental challenges of our own time.

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Book SynopsisIn August 2013, Australia welcomed Tony Abbott as its new prime minister. This promised to be a marriage between responsible government and a nation tired of the endless drama of the Gillard-Rudd years. But then... Well... Fairfax columnist Andrew P Street details the litany of gaffes, blunders and questionable captain's calls that characterised the subsequent reign of the Abbott government, following the trail from bold promises to questionable realities, unlikely recoveries to inexplicable own goals and Malcolm Turnbull's assurances of support to the day he pushed the Captain off his bike once and for all. And all this comes with a colourful cast of supporting characters and dangerous loons that only a nation unfamiliar with the concept of below-the-line voting could elect. Here is a unique take on politics Australian style. If Game of Thrones was a deeply irreverent book about politics, then the TV series would probably not rate nearly as well. It would, however, look something like this.Trade ReviewA lively and well organised account... Street lays the mockery on thick... with a savage and intelligent wit. * The Australian *Well-researched... Street is very funny... Debunks the dangerous assumption that our politicians are good people who deserve respect. * The Saturday Age *Table of ContentsIntroduction Australia, Stop Hitting Yourself1 The Gathering Storm2 Meet the Motley Crew3 Mandate, Mandate, Mandate!4 The Right to Be a Bigot5 For Those Who've Come Across the Seas...6 Classified On-Water Matters7 Putting the Coal into Coalition8 No Cuts to Health9 Not Your Average Jo(k)e10 Meet the New Senate!11 Someone's Getting a Shirtfrontin'12 We All Live in a Competitively Evaluated Submarine13 The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Spill Motion14 Good Government Starts Today15 I'm a Fixer16 Who's Afraid of Human Rights?17 The Hunt for Team Australia18 Everywhere with Helicopter19 Whither Labor?20 Abandon Ship!Epilogue Is This the Best We Can Do?Acknowledgement Or Who's to Blame for this Book

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Book SynopsisYou probably have a tin of shoe polish tucked under the laundry sink bearing the little bird logo that has been in homes around the globe for over a century. Founded in Melbourne by William Ramsay in 1906, Kiwi is one of the most iconic and enduring international brands ever to have come out of Australia.One of Australia's best-loved journalists, Keith Dunstan tells the remarkable story of the Ramsay family and how they created and nurtured the Kiwi brand. Always quick to seize a marketing opportunity, the Ramsays sent Kiwi to England with the Anzacs in World War I, putting a brilliant shine on belts, bridles and leggings as well as boots. Soon there was a Kiwi factory in London, and in time Kiwi ran 24 factories worldwide, selling more than 250 million cans of shoe polish annually.In his inimitable warm and chatty style, Dunstan follows the fortunes of the Ramsay family as they built the Kiwi brand over the decades: business decisions good and bad, grand houses, the latest cars, constant travel, and their marriages, quarrels and friendships. He also tracks the clever advertising strategies that kept Kiwi in the public mind, including the notorious sign that caused traffic accidents in Richmond in the 1960s.Richly illustrated in full colour, Kiwi is the fascinating inside story of one of Australia's great families, as well as one of its great brands.'I have not previously read a business story or family history that is so pithy and observant, and written with such a mix of fun and seriousness.' Geoffrey BlaineyTable of ContentsAbout this bookAcknowledgementsForeword by Geoffrey BlaineyIntroduction1. A voyage from humble beginnings2. Marvellous Melbourne3. Kiwi Annie4. Mud, manure and shiny shoes5. Kiwi at war6. Looking after business7. The French connection8. World War Two9. The roaming Ramsays10. The sincerest form of flattery11. Polishing the world12. Changing times13. Tom Ramsay retires - Kiwi merges14. Building the Kiwi empire15. The challenging future16. The auction17. Bringing a shine to the worldNotesIndexPicture credits

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Book SynopsisGraham Seal is Professor of Folklore at Curtin University, and a leading expert on Australian cultural history. He is the bestselling author of Great Australian Stories, Great Anzac Stories, Larrikins, Bush Tales and Other Great Australian Stories, The Savage Shore and Great Australian Journeys.

