The Difference Identity Makes by Lawrence Bamblett (Editor); Fred Myers (Editor); Tim Rowse (Editor)

$39.95 AUD

Category: History

Troy by Stephen Fry

$35.00 AUD

Category: History | Series: Stephen Fry's Greek Myths | Reading Level: near fine

Following Top Ten bestsellers Mythos and Heroes, this third volume retells the epic tale of Troy The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for ten whol e years. It is a terrible war with casualties on all sides as well as strained relations between allies, whose consequences become tragedies. In Troy you will find heroism and hatred, love and loss, revenge and regret, desire and despair. It is these human passions, written bloodily in the sands of a distant shore, that still speak to us today.   ...Show more

The Humans by Jonny Marx

$39.99 AUD

Category: History

This book showcases the greatest achievements of ancient civilisations, peoples and iconic figures from history. From the Nubians to the Native Americans, and the Akkadians to the Aztecs, our predecessors have pioneered a plethora of wonderful and wacky inventions, technologies and practices. They've co nstructed monumental buildings and sprawling cities, created languages, modes of transport, art, medicines, music, stories, myths and more. Let's delve into the past and discover what humankind accomplished in the centuries and millennia since the first civilisations were formed ... ...Show more

Macquarie by Grantlee Kieza

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming a harsh, foreboding penal colony into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society.He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's r efuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and business people.However, the governor's ambitions for the colony brought him into conflict with the continent's original landowners, and he was responsible for the deaths of Aboriginal men, women and children, brutally killed in a military operation intended to create terror among local Indigenous people.So was Macquarie the man who sowed the seeds of a new nation, or a tyrant who destroyed Aboriginal resistance?In this, the most comprehensive biography yet of this fascinating colonial governor, acclaimed biographer Grantlee Kieza draws on Macquarie's rich and detailed journals. Ultimately, Macquarie laid the foundations for a new nation, but, in the process, he played a part in the dispossession of the continent's first nations.Lover, fighter, egalitarian, autocrat, Lachlan Macquarie is a complex and engaging character who first envisaged the nation we call Australia.   ...Show more

Wanderers: A History of Women Walking by Kerri Andrews

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

  This is a book about ten women over the past three hundred years who have found walking essential to their sense of themselves, as people and as writers. Wanderers traces their footsteps, from eighteenth-century parson's daughter Elizabeth Carter--who desired nothing more than to be taken for a vagab ond in the wilds of southern England--to modern walker-writers such as Nan Shepherd and Cheryl Strayed. For each, walking was integral, whether it was rambling for miles across the Highlands, like Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, or pacing novels into being, as Virginia Woolf did around Bloomsbury. Offering a beguiling view of the history of walking, Wanderers guides us through the different ways of seeing--of being--articulated by these ten pathfinding women. ...Show more

Who Owns History? Elgin's Loot and the Case for Returning Plundered Treasure by Geoffrey Robertson

$22.99 AUD

Category: History

Hard on the heels of his best-selling autobiography Rather His Own Man, one of Australia's foremost public intellectuals turns his mind to one of the most important contemporary questions that divides the world of art and culture- the restitution of heritage treasures removed in earlier times from subju gated peoples who now want them back. Taking his cue from Cicero, the great Roman barrister, Geoffrey Robertson argues that justice requires the return not only of the 'Elgin' Marbles to Greece, but of many looted antiquities on display in the museums of Britain, Europe and America. He argues that the Gweagal Shield - dropped when Cook shot at Aboriginals in Botany Bay in 1770 - should be returned to Australia from the British Museum. He wants the government to acquire the hull of HMS Endeavourrecently located off Rhode Island. He has located Arthur Phillip's tombstone for Yemmerrawanne, the first Australian expatriate, in a South London churchyard, and he wants to bring it back. Robertson's judgement is uncompromising- cultural heritage belongs to the people of whose history it is a part, unless its return would be attended by danger to the artwork itself. And since the movement for the restitution of cultural property is based on human rights, governments that want it back must show respect for the rights of the peoples on whose behalf they make the claim. Who Owns History?not only delves into the crucial debate over the Marbles, but examines how the past can be experienced by everyone, as well as by the people of the country of origin. ...Show more

The Windsor Diaries: 1940-45 by Alathea Fitzalan Howard

$34.99 AUD

Category: History

The Windsor Diaries are the never-before-seen diaries of Alathea Fitzalan Howard, who lived alongside the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret at Windsor Castle during the Second World War. Alathea's home life was an unhappy one. Her parents had separated and so during the war she was sent to live wi th her grandfather, Viscount Fitzalan of Derwent, at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. There Alathea found the affection and harmony she craved as she became a close friend of the two princesses, visiting them often at Windsor Castle, enjoying parties, balls, cinema evenings, picnics and celebrations with the Royal Family and other members of the Court. Alathea's diary became her constant companion during these years as day by day she recorded every intimate detail of life with the young Princesses, often with their governess Crawfie, or with the King and Queen. Written from the ages of sixteen to twenty-two, she captures the tight-knit, happy bonds between the Royal Family, as well as the aspirations and anxieties, sometimes extreme, of her own teenage mind. These unique diaries give us a bird's eye view of Royal wartime life with all of Alathea's honest, yet affectionate judgments and observations - as well as a candid and vivid portrait of the young Princess Elizabeth, known to Alathea as 'Lilibet', a warm, self-contained girl, already falling for her handsome prince Philip, and facing her ultimate destiny: the Crown.   ...Show more

Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta

$32.99 AUD

Category: History | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

This remarkable book is about everything from echidnas to evolution, cosmology to cooking, sex and science and spirits to Schrodinger's cat. Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective. He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently? Sand Talk provides a template for living. It's about how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It's about how we learn and how we remember. It's about talking to everybody and listening carefully. It's about finding different ways to look at things. Most of all it's about Indigenous thinking, and how it can save the world. ...Show more

If Then - How One Data Company Invented the Future by Jill Lepore

$32.99 AUD

Category: History

The Simulmatics Corporation, founded in 1959, mined data, targeted voters, accelerated news, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge--decades before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica. Silicon Valley likes to imagine it has no past but the scientists of Simu lmatics are the long-dead grandfathers of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Borrowing from psychological warfare, they used computers to predict and direct human behavior, deploying their "People Machine" from New York, Cambridge, and Saigon for clients that included John Kennedy's presidential campaign, the New York Times, Young & Rubicam, and, during the Vietnam War, the Department of Defence. Jill Lepore, distinguished Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, unearthed from the archives the almost unbelievable story of this long-vanished corporation, and of the women hidden behind it. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lepore argues, Simulmatics invented the future by building the machine in which the world now finds itself trapped and tormented, algorithm by algorithm. ...Show more

Byron Bay: The History, Beauty and Spirit by Peter Duke

$59.95 AUD

Category: History

Byron Bay: The History, Beauty and Spirit is a beautiful hard cover coffee table book that offers a unique glimpse of Byron Bay and the surrounding region. It provides a visual feast and remarkable insight into the people and landscapes of the unique community that is Byron Bay. This stunning collection of 150 photographs, narratives, artwork and poetry chronicles the dynamic human history of the eastern most point on Australia's mainland. The contemporary design of this delightful book features the work of some of Byron Bay's most renowned photographers and story tellers including, Di Morrissey (Forward), Grace Knight, Bob McTavish and a host of other local identities. Educational, fun and laced with love, Byron Bay: The History, Beauty and Spirit also pays tribute to the exceptional people who have made Byron Bay such a special place. ...Show more

The Rodchenkov Affair by Grigory Rodchenkov

$35.00 AUD

Category: History

Can one man take down an empire? The Rodchenkov Affair is a breathtaking real-life political thriller. As a leading chemical scientist and Director of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, Dr Grigory Rodchenkov was at the forefront of global efforts to detect drugs cheats in sport. Yet he was simultaneous ly running the most elaborate doping scheme in history, helping thousands of athletes and elite players evade detection. Then the cracks started to show, and Vladimir Putin sent him a chilling message . . . Icarus, the Oscar-winning Netflix film, followed Grigory Rodchenkov as he turned whistleblower, fled Russia and entered the US Witness Protection Programme. In this explosive memoir he reveals how everything he has exposed so far -- leading to Russia's double Olympic bans - is merely the tip of the iceberg. Drawn from diaries, official e-mails and memos smuggled out of Russia, The Rodchenkov Affair is the full story by the one man the Kremlin hoped would never talk about its quest to win at all costs. 'I am a patriot, yet I am a traitor. I am one of the reasons my country has won so many Olympic medals over the last decade, yet I am also the reason they are banned from the Olympics. I am a devoted husband and father, yet I have seen neither my wife or my children in two years. If you read the news, you will see that my name is everywhere, yet I myself am nowhere. I am known throughout Russia, yet I am a ghost. Living anonymously in an anonymous town, under the protection of the US government, in fear from my life, somewhere in America - the one country I tried my hardest to help my country beat, year after year, decade after decade' ...Show more

Health, Hedonism and Hypochondria - The Hidden History of Spas by Ian Bradley

$39.99 AUD

Category: History

From Romans to royalty and hypochondriacs to holiday-makers, natural water spas have been a common feature in society since the first century. Even today, we periodically abandon the cities to 'take the waters'. In their heyday, Europe's spas were the main meeting places for aristocracy, politicians and cultural elites. They were the centres of political and diplomatic intrigue, and were fertile sources of artistic, literary and musical inspiration. The spas epitomised style and were renowned for their cosmopolitan atmosphere in a glittering whirl of balls, gambling and affairs, as much as for their healing waters. Health, Hedonism & Hypochondria reveals the hidden histories of traditional spas of Europe, including such well-known resorts as the original Spa in Belgium; Bath, Buxton & Harrogate in Britain; Baden-Baden & Bad Ems in Germany; Vichy & Aix-les-Bains in France; Bad Ragaz in Switzerland; Bad Ischl & Baden bei Wien in Austria and Karlovy Vary & Mari insk L izne? in the Czech Republic. At once luxurious sanctuaries of relaxation and resorts of the upper classes, they were also the haunts of melancholics, scoundrels and those seeking escape and excitement. ...Show more