Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture by Bruce Pascoe

$19.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

'Dark Emu injects a profound authenticity into the conversation about how we Australians understand our continent ... [It is] essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what Australia once was, or what it might yet be if we heed the lessons of long and sophisticated human occupation.' Jud ges for 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating, and storing -- behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books support this premise but Pascoe takes this further and challenges the hunter-gatherer tag as a convenient lie. Almost all the evidence in Dark Emu comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources. Bruce's comments on his book compared to Gammage's: " My book is about food production, housing construction and clothing, whereas Gammage was interested in the appearance of the country at contact. [Gammage] doesn't contest hunter gatherer labels either, whereas that is at the centre of my argument." ...Show more

Dark Emu in the Classroom: Teacher Resources for High School Geography by Simone Barlow; Ashlee Horyniak

$20.00 AUD

Category: Australian History

Dark Emu in the Classroom: Teacher Resources for High School Geography is a rich resource for teachers to use in the Geography classroom. Based on the concepts in Bruce Pascoe's highly acclaimed book Dark Emu, this resource presents lesson content for the topics: Biomes and Food Security (Vic Year 9)/Su stainable Biomes (NSW Stage 5) Environmental Change and Management (Vic. Year 10/NSW Stage 5) This innovative resource offers both new and experienced teachers a supportive and fresh approach to teaching geography through its well-organised lesson structure and high-interest, inquiry-based activities for students ...Show more

Buckley's Chance by Garry Linnell

$34.99 AUD

Category: Australian History | Reading Level: 3 Biography

He fought Napoleon's army and survived. He was sent to the gallows and escaped the noose. Now he is in chains and on his way to the other side of the world. What happens next will become one of the most remarkable survival stories in history. The 19th century has just begun. The world is at war. England , ruled by a mad king, is exiling thousands of criminals to an old land that has become its newest dumping ground. One of those prisoners is William Buckley, barely 21, a former soldier sentenced to life for stealing two small pieces of cloth. He's a giant for his times. But it's not just his towering frame that sets him apart. It's his desire for freedom that will make his story so unique - even in an era famous for outrageous acts of bravery and heroism. On a moonlit night Buckley escapes and disappears into the Australian bush. Discovered and adopted by an aboriginal tribe who regard him as a ghost, he is initiated into their rich and complex culture. Given up for dead by his white captors, he will not be seen again for more than 30 years until he emerges one day...carrying a spear, dressed in animal skins and having forgotten the English language. Buckley's Chance is a profound journey into a turning point in history where cultures clash, bitter rivals go to war and the body count mounts. It's also the story of a man who refuses to be held down. A man prepared to defy all odds and take a chance. Buckley's chance.   ...Show more

James Hardy Vaux's 1819 Dictionary of Criminal Slang and Other Impolite terms as Used by the Convicts of the British Colonies of Australia by Simon Barnard

$29.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

In the early 1800s magistrates in the Australian colonies were often frustrated by the language used by reoffending convicts to disguise their criminal activities and intensions. Convict clerk James Hardy Vaux came up with a useful idea: a dictionary of slang and other terms used by convicts. And so, in 1819, he compiled what was to be Australia's first published dictionary. With words such as fence (a receiver of stolen goods), flesh-bag (a shirt), flip (to shoot); galloot (a soldier), kid (a child thief), knuckle (to pickpocket), ramp (to rob out in the open), ruffles (handcuffs), screw (a skeleton key), serve (to rob), stamps (shoes) and wrinkle (a lie), Vaux's dictionary is a fascinating account of convict language, including the origins and early usage of several words that have evolved to become part of Australian English today. And Simon Barnard's illustrations and supporting accounts of individual convicts and their criminal antics complements this lively picture of Australia's convict history. ...Show more

Spinning Tops & Gumdrops: A Portrait of Colonial Childhood by Edwin Barnard

$44.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

Spinning Tops & Gumdrops captures a time when `imagination, skill, and daring' was the source of children's play. Quoits and jacks, hide and seek, cricket with a kerosene tin for a wicket, dress ups and charades, can all be seen in these appealing images. Children climb trees, run races, and build r afts to sail on the local waterhole, happily absorbed in the play of their own making. This was also a time when school yard disagreements were sorted out with fists and `the loss of a little claret'. A time when children could view public hangings, and premature death was frequent, especially taking the very young and vulnerable though dysentery, whooping cough, or diphtheria. The word `mollycoddled' has its origins in the mid-nineteenth century, but certainly cannot be applied to the colonial children depicted in Spinning Tops & Gumdrops. Children were often required to work - many at adult jobs - to the neglect of their education, and photographs show children taking part in rural life, tending animals, milking, and harvesting crops. In the cities, too, we see factories using cheap child labour to satisfy the increasing demand for mass produced shoes and clothes, to bake bread, and to process food. Many youngsters found themselves `in service' to the growing middle class. One story is told of an innovative girl who earned pocket money by collecting leeches for the local doctor. There were distinctive gender roles in colonial Australia, and associated dress conventions. As a practical solution to ease toilet training, boys generally wore dresses until five or six years of age, seen in the photographs shown here. Only then they were `breeched' that is, put into breeches. Meanwhile, girls' dresses became longer as they approached womanhood, coinciding with a greater emphasis on modest behaviour and a reshaping of their activity and education to gain home-making skills. The lasting impression left by the contemporary accounts, photographs, etchings, and paintings of colonial children in Spinning Tops & Gumdrops is their possession of qualities of resilience, self-sufficiency, and acceptance of their lot. Perhaps it was through lack of choice, or of knowing no other. Nevertheless, these were qualities that put them in good stead for the challenges many faced in their adulthood. Interestingly, these are qualities on which contemporary society still places a high value, but which today seem a little more elusive. ...Show more