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Book SynopsisWith a reputation for being hard to discipline, generosity to their comrades, frankness and sticking it up any sign of pomposity, Australian soldiers were a wild and irreverent lot, even in the worst of circumstances during World War II. In Larrikins in Khaki, Tim Bowden has collected compelling and vivid stories of individual soldiers whose memoirs were mostly self-published and who told of their experiences with scant regard for literary pretensions and military niceties. Most of these men had little tolerance for military order and discipline, and NCOs and officers who were hopeless at their jobs were made aware of it. They laughed their way through the worst of it by taking the mickey out of one another and their superiors. From recruitment and training to the battlegrounds of Palestine, North Africa, Thailand, New Guinea, Borneo and beyond, here are the highly individual stories of Australia's World War II Diggers told in their own voices - warts and all.Table of ContentsIntroductionMilitary units Chapter 1: Joining upChapter 2: Very basic trainingChapter 3: Sailing to warChapter 4: Desert Diggers prepare for warChapter 5: High jinks in EgyptChapter 6: Fighting in the desertChapter 7: Ill-fated Greek adventureChapter 8: Out of the frying pan into the fireChapter 9: The Allied invasion of Lebanon and SyriaChapter 10: The tide turnsChapter 11: Return to AustraliaChapter 12: Prisoners of war of the Japanese Chapter 13: The railway of deathChapter 14: Service at homeChapter 15: The saga of the flying footsloggersChapter 16: The Kokoda Track and the bloody beachheadsChapter 17: The battle for New GuineaChapter 18: An unnecessary campaignChapter 19: Savagery in BougainvilleChapter 20: Bloody Borneo-Tarakan and BalikpapanChapter 21: The lost years and damaged livesChapter 22: Retain all prisoners of war indefinitely Chapter 23: Final thoughtsAcknowledgements NotesBibliography Index

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Book SynopsisOne wet autumn evening in 1848, fifteen-year-old Mary Ann Gill stole out of a bedroom window in her father's Sydney hotel and took a coach to a local racecourse. There she was to elope with James Butler Kinchela, wayward son of the former Attorney-General. Her enraged father pursued them on horseback and fired two pistols at his daughter's suitor, narrowly avoiding killing him. What followed was Australia's most scandalous abduction trial of the era, as well as an extraordinary story of adventure and misadventure, both in Australia and abroad. Through humiliation, heartache, bankruptcy and betrayal, Mary Ann hung on to James' promise to marry her. This is a compelling biography of a currency lass born when convicts were still working the streets of Sydney. Starting with just a newspaper clipping, historian Kiera Lindsey has uncovered the world of her feisty great, great, great aunt, who lived and loved during a period of dramatic social and political change. 'A wonderfully vivid and pacey tale of passion, scandal and big ideas.' - Michael Cathcart, presenter of ABC Radio National's Books & Arts 'This is a ripper read and a great way of dealing with our history.' - Chris Wallace-CrabbeTrade Review'Archives, adventures, seduction and shipwrecks-The Convict's Daughter has it all.' - Lucy Bracey, Way Back When 'This is a ripper read and a great way of dealing with our history.' - Chris Wallace-Crabbe 'Unputdownable! I'm struck by Mary Ann's amazing audacity, and the way the book captures Sydney as a place so utterly brilliantly.' - Dr Catie Gilchrist, Dictionary of Sydney 'The Convict's Daughter might be called "the new history"-highly readable, in fact, a compelling page-turner, but resting on solid scholarship.' - Babette Smith, The Sydney Morning Herald

