20th Century History

George Tallis arrived in Melbourne in 1886 as a seventeen-year-old Irish immigrant, and by the mid-1920s was one of the first 'media giants'. The Silent Showman is a biography 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...

Lorraine McGee-Sippel was just a small girl when she asked her parents what a half-caste was. It was the 1950s and the first step on a journey that would span...

On The Road: The NRMA'S First 75 Years tells the story of how an idea became a great Australian institution. A little over three quarters of a century ago, a...

The 1992 High Court's Mabo decision has provoked much controversy in contemporary Australia. As the ruling has increasingly become the subject of intense debate throughout the community, the implications of...

Charley Boorman is back in the saddle for a brand-new, adrenaline-fuelled adventure! He begins his journey racing north from Sydney up the Gold Coast, where he hitches a ride in...

New edition of a classic memoir with new Introduction, bibliography, biographical index and four new previously unpublished photographs.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'...

These are some of Australia's finest thinkers analysing the key issues that have had a major impact on Australia over the last turbulent decade, collated by our most influential think...

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 the streets, under the ground and on the information superhighway, radicals and rebels have made this town their own. The acclaimed Radical Melbourne revealed the hidden history of the...

Geoffrey Serle is a graduate of the University of Melbourne where he taught history before moving to Monash and the Australian National universities. He was general editor of the "Australian...

The Australian Liberal Party is in deep crisis. Losing the 'unloseable' election in 1993 gave it an unenviable record of five successive losses, nearly reversing the record of successes set...

Men at War takes an intimate look at the Australian 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion, which was formed in Victoria in 1940 as Australia entered the Second World War. In 1941 and...

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 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....

'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...

A compelling account of Australia's bloodiest and most significant battle of the Vietnam War, in time for the battle's 50th anniversary, by critically-acclaimed war writer David Cameron. On the afternoon...

A special Vintage Classics edition of the beloved Australian bestseller In 1902, newly-married Jeannie Gunn (Mrs Aeneas Gunn) left the security and comfort of her Melbourne home to travel to...

'A loving history of the Australian people' - Sydney Morning Herald '...displays historical literacy, and plenty of humanity, empathy and compassion, all qualities rare in our public culture to be...

There was a bed, a timber floor, thin tar paper on one side for privacy from the nearby road but nothing else. The flimsiest of 'walls', no pegs or nails...

'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...

'Donald Mackay was not just an innocent victim tragically struck down by a criminal act. He was a casualty of the actual fight against organised crime ... killed on active...

Australia was born with its eyes wide open. Although politicians spoke publicly of loyalty to Britain and the empire, in secret they immediately set about protecting Australia's interests from the...

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...

Monash and Chauvel follows the extraordinary campaigns of the two most outstanding battlefield commanders of the First World War across all the Allied armies: John Monash and Harry Chauvel. John...

'Karen McCartney's Iconic Australian Houses books are re-imagined so cleverly in this freshly redesigned, encyclopaedic book, which brings together in one volume the best of 50 years of Australian residential...

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...

By 1963, Robert Menzies had been prime minister for thirteen years, Australia had its first troops in Vietnam, and change was in the air. There would soon be street protests...

Winner of the 2015 Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance Winner of the 2016 Magarey Medal for Biography 'Connors lays down the hard truth. Not all our...

They were frequently not just on the front line, but right at the sharp end of the action. They were the legendary sappers, the army engineers, who were literally everywhere...

To the convicts arriving in Van Diemen's Land, it must have felt as though they'd been sent to the very ends of the earth. In Tasmania's Convicts Alison Alexander tells...

'All I could do was prod the earth with my bayonet and shine the light to see if I could find anything. It doesn't matter how small the tunnel is...

'This is an important, well researched book: challenging, compelling and controversial. It is a must read for anyone interested in Australian history.' - Henry Reynolds The Queensland frontier was more...

In this companion volume of Thomas Keneally's widely acclaimed history of the Australian people, the vast range of characters who have formed our national story are brought vividly to life....