The Perfect House: A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio

$15.00 AUD

Category: General

Kings & Queens of England: From the Saxon Kings by Cawthorne, Nigel

$15.00 AUD

Category: British History

A Brief History of Angels and Demons by Sarah Bartlett

$15.00 AUD

Category: General

Throughout history, the human quest for knowledge of the divine has ruffled feathers. This book not only traces the history of angels and demons from their earliest roots to their modern day renaissance, but also reveals their most intimate secrets. Whether through personal stories, literature, myth, re ligion, or art, this book is the story of how belief in angels and demons has cast a powerful spell over the popular imagination. ...Show more

The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas by Alison Weir

$25.00 AUD

Category: British History

'Alison Weir's sound scholarship and storyteller's gift for rich, telling detail constantly engages and enthrals the reader? The TimesThe captivating life of Margaret Douglas - a life of scandal, political intrigue and royal romance that spanned five Tudor reigns.Royal Tudor blood ran in her veins. Some thought Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, should be queen of England. She ranked high at the court of her uncle, Henry VIII, and was lady of honour to five of his wives. Beautiful and tempestuous, she created scandal - twice - by falling in love with unsuitable men. Throughout her life her dynastic ties to two crowns proved hazardous. A born political intriguer, she was imprisoned in the Tower of London three times, once under sentence of death. Her husband and son were brutally murdered, she warred with two queens, and proved instrumental in securing the Stuart succession to the throne of England for her grandson.Alison Weir brings Margaret Douglas's captivating character out of the shadows for the first time. ...Show more

The Mammoth Book of Antarctic Journeys by Jon E. Lewis

$15.00 AUD

Category: General

This collection of compelling eye-witness accounts showcases the very best writing on the Antarctic, from Ernest Shackleton on the loss of the Endurance to Lynne Cox on her epic, icy swim in 2002.Includes 32 first-hand accounts of men and women challenging one of the Earth's last true wildernesses, enco mpassing both legendary tales of heroism and shocking contemporary accounts of the impact of global warming on the only undeveloped continent.  ...Show more

Home How Habitat Made Us Human by John S. Allen

$20.00 AUD

Category: General

Home is where the heart is. Security, comfort, even love, are all feelings that are centered on the humble abode. But what if there is more to the feeling of being at home? Neuroanthropologist John S. Allen believes that the human habitat is one of the most important products of human cognitive, technol ogical, and cultural evolution over the past two million years. InHome, Allen argues that to "feel at home" is more than just an expression, but reflects a deep-seated cognitive basis for the human desire to have, use, and enjoy a place of one's own.Allen addresses the very basic question: How did a place to sleep become a home? Within human evolution, he ranks house and home as a signature development of our species, as it emerged alongside cooperative hunting, language, and other critical aspects of humanity. Many animals burrow, making permanent home bases, but primates, generally speaking, do not: most wander, making nests at night wherever they might find themselves. This is often in home territory, but it isn't quite home. Our hominid ancestors were wanderers, tooso how did we, over the past several million years, find our way home? To tell that story Allen will take us through evolutionary anthropology, neuroscience, the study of emotion, and modern sociology. He examines the home from the inside (of our heads) out: homes are built with our brains as much as with our hands and tools. Allen argues that the thing that may have been most critical in our evolution is not the physical aspect of a home, but developing a feeling of defining, creating, and being in a home, whatever its physical form. The result was an environment, relatively secure against whatever horrors lurked outside, that enabled the expensive but creative human mind to reach its full flowering. Today, with the threat of homelessness, child foster-care, and foreclosure, this idea of having a home is more powerful than ever.In a clear and accessible writing style, Allen sheds light on the deep, cognitive sources of the pleasures of having a home, the evolution of those behaviors, and why the deep reasons why they matter.Home is the story about how humans evolved to create a space not only for shelter, but also for nurturing creativity, innovation, and cultureand why feeling at home” is a fundamental aspect of the human condition. ...Show more

A Brief History of Fightng Ships by David Davies

$15.00 AUD

Category: General | Series: Brief Histories

This introduction to the years of the Napoleonic wars (1793 to 1815) tells the story of one of the keys to that great conflict, the Ship of the Line - the deadly battleships that played such a vital role in the battles. The author describes the ships' construction and armaments, the daily life of the me n who served and the problems faced by commanders of the time in battles that include the Glorious First of June, the Battle of the Nile and Trafalgar. ...Show more