The 1838 Myall Creek Massacre is remembered for the brutality of the crime committed by white settlers against innocent Aboriginal men, women and children, but also because eleven of the twelve assassins were arrested and brought to trial. Amid tremendous controversy, seven were hanged. Marking its 180th anniversary, this book explores the significance of one of the most horrifying events of Australian colonialism. Thoughtful and fearless, it challenges us to look at our history without fl...

Violence was a constant on all colonial frontiers, from the British expansion into the Australian and African continents, to the expansion of the United States and the Napoleonic Empire's many incursions into Europe. Yet how did the forms of violence perpetrated in these four corners of the world compare? Did the oppression and exploitation of colonized peoples constitute a new form of violence? Or was it the same that Europeans had always used against conquered peoples?In this boo...

'Lyndall Ryan's new account of the extraordinary and dramatic story of the Tasmanian Aborigines is told with passion and eloquence. It is a book that will inform and move anyone with an interest in Australian history.' - Professor Henry Reynolds, University of Tasmania'A powerful and insightful historical account about a unique island and its First peoples, their dispossession and their struggle for survival and cultural birth right/heritage that reaches from the deep past...

Massacres and mass killings have always marked if not shaped the history of the world and as such are subjects of increasing interest among historians. The premise underlying this collection is that massacres were an integral, if not accepted part (until quite recently) of warfare, and that they were often fundamental to the colonizing process in the early modern and modern worlds. Making a deliberate distinction between ‘massacre’ and ‘genocide’, the editors call for an entirely separate ...

Girt. No word could better capture the essence of Australia...In this hilarious history, David Hunt tells the real story of Australia's past from megafauna to Macquarie ... the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten eccentrics and Eureka moments that have made us who we are.Mark Twain wrote of Australian history: 'It does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies ... but they are all true, they all happened.' In Girt, Hunt uncovers these beautiful li...

**NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This incredible true history of the colonization of Australia explores how the convict transportation system created the country we know today."One of the greatest non-fiction books I’ve ever read ... Hughes brings us an entire world." —Los Angeles Times**Digging deep into the dark history of England's infamous efforts to move 160,000 men and women thousands of miles to the other side of the world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ...

This bestselling book, the triumphant fruit of careful research, wide reading and judicious assessment, is the unchallenged contemporary reference on the history of New Zealand. New Zealand was the last country in the world to be discovered and settled by humankind. It was also the first to introduce full democracy. Between those events, and in the century that followed, the movements and conflicts of human history have been played out more intensively and more rapidly in ...

The often harsh and unforgiving Australian landscape was a far cry from what the early colonisers were used to, and it proved a daunting obstacle to settlement. However, a few brave and at times foolhardy men were determined to prove themselves equal to the challenge. AUSTRALIA'S GREAT EXPLORERS looks at the tragedies and triumphs of men such as Wentworth and Lawson, Hume and Hovell, Burke and Wills, Leichhardt and Strzelecki as they battled to conquer the Great Diving Range, find an elusi...

In this side-splitting sequel to his best-selling history, David Hunt takes us to the Australian frontier. This was the Wild South, home to hardy pioneers, gun-slinging bushrangers, directionally challenged explorers, nervous indigenous people, Caroline Chisholm and sheep. Lots of sheep.First there was Girt. Now comes . . . True GirtTrue Girt introduces Thomas Davey, the hard-drinking Tasmanian governor who invented the Blow My Skull cocktail, a...

In this volume of a unique history of Australia where people are always centre stage, bestselling author Thomas Keneally brings to life the vast range of characters who have formed our national story.Convicts and Aborigines, settlers and soldiers, patriots and reformers, bushrangers and gold seekers, it is from their lives and their stories that he has woven a vibrant history to do full justice to the rich and colourful nature of our unique national character.The story begi...

The Award-Winning History of Colonial Melbourne'James Boyce tells the true history of this country with rare clarity and an eye for the essential that never fails.' —David MarrWith the founding of Melbourne in 1835, a flood of settlers began spreading out across the Australian continent. In three years more land – and more people – was conquered than in the preceding fifty.In 1835 James Boyce brings this pivotal moment to life. He traces ...

New Zealand to many is 'Middle Earth', home of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it was also the last major land mass on the planet to be settled by humans.The country was catapulted kicking and screaming from the stone age to the space age within 200 years of Captain Cook setting foot there...Who really got to New Zealand first? Which version of the Treaty of Waitangi is the most accurate? What impact did a massive asteroid strike in the 15th century have on human settlem...