The House that Wanted a Family is a unique and charming story told from the perspective of a house. The house is for sale and sits empty, waiting for a family. It's a book you'll want to read again and again...to a child or yourself. The house will be waiting.

A New Naval History brings together the most significant and interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary naval history. The last few decades have witnessed a transformation in how this field is researched and understood and this volume captures the state of a field that continues to develop apace. It examines – through the prism of naval affairs – issues of nationhood and imperialism; the legacy of Nelson; the socio-cultural realities of life in ships and naval bases; and the pro...

The House that Wanted a Family is a unique and charming story told from the perspective of a house. The house is for sale and sits empty, waiting for a family. It’s a book you’ll want to read again and again…to a child or yourself. The house will be waiting.

Naval forces from fifteen colonial territories fought for the British Empire during the Second World War, providing an important new lens for understanding imperial power and colonial relations on the eve of decolonisation.With sources from Britain, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia, this book examines the political, social and cultural impact of these forces; how they fortified British ‘prestige’ against rival imperialisms and colonial nationalisms; the importance of ‘men on the spot...

When Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, it was a devastating blow to the Allies, the British Empire and signalled a significant turning point in history. James Leasors story begins as far back as the early nineteenth century, with imperialism and the settlement founded by Sir Stamford Raffles. He charts the years leading up to Singapores defeat and the realisation that the West was not invincible. It includes direct, personal input from some of the main players involved inclu...

Singapore is located in the heart of the Muslim Malay world, yet 78 per cent of its population is ethnically Chinese. The prosperous city-state relies on outside sources for virtually all its water and food; it has no access to the high seas, on which it depends for 85 per cent of its trade, except through its neighbours' waters. Physically linked to Malaysia by a causeway and a bridge, only twenty kilometres of sea separate Singapore from the nearest Indonesian territory.Surrounde...

Australian military history is a landscape of legends. Yet across the length and breadth of our military heritage, accuracy and objectivity are often shunted aside so that tales and myths bent on commemoration, veneration, and the idealisation of 'Australian' virtues can thrive. In Anzac's Dirty Dozen a team of renowned historians resume the battle to expose a host of stubborn fantasies and fabrications that obscure the real story. Did our military history start at Gallipoli? Do w...

The British Empire, wrote Adam Smith, 'has hitherto been not an empire, but the project of an empire' and John Darwin offers a magisterial global history of the rise and fall of that great imperial project. The British Empire, he argues, was much more than a group of colonies ruled over by a scattering of British expatriates until eventual independence. It was, above all, a global phenomenon. Its power derived rather less from the assertion of imperial authority than from the fusing togeth...

Over 100,000 women across Asia were victims of enforced prostitution by the Japanese Imperial Forces during World War II. Until as recently as 1993 the Japanese government continued to deny this shameful aspect of its wartime history.In 1938 the Japanese Imperial Forces established a 'comfort station' in Shanghai. This was the first of many officially sanctioned brothels set up across Asia to service the needs of the Japanese forces. It was also the first comfort station where wome...

In the third volume of Thomas Keneally's unique history of Australia - where he shines a light on the lives and deeds of our countrymen and women, both known and unknown - he takes up the story at the end of the Great War and explores our development as a nation during the tumultuous 20th century.Australia emerged from World War I into a decade of profound change, characterised by a revolution in behaviour amongst the young; by the first great age of consumerism; a...

On Lüneberg Heath in 1945, the German High Command surrendered to Field Marshall Montgomery; in 2015, seventy years after this historic triumph, the last units of the British Army finally left their garrisons next to Lüneberg Heath.Boots on the Ground is the story of those years, following the British Army against the backdrop of Britain's shifting security and defence policies. From the decolonisation of India to the two invasions of Iraq, and, of course, Ireland, the boo...

As the young men of Europe were fighting in the trenches, a little known contingent of Chinese labourers crossed the world to provide support vital to the Allied war effort. Largely illiterate farmers from northern China, these men were simply attempting to make a better life for themselves, ignorant of the war and its causes. Under brutal conditions many died for their efforts, and their involvement wasn't recognised for decades – it is still not widely known. In this fascinating First Wo...