20th Century History

Now a major documentary film starring Billy Bragg In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the British Government banished their political enemies - viewed with the same alarm as today's...

Lifting the Lid - a memoir born of adoption is a compelling story told by a distinctive voice with heart and humour about identity, belonging and a woman's search for...

In this book, the residents of Prahran, past and present, tell something of their own stories. These are as diverse as Prahran itself. There are tales of wine and roses...

The story of heroes - the soldiers, sailors and airmen who left New Zealand to do battle as front-line warriors. It is the story of New Zealand's rich record of...

'Beautiful Lies' describes the forces that in less that four decades turned Australia from being dependent upon the United Kingdom to becoming an independent power, which, if it owes any...

The average age of the 199 men on board the HMS Ardent was 23 in May 1982 when she made a midnight run into Falkland Sound, ahead of the British...

Eureka- The Unfinished Revolution ... history comes to life with Peter Fitzsimons. THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER 'Peter FitzSimons is an Australian phenomenon.' The Canberra Times In 1854, Victorian miners fought a...

This is a study of the assisted passage scheme offered for journeys to Australia in 1947. The assisted passage scheme, also known as the "ten pound fare", was introduced in...

For decades schoolchildren have made the pilgrimage to the Museum of Victoria to see the final resting place of our greatest racing horse ever. No wonder Phar Lap holds a...

By the time Australia withdrew from Papua New Guinea in 1975, about 10,000 Australian women had lived there at some stage since 1920. Many came with their husbands who were...

A breathtaking collection of 200 photographs expertly colourised by Aotearoa New Zealand's premier colourist, Brendan Graham, with commentary from award-winning historian Jock Phillips ONZM Our Land in Colour celebrates the...

When an unassuming young Melbourne woman bumped into a handsome naval lieutenant in a Colombo hotel swimming pool in 1926 she would never have dreamed of one day being the...

'On the last day, we flew out to Manono aboard an RNZAF Iroquois. The doors were open and the beauty of Samoa was literally beneath our feet. I have always...

'Impostor ', 'greedy' and 'incompetent' - Edmund Hammond Hargraves was beloved by few and reviled by many more. Ask google Who discovered gold in Australia? and you'll promptly get 'Edward...

At last a history that explains how indigenous dispossession and survival underlay and shaped the birth of Australian democracy. The legacy of seizing a continent and alternately destroying and governing...

John Curtin remains a venerated leader. His role as Labor's wartime supremo is etched deep into the national psyche: the man who put Australia first, locked horns with Churchill, forged...

On the 11th of November 1934 over 300,000 people gathered on the slopes of Melbourne's Domain to witness the dedication of the Shrine. It was the largest state war memorial...

Anzac and Empire is the remarkable story of George Foster Pearce - a carpenter who became one Australia's most influential politicians, and the man central to how Australia planned for,...

In 1906, at just 16 years of age, Angelina Criscillo left the tiny volcanic island of Stromboli off Sicily to travel to an even remoter island on the other side...

Souter describes in fascinating detail the years of rapid and dramatic change from federation in 1901 to the end of the Great War. A new cheaper edition published to coincide...

This is a fascinating and moving portrait of the people who are suffering in a more divided and less egalitarian Australian society. Based on the author's conversations with hundreds of...

This is the seventh of the 1940s and the eighteenth to be released in a series of 30 about life in Australia - one for each year from 1939 to...

In the early twentieth century, there was much speculation about what was going on behind the curtains of bohemia. Perils of the Studio reveals how the romance and mythology of...

New edition of a classic memoir with new Introduction, bibliography, biographical index and four new previously unpublished photographs. 'Hughenden', the seaside mansion of Kathleen's grandparents, provided the 'solid bluestone foundations'...

Emotions are not universal, but are experienced and expressed in diverse ways within different cultures and times. This overview of the history of emotions within nineteenth-century British imperialism focuses on...

Anzac Battlefield: A Gallipoli Landscape of War and Memory explores the transformation of Gallipoli's landscape in antiquity, during the famed battles of the First World War and in the present...

A work of local history chronicling the life and death of the rural township of Lyonville, a sawmilling settlement in the Wombat Forest region of Victoria's Central Highlands, Charlie's Book...

On Remembrance Day, 1975, the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, sacked the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. The Dismissal was the culmination of almost three years of political conflict, as...

NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand...

In the wake of the Second World War and the realisation that the Soviet Union had set up extensive espionage networks around the world, Australia responded by establishing its own...

From award-winning author and historian Janet McCalman, the engrossing tale of Tasmanian convict settlers in colonial Victoria It was meant to be 'Victoria the Free', uncontaminated by the Convict Stain....

An immersive journey through the tumultuous past and fascinating present of Australia's nearest neighbours "We are the original people of the region ... This is a black region, it's not...

An extraordinary narrative history of the First Fleet, by the bestselling author of The Forgotten Children. Never before or since has there been an experiment quite as bold as this....

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER 'Fascinatingly imaginative popular history.' Sydney Morning Herald On 25 April 1915, Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in present-day Turkey to secure the sea route between...

'An extraordinarily vivid yet authentic account of the birthpangs of a nation. A work of real distinction' Philip Ziegler An award-winning epic on the birth of Australia In 1787, the...

An extraordinary piece of history - the Scottish Highlanders on the frontier of Australia - with introduction from Inga Clendinnen. An extraordinary piece of history - the Scottish Highlanders on...

'Roland Perry shows the true picture . . . enjoyable, clearly argued, comprehensive, and highly readable.' - Michael McKernan, Australian Book Review 11 March 1942: The Japanese have stormed the...

'Deeply researched with keen judgements, Traitors and Spies is a devastating indictment of Australia's security services and their political masters in the decades before the formation of ASIO.' - Professor...

Between 1942 and 1943, Qantas lost eight aircraft during its involvement in Australia's war against the Japanese. Over sixty passengers and crew died as a result. Yet Qantas' exemplary contribution...

The Cold War between the West and the Soviet Bloc didn't end with detente in 1975: it just went underground. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, tensions...

'Grose's compassionate, honest and vivid account . deserves to be widely read.'- Sun-Herald The bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942 is the battle Australia tries to forget. Although there...