New World History

March 1942: The world is at war. Too old to fight and with jobs scarce at home, Tom Phelps found work as a carpenter in the goldfields of the New Guinea Highlands. No one expected the Japanese to attack in the Pacific. But they did. Tom and his mates weren't going to hang around and wait to be killed. With escape routes bombed by the Japanese, their only option was to try to reach safety by foot, through some of the most rugged terrain on Earth - the Bulldog Track. Back home in Sydney, Rose Phelps, their son, George, and three daughters, Joy, Shirley and Ann, waited for news of Tom's fate.

It has often been said that the greatest invention of all time was the sail, which facilitated the internationalization of the globe and thus, ushered in the modern era. Columbus’ contact with the New World, alongside European maritime contact with the Far East, transformed human history, and, in particular, the history of Africa.

In August 1948, 545 passengers boarded an overcrowded, clapped-out vessel in Marseilles to face an uncertain future in Australia and New Zealand. They came from displaced persons camps in Germany, death camps in Poland, labour camps in Hungary, gulags in Siberia, and stony Agean islands. There were those who had been hunted by the Nazis and those who had welcomed them; those who had followed the Communists and those who had fled them.

In 1942, the Solomon Islands formed the stepping stones toward Rabaul, the main base of Japanese operations in the South Pacific, and the Allies primary objective. The stunning defeat of Japanese forces at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November marked the turning point in the war against Japan and the start of an offensive in the Central Solomons aimed at New Georgia. New Georgia: The Second Battle for the Solomons tells the story of the land, sea, and air battles fought there from March through October 1943.

In the fall of 1865, the United States Army executed Confederate guerrilla Champ Ferguson for his role in murdering fifty-three loyal citizens of Kentucky and Tennessee during the Civil War. Long remembered as the most unforgiving and inglorious warrior of the Confederacy, Ferguson has often been dismissed by historians as a cold-blooded killer. Here, biographer Brian D. McKnight demonstrates how such a simple judgment ignores the complexity of this legendary character.

In November 1956, a unified Telugu-speaking state of Andhra Pradesh came into being. In February 2014, Parliament bifurcated it to create two Telugu-speaking states: Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Old History, New Geography provides the context, text and subtext to the bifurcation, which continues to be contentious and controversial.

A concise new history of the United States revealing that crises -- not unlike those of the present day -- have determined our nation's course from the start In A Nation Forged by Crisis, historian Jay Sexton contends that our national narrative is not one of halting yet inevitable progress, but...

With all the skills of the master storyteller that he is, Jim Haynes exposes some of the great myths of Australian history. Did you know that Portuguese and Spanish explorers probably found the east coast of Australia before Captain Cook, and that the Rum Rebellion was not caused by rum? And what about Banjo Patterson writing ‘Waltzing Matilda’? As for Ned Kelly being a brave freedom-fighting rebel, in truth he was a thief, a thug and a murderer.

On April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. The "shot heard round the world" catapulted this sleepy New England town into the midst of revolutionary fervor, and Concord went on to become the intellectual capital of the new republic. In The Minutemen and Their World, Robert Gross has written a remarkably subtle and detailed reconstruction of the lives and community of this special place, and a compelling interpretation of the American Revolution as a social movement.

The first 100 days of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency are justly famous, viewed as a period of political action without equal in American history. Yet as historian David B. Woolner reveals, the end of FDR's presidency might very well surpass it in drama and consequence. Drawing on new evidence, Woolner shows how FDR used every ounce of his diminishing energy to pursue the things that mattered most to him: the establishment of the United Nations, the reinvigoration of the New Deal, the possibility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and more.

Conflicts over specific rules lie at the heart of the disputes, which are about much more than sovereignty over islands and rocks in the South and East China Seas. Instead, the main contests concern the strategic maritime space associated with those islands. To consolidate control over this vital maritime space, China's leaders have begun to implement "China's law of the sea": building domestic legal institutions, bureaucratic organizations, and a naval and maritime law enforcement apparatus to establish China's preferred maritime rules on the water and in the diplomatic arena.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE WINNER OF THE 2025 ZÓCALO BOOK PRIZE A humanitarian leader with more than two decades of experience working for the United Nations takes aim at the global food crisis—revealing how hunger anywhere affects lives everywhere and what steps we...

Bruce Pascoe has been described as a ‘living national treasure’ and his work as ‘revelatory’. This volume of his best and most celebrated stories and essays, collected here for the first time, ranges across his long career, and explores his enduring fascination with Australia’s landscape, culture, land management and history. Featuring new and previously unpublished fiction alongside his most revered and thought-provoking nonfiction - including extracts from his modern classic Dark Emu - this collection is perfect for Pascoe fans and new listeners alike.

Do you want advice on how to stand out in a crowded marketplace? Do you want to take your career to the next level and beyond? In Stand Out & Succeed, career and business strategist Christy Frank explains how the job market really works, and shows you the strategies, psychology and tactics you need to know to get a lucrative, recession-proof career you love. The biggest problem with finding a job today is that we actually have two job markets, and 95% of people don't know how to perform well in either.

Modern readers of the New Testament often notice its varying ideas about women. Some passages encouraged women to be submissive and remain silent. Yet in others, women characters owned property, headed households, or spoke with approval. Women in the New Testament World helps listeners understand this conflicting evidence. It argues that social norms of the time encouraged traditional feminine virtues. However, as Susan Hylen argues, women in the culture enacted these virtues in a variety of ways, including active leadership in households, associations, and cities.

In this international history of Reconstruction, Don Doyle chronicles the world events inspired by the Civil War. Between 1865 and 1870, France withdrew from Mexico, Russia sold Alaska to the US, and Britain proclaimed the new state of Canada. British workers demanded more voting rights, Spain toppled Queen Isabella II and ended slavery in its Caribbean colonies, Cubans rose against Spanish rule, France overthrew Napoleon III, and the kingdom of Pope Pius IX fell before the Italian Risorgimento.

From the beginning of time, music has been used to build community and empower people. Music is a strong force that has led movements; marched influential changemakers and innovators to rhythms that have shaped the world. In the 21st century, music continues to play a pivotal role in inspiring positive change and moving people to tackle some of the biggest social issues of our times.

A spectacular stretch of earth, the Eastern Sierra region of California, reveals volcanic reefs, desert sand dunes, majestic mountains, and snow-fed lakes and rivers. Drawing on 40 years of college teaching on the world's religions, Professor Brad Karelius is your guide, uncovering deep spiritual dimensions in this achingly beautiful place. This book shares crystallizations of religious wisdom collected through the ages, and finely tuned descriptions of holy sites which you may visit, that will draw you deeper in your personal encounters with world spiritualities.

This book offers a series of problems in thinking that require no special knowledge and no mathematics. The problems are designed to let readers find out about their personal style of thinking, its weaknesses and strengths, and the potential methods that they never use. Being right is not always important - an error can lead to the right decision.

This book welcomes listeners to appreciate the origins of Christianity within the Roman world in which early Christianity got its first foothold. It does that by immersing listeners in the life and culture of two thriving first-century towns—Pompeii and Herculaneum. Those towns (destroyed in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE) act as showpieces of the world into which the early Christian movement was spreading.