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Book SynopsisThey were thrown into a hopeless fight against an overwhelming enemy. Later, hundreds died as prisoners of war on the Thai-Burma Railway and in the freezing coal mines of Taiwan and Japan. Through it all, wrote Weary Dunlop, they showed 'fortitude beyond anything I could have believed possible'. Until now, the story of the 2000 diggers marooned on Java in February 1942 has been a footnote to the fall of Singapore and the bloody campaign in New Guinea. Led by an Adelaide lawyer, Brigadier Arthur Blackburn VC, and fighting with scrounged weapons, two Australian battalions - plus an assortment of cooks, laundrymen and deserters from Singapore - held up the might of the Imperial Japanese Army until ordered by their Dutch allies to surrender.Drawing on personal diaries, official records and interviews with two of the last living survivors, this book tells the extraordinary story of the 'lads from Java', who laid down their weapons, but refused to give in. '[Gilling] has made superb use of an Australian Army History Research Grant to afford us a greater understanding of what the lost Australian warriors on Java experienced as a consequence of failed imperial wartime policy.' -The Australian'An engaging account . . . Gilling makes good use of diaries, memoirs and interviews with survivors.' -Good ReadingTable of ContentsAuthor's noteBrothers in armsDestination unknownGreatcoats will be wornThere are no Japanese within 100 milesThey got nothing from meSpecial Mission 43Java rubble A hell of a temperHundreds of whores and wicked bastardsSpeedo!One vast hospitalWhere are the rest?Stoppo!Do not overeatWe have developed queer habits and outlookBibliography

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Book SynopsisWhite Ghosts, Yellow Peril is the first book ever to explore all sides of the relationship between China and New Zealand and their peoples during the seven or so generations after they initially came into contact. The Qing Empire and its successor states from 1790 to 1950 were vast, complex and torn by conflict. New Zealand, meanwhile, grew into a small, prosperous, orderly province of Europe. Not until now has anyone told the story of the links and tensions between the two countries during those years so broadly and so thoroughly. The reader keen to know about this relationship will find in this book a highly readable portrait of the lives, thoughts and feelings of Chinese who came to New Zealand and New Zealanders who went to China, along with a scholarly but stimulating discussion of race relations, government, diplomacy, war, literature and the arts.

