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This is the first book to deal exclusively with the Australian members of the Family Ardeidae (herons, egrets and bitterns). It gives a comprehensive, easy-to-read account of their origins, classification and biology, and explains the features that distinguish them from other birds. The book devotes a major chapter to the 14 Australian species, covering their distribution and movements, feeding, breeding, population dynamics and conservation. Some of Australia’s herons have become very scarce in the southern half of the continent and are at risk of national or local extinction. In northern Australia heron habitats and resources are largely pristine and consequently this region accommodates large numbers of certain species. A final chapter on population and conservation provides a useful summary of the present status of the Australian herons, some of whom are thriving and others who are in a very precarious position. ... Read more

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" ...often new, probing and rich examinations of the takeover of a continent by white Anglos and the long-term impact ...the book is replete with detailed and meticulously sourced information on the scope, scale and persistence of the cruelty and violence involved - actual and structural - over a 200-year period...there is a great deal in this excellent volume that demands grounds for deep reflection on how Australia came to be what it is." * Patterns of Prejudice "The value of this stimulating collection of historical essays is that it points to both the usefulness of a transnational framework for analysing race thinking and the necessity for close attention to the historical specificity of particular moments and places."* Australian Book Review "[This volume] is an outstanding collection, a challenging conversation between differing viewpoints where discussion is ongoing and cooperative."* Australian Historical Studies Colonial Genocide has been seen increasingly as a stepping-stone to the European genocides of the twentieth century, yet it remains an under-researched phenomenon.This volume reconstructs instances of Australian genocide and for the first time places them in a global context.Beginning with the arrival of the British in 1788 and extending to the 1960s, the authors identify the moments of radicalization and the escalation of British violence and ethnic engineering aimed at the Indigenous populations, while carefully distinguishing between local massacres, cultural genocide, and genocide itself. These essays reflect a growing concern with the nature of settler society in Australia and in particular with the fate of the tens of thousands of children who were forcibly taken away from their Aboriginal families by state agencies. A. Dirk Moses teaches European History and comparative genocide Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. He is editing another volume in this series entitled Genocide and Colonialism. ... Read more

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The echidna is one of the world’s most extraordinary creatures. It is a living fossil whose relatives were walking the earth over 100 million years ago. Like the platypus, it is a mammal that lays eggs. And, like all mammals, it has fur and produces milk.

This book describes the echidna’s lifestyle and the adaptations that have made it so successful. It draws on the latest research into these strange creatures, covering their evolution, anatomy, senses, reproduction, behaviour, feeding habits and metabolism. The authors reveal some fascinating new findings, showing how echidnas are masters of their environment, and not simply some sort of mammal ‘test model’ that went wrong. A final chapter on conservation includes information on captive diet and management. ... Read more

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This volume examines the military obligation of government during the first century of the Commonwealth of Australia.During this time, the defense has endured two world wars as well as a series of other military engagements.Although the reputation of military has become a significant factor in the lives and views of Australians, the topic rarely receives public interest.This book explains the complexities of this essential strand of the Commonwealth. ... Read more

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This book is the first systematic study of assisted emigration from Britain to Australia during the inter-war years. It looks at the British and Australian politicians and bureaucrats involved in the program and the half-million migrants who uprooted themselves. Both governments used migration to meet their different needs, with little regard for the migrants themselves. Not only is the book an important study of imperial relations in the 1920s and 1930s, it describes an important and overlooked aspect of Australian political and social history. ... Read more

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This book examines the relationship of the Australian colonies with Britain and the Empire in the late nineteenth century, and looks at the beginnings of Australian nationalism. It is the first detailed study of the formative period 1880-1900.As the debate about an Australian Republic becomes more heated, this book is a timely reexamination of the colonial character of Australia's federation and Australia's incorporation into an imperial framework. ... Read more

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The title Bringing to Light has two meanings. First, this book is an act of bringing to light a history that was gradually becoming mythologized, in part because the ethnographic films of the past are now rarely seen. Secondly, much of the filmmaking discussed in this book was motivated by a desire to bring to the light of film the socio-cultural life of Australia's Indigenous peoples. ... Read more

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Cattle has been big business in Australia for well over a century and earns substantial export dollars. Yet the contribution that Aboriginal people have made to this key sector of the Australian economy has not been widely recognised. This book uncovers the central role of Aboriginal labour in the Queensland cattle industry. It looks at a broad period, from Aboriginal land use at the time of first contact, resistance to white settlers and rapid absorption of Aboriginal people into the pastoral economy. The book also considers the impact of the introduction of equal pay rates in the 1970s and land management in the 1990s. Dawn May shows that the use of Aboriginal labour was a complex process involving a high degree of state intervention. Her book is an important economic and social history of the cattle industry in Queensland, but the pressing issue of native title makes the book highly relevant throughout post-Mabo Australia. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Piece of History
I found this book to be very interesting reading, well written, and well documented. If you are interested in part of Aboriginal History in Queensland this is an excellent book for this. ... Read more

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This third volume takes the story of Australia to the momentous discovery of gold and the separation of Victoria from New South Wales. The story is one of destruction as well as construction, the destruction of the Aborigines and the construction of an essentially English bourgeois society and the taming of an alien and seemingly sterile land along the coastal country.

This is not a general Australian history and it is not a definitive or quantitative analysis. It is a work of art, a living and breathing account of the remaking of a primitive continent, history come alive. ... Read more

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This comprehensive survey aims to answer two questions. First, why Australia's eight capital cities are situated where they are, and second, how they were established. Pairs of chapters on each of the state capitals--Sydney, Hobart, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Brisbane--are accompanied by studies of Canberra as federal capital and Darwin as territorial capital. ... Read more

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War has been a key part of the Australian experience and central to many national mythologies. Yet more than most activities, war polarises femininity and masculinity. This exciting collection of essays explores the inter-relationship of gender and war in Australia for the first time. Traditional images of Australians during wartime show the 'digger' making history in battle, while women play a supportive role as nurses, or wives and mothers on the home front. Yet as this book shows, war offers opportunities that erode gender boundaries. Women may be empowered economically, politically and sexually, while the trauma of war can leave men emasculated. Gender and Warfocuses on women's and men's experiences in WWI, WWII and the Vietnam War. This interdisciplinary collection addresses a wide range of subjects, and promises to change the way we think about women, men and war in the twentieth century. ... Read more

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This is a powerful and moving history of single motherhood in Australia. It tells the story of these women and their children and the lives they constructed. The book covers the period from the 1850s, when abandonment and infanticide were not uncommon, to 1975, when the legal status of illegitimacy was abolished. While tracing profound changes over this period, the authors find much continuity. The book covers issues of baby farming, infanticide, abortion, sex education, birth control, adoption and marriage, in effect becoming a history of sexual practice in Australia. ... Read more

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To many people, the suggestion that a kangaroo could live up a tree is fantasy.Yet, in the rainforests of far north Queensland and New Guinea, there are extraordinary kangaroos that do just that.Many aspects of their anatomy and biology (particularly their bipedal hopping ability) suggest a terrestrial kangaroo ancestor.Yet no one has, so far, come forward with a convincing explanation of how, why and when an animal that was so superbly adapted for life on the ground should end up back in the trees.This book reviews the natural history and biology of tree-kangaroos from the time of their first discovery by Europeans in the jungles of West Papua in 1846 right up to present day, covering the latest research being conducted in Australia and New Guinea.Combining information from a number of disparate disciplines, the author sets forth the first explanation of this apparent evolutionary conundrum. ... Read more