Australian History

For more than 30 years, H. G. Nelson has been finding the poetry in the punt and humour during half-time. Now, he turns his keen eye for facts and folly to the illustrious history of our great sporting nation. In his trademark fast and furious style, H. G. dives deep into the moments that have truly made us who we are. He reminds us of our leaders' great sporting triumphs, from Harold Holt's swimming to John Howard's bowling, rewrites the record on legends such as 'Aussie Joe' Bugner and Jack Brabham; and explains why Australia's reality TV is the best in the world.

One day while sitting around the dinner table with his family, Victor Briggs’s Uncle Tim told him that on a visit to Hawaii, he had met an Indigenous Hawaiian Elder who told him a story. A long time ago, Indigenous Australian seafarers had sailed to Hawaii on the trade winds. When they got there, they had helped the Hawaiians with skills, information and technology. Hawaiian people were so impressed with Aboriginal people that they let them stay on their islands when they were travelling throughout the Pacific Regions.

Great tales of the turf, from Jorrocks to Black Caviar. Jim Haynes loves the sport of kings nearly as much as he loves bush yarns, and in this volume he brings these two great loves together in the biggest book of Australian racing stories ever. Full of tall tales and true, laughter, romance and heartbreak, and chock-a-block with the best Australian racing stories, verses and yarns, Jim tells of the great champions, the tragedies, and the unique characters (equine and human) of the track.

Frank Moorhouse was legendary in Australian literary and cultural life, the author of a huge and diverse body of work - essays, short stories, journalism, scripts, the iconic Edith Trilogy - an unapologetic activist, intellectual, libertarian and champion of freedom of speech and sexual self determination. Though he lived his life publicly, his private stories have not been shared, the many paths he forged left unexamined, until now. This landmark study is the fascinating story of how one of Australia's most original writers and pioneer of the discontinuous narrative came to be.

Submariners are a special breed. Not for them a life on the ocean wave, the fresh air and sunshine of other naval sailors. With stealth and daring they go deep and dark, alone and unseen, in often dangerous waters. They sometimes call themselves the Silent Service, with good reason. Submarines and the sailors who serve in them have been and remain the tip of the spear of Australia's defences. For the first time, this is their unique story.

Next in the prison series, stories from the notorious HM Prison Brisbane, from the bestselling author of Australia's Most Infamous Jail and Australian Ghost Stories

Forty-one Australian soldiers died in action over 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan; in that time more than 1400 veterans have taken their own lives. Veterans today are chronically over-represented when it comes to PTSD, depression, homelessness and suicide. Australians rightfully pause on Anzac Day each year to solemnly remember fallen soldiers, but are we forgetting our returned veterans whose personal battles continue every single day, and how did we get to this point?

The twists and turns of the last 15 years of the Qantas story contain all the ingredients of a corporate thriller, with constant shocks to the system, and boardroom dramas and disasters narrowly avoided. During this tumultuous period, as CEO of Australia's iconic airline, Alan Joyce became one of the best-known corporate figures in Australia, and one of the most polarising. He's had to steer the company through cyclones and bushfires, volcanic ash clouds and a tsunami, a pandemic, two fleet groundings, intense union battles and a bitter turf-war.

Over thirty five thousand Australian soldiers and airmen are still listed as Missing In Action from the wars of the 20th Century. Telling the moving story of the determination and skill of the searchers who apply old-fashioned detective work and cutting-edge science to solve the mysteries of the missing and bring peace of mind and solace to their families and to all those who serve, Where Soldiers Lie follows these investigators and scientists on their mission to locate and identify unrecovered war casualties and to unlock their secrets.

Hudson Fysh was a decorated World War I hero who not only founded Australia's national airline Qantas but steered it for almost half a century from its humble beginnings with two rickety biplanes to the age of the jumbo jets. One of Australia's celebrated Light Horsemen at Gallipoli, Fysh went on to fly death-defying missions for Lawrence of Arabia with the Australian Flying Corps and battle Germans in deadly dogfights in the skies over Palestine. On his return from the Great War, Fysh launched his bush airline, the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd (Qantas).

Australia has many stories and statues ‘lest we forget’ our military past. But from Simpson’s donkey to Ben Roberts-Smith, our history is full of events that didn’t happen the way most people think they did. The first Anzac Day, for example, was far from being a solemn march – it was a celebration where people dressed as cavemen and dinosaurs, among other things. And is it true that British officers callously dispatched Australian soldiers to their deaths in the Dardanelles, as we’ve been told?

When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the British asked Australia for help. With some misgivings, the Australian government sent five destroyers to beef up the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. HMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen were old ships, small with worn-out engines. Their crews used to joke they were held together by string and chewing gum; when the Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels heard of them, he sneered that they were a load of scrap iron.

Miinaa was a young girl when the white ghosts first arrived. She remembers the day they raised a piece of cloth and renamed her homeland 'Bathurst'. Now she lives at Cloverdale and works for a white family who have settled there. The Nugents are kind, but Miinaa misses her miyagan. His brother, Windradyne, is a Wiradyuri leader, and visits when he can, bringing news of unrest across their ngurambang. Miinaa hopes the violence will not come to Cloverdale.

Award-winning journalist and best-selling author Ian McPhedran takes us to the heart of the RAAF through personal accounts of fighter pilots’ bombing raids over Iraq, of hi-tech spy planes over Afghanistan, of the operational nerve centre of the Middle East war, and of the men and women who deliver humanitarian aid across the world. This is the compelling narrative, in the RAAF’s 90th year, of its aircraft, leadership, traditions, and personalities at a time of rapid change.

Rural and remote ambulance drivers and paramedics are a dedicated and gutsy bunch who work tirelessly to care for their communities, often in isolated and inhospitable conditions, with few resources but plenty of experience, courage and care. Ambos deal with it all: car crashes, delivering babies, snake bites, heart attacks, lost bushwalkers, drug overdoses—even the occasional crook camel. One thing they are never short of is a story or two to tell.

Under the cover of being designated as private correspondence, the letters between the queen and the governor-general about the dismissal have been locked away for decades in the National Archives of Australia, and embargoed by the queen - potentially forever. In the face of this, Professor Jenny Hocking embarked on a four-year legal battle to force the Archives to release the letters. In 2015, she mounted a crowd-funded campaign, securing a stellar pro bono team that took her case all the way to the High Court of Australia.

Blazing her trail at the dawn of the 20th century, Vida Goldstein remains Australia's most celebrated suffragette and social reformer. Her life - as a campaigner for women's rights and suffrage in Australia, Britain and America, an advocate for peace, a fighter for social equality for all and a shrewd political commentator - marks her as one of Australia's foremost women of courage and principle. In 1903 she became the first woman in Australia to stand for the Senate and the the first woman in the Western world to stand for a national Parliament.

Enid Lindeman stood almost six feet tall, with silver hair and flashing turquoise eyes. The girl from Strathfield in Sydney stopped traffic in Manhattan, silenced gamblers in Monte Carlo and dared walk a pet cheetah on a diamond collar through Hyde Park in London. In early twentieth-century society, when women were expected to be demure and obedient, the granddaughter of Hunter Valley wine pioneer Henry Lindeman waltzed through life to the beat of her own drum.

From the trenches of the Western Front to the rice fields and jungles of South-east Asia, Australian women have served as doctors and medical specialists from World War I until the present day.

In these 65 original stories, we hear of the explosive introduction of World Series Cricket in 1977, which turned a genteel endeavour into a high-octane contest, and the clash of the titans as Packer and Murdoch squared off over the Super League war. We see Rugby Union become a battleground for race and the Olympics an arena for sublime acts of courage and achievement.