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Book SynopsisThe First World War marked the emergence of the Dominions on the world stage as independent nations, none more so than Australia. The country's sacrifice at Gallipoli in 1915, and the splendid combat record of Australian troops on the Western Front not only created a national awakening at home, but also put Great Britain in their debt, ensuring them greater influence at the Peace Conferences. Australia was represented at Versailles by the Prime Minister, the colourful Billy Hughes, whom Woodrow Wilson called a pestiferous varmint' after their repeated clashes over Australia's claims to the Pacific Islands its troops had taken from Germany during the War. Hughes was also the most vociferous (though by no means at all the only) opponent of the racial equality clause put forward by Japan. Indeed, it was fear of Japanese expansion that drove Australia's territorial demands in the Pacific.Trade ReviewWe know much about the principal players at the Paris peace conferences of 1919-23: US President Woodrow Wilson, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and Britain's Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Each has his own volume in the "Makers of the Modern World" series on the peace conferences and their aftermath. These twin volumes examine the contributions by two small players: the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, William Morris (Billy) Hughes and William Ferguson (Bill) Massey, whose countries' wartime sacrifices for the British Empire secured them seats around the conference table. The Paris Peace Conference in 1919 represented a landmark for both in that it was one of the first occasions when the then British Dominions had separate representatives at an international conference beyond the confines of the Empire. Significantly for their national histories, Hughes and Massey appended their separate signatures at Versailles for their own Dominions. Though H-Diplo might regard these as twin volumes in the series, and that is how I propose to review them, these titles are not written as such but as separate, potted histories of the "personalities, events and circumstances" relating to the "makers" - the countries and their leaders - implicated in making peace after the Great War. The volumes follow the same broad structure - the life and the land; the Paris peace conference; and the legacy - because that presumably is the template set by the publisher to examine the standpoint of different countries' leaders around the table. As reviewers of other volumes in this series have noted, it would have helped to have a general editor's introduction to each book on the peace conferences that explained the relationship between each volume and the series. I am not the first reviewer to be confused by the book covers, which in this case suggest they contain biographies of Hughes and Massey, when the volumes are hybrids of biography and abridged segments of national narrative, placed in a suitably imperial context. That said, it is timely to reappraise both Hughes' and Massey's careers. Hughes is better known than Massey because Australia's wartime leader was vituperative and a propagandist, who benefited in Britain from a high media profile crafted by the first generation of the Murdoch press. The mercurial Hughes at least earned biographies, if they now appear dated in this era of transnational scholarship, and Carl Bridge's volume is a useful update of Laurie Fitzhardinge's classic life of the "Little Digger".1 Bridge argues the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 was Hughes' "finest hour" (p. ix), since the concessions he won made him Australia's most important twentieth-century politician and a foremost imperial figure. While this claim may be overstated, it is worth making in order to invite debate. Massey, by contrast, awaits a full biography. Though James Watson depicts him as a warm character, New Zealand historians have not found him sufficiently endearing to publish a full account of his life, so this volume fills a gap in the historiography. New Zealand had two representatives at the Paris conference, the other being Sir Joseph Ward, who was one of an extra ten delegates representing the British Empire. As Watson explains, Massey was the delegate who spoke for New Zealand. He argues that Massey has not received his due from historians of the peace conferences and seeks to revise understanding of the New Zealand Prime Minister's contribution, especially where he diverged from Hughes. Notably, Massey supported a compromise over the Japanese demand for a racial equality clause in the Covenant of the League of Nations. Watson's volume exposes divergences in Australia's and New Zealand's circumstances: Massey arrived late at the 1919 peace conference, delayed by the Spanish influenza epidemic, which struck earlier in New Zealand than in Australia. Reading these volumes in parallel also exposes divergent personal and geopolitical approaches: while Hughes and Massey were both accustomed to dealing in, and with, a British world, and unaccustomed to American and French diplomacy, Hughes' approach was more pugilistic. Massey owed his separate voice at the table to Hughes and to Robert Borden of Canada. Who the intended audience for these volumes is puzzled me when perusing the biographical sections. We learn that both Hughes and Massey were migrants - Hughes was a Welshman from London, Massey an Ulster Scot from County Londonderry - with different politics, as leader of the Australian Labor Party and New Zealand's non-labour Reform Party respectively. Bridge portrays Hughes in Keith Hancock's terms as an "independent Australian Briton": a nation-builder in a British imperial context, an advocate of compulsory military training and a citizen army and an independent Australian navy equipped to defend Australia's coast. Deeply suspicious of Japan despite the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Hughes was an outspoken advocate of the White Australia policy, for whom World War I was a life or death struggle. Massey equally favoured a White New Zealand policy, though Watson does not describe it as such, noting instead that the Immigration Restriction Act 1920 reinforced New Zealand's policy of racial exclusion. This was more covert than the White Australia policy, but a direct parallel in practice. Bridge's national history begins with Australian federation in 1901 and Watson's with New Zealand's late discovery by Europe and late colonisation. Bridge's approach is more successful because the historical context he provides is more specifically related to these volumes' core subject: how these British Dominions responded to the Paris peace treaties. Reading the two volumes in parallel offers a particular advantage in this respect, by providing an accessible means of understanding the contrasting national stories over conscription in the Great War: New Zealand introduced conscription, like Britain, Canada, Newfoundland and the United States, whereas Australia did not, like South Africa and Ireland. Both Hughes and Massey supported the British model of conscription. But Hughes, unlike Massey, could not introduce conscription by Act of Parliament because the Australian federal system was against him. Australia said "no" to conscription twice, in referenda in 1916 and 1917. The result split the Labor Party because Hughes walked out taking 25 MPs with him. Hughes formed a new coalition party, the Nationalists, who won the federal election in 1917. Consequently, the Australians remained a volunteer force in World War 1 while at home Hughes became a divisive figure. New Zealand, on the other hand, legislated for conscription in 1916, while the conscription issue helped create, as opposed to split, the New Zealand Labour Party. When we compare Bridge's and Watson's accounts of "dividing the spoils" (to use Bridge's term for the treaty negotiations) we learn that both Hughes and Massey sought mandates over the German colonies to their north: Australia over New Guinea and New Zealand over Western Samoa. Massey shared Hughes' aim to exclude Germans from the Pacific and shared suspicions of Japan, though Hughes was blunter. According to Bridge, Hughes made his mark debating what would become of the former German colonies in the Pacific, and famously clashed with Wilson over the mandate (annexation) issue. Australia and New Zealand gained the substance of what they wanted, that is, to be rid of the German empire in the Pacific especially where that intruded south of the equator into what the southern Dominions regarded as their neighbourhood. Bridge shows how Hughes was uncompromising in opposing the racial equality clause that Japan sought to have included in the League of Nations covenant. Both volumes could have made more of the comparative context whereby these white settler states around the Pacific Rim perceived the Japanese proposal as a threat to their restrictive immigration policies; for Massey also opposed the idea, as did Canada and the western United States. On the issue of reparations, Hughes was equally truculent: "'Germany must pay'" (Bridge, p. 88). Massey sought a tougher peace as well, but this view failed to secure British and American support. What Australia and New Zealand did gain was the tiny former German island of Nauru and, with it, access to a century's supply of phosphate for agricultural fertiliser. In the aftermath of the peace conference, Britain, Australia and New Zealand shared the administration of Nauru's mandate. But Massey clashed with Hughes over Nauru because he wanted the mandate assumed by Britain, not Australia. Massey also wanted the British government to take control of the British graves (including those of New Zealanders) at Gallipoli, which he saw as a sacred site for the British race, especially the Anzacs from Australia and New Zealand. Overall, despite such comparisons and contrasts invited by this joint review, Watson portrays Massey as distrustful of Hughes rather than subservient to Australia's "Little Digger". Both Bridge and Watson demonstrate how Massey and Hughes advanced their separate national interests. Comparing the volumes themselves, Bridge's is the more successful in style and zest, and in locating Hughes within a broader British world. He interprets "the legacy" of Hughes' participation at the conference table largely in biographical terms, arguing that participation made Hughes a leading figure in the British Empire. For Bridge, the legacy is Hughes's as an elder statesman, rather than the legacy of the peace conferences. This exposes an inherent tension: for the series' sub-title suggests the aftermath of the peace conferences will be discussed. Instead we learn that Hughes remained in Australia's federal parliament for another 30 years, but after 1923 he never again served as Prime Minister. Indeed, he lived long enough to experience the war against Japan that he had predicted. Bridge's conclusion is a pithy summing up of Hughes as both a nationalist and an imperialist: "The British Empire literally made him and in so doing he and it did much to make modern Australia." (p. 131) Watson, however, is to be commended for his useful short chapter reflecting on the legacy of Versailles from a New Zealand perspective. He outlines and explains the lack of public awareness about the Paris Peace Conference in New Zealand compared to Anzac Day, the anniversary of the landing by Australian and New Zealand forces at Gallipoli in April 1915; the long-run implications of securing the mandate for Western Samoa; and the boost to New Zealand farming from using Nauru's phosphate as fertiliser. He proceeds to argue that the perception of a "faulty peace" (p. 154) helps to explain the New Zealand first Labour government's conciliatory attitude towards Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. He also outlines the change of attitude that saw New Zealand become a foundation member of the United Nations in 1945. In sum, both authors have tried valiantly to write to a series template that contains inherent problems for the reader because of unresolved tensions between the different genres of biography and concise national histories, and the history of international relations, which remain unaddressed by a general editor. As a result each volume transitions awkwardly between chapters within the specified parts. Nonetheless, individually and comparatively, these works are useful additions to our understanding of the role that the broader empire of settlement played in imposing peace terms at the end of World War I. Each contains useful notes and a chronology. But a rationale is not given for the "culture" timeline in each volume. Are the works included relevant to the biographical subjects' lives? I suspect the answer is no. More signposting is required, as for the series as a whole. 1 L. F. Fitzhardinge. William Morris Hughes: A Political Biography, vol. 2 The Little Digger, 1914-1952. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1979. -- Philippa Mein Smith H-Diplo Review 20110722

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