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

$22.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that sugg ests that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required. ...Show more

The Borgias by Christopher Hibbert

$15.00 AUD

Category: General

The name Borgia is synonymous with the corruption, nepotism, and greed that were rife in Renaissance Italy. The powerful, voracious Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI, was the central figure of the dynasty. Two of his seven papal offspring also rose to power and fame - Lucrezia Borgia, his daughter, whose husband was famously murdered by her brother, and that brother, Cesare, who served as the model for Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. Notorious for seizing power, wealth, land, and titles through bribery, marriage, and murder, the dynasty's dramatic rise from its Spanish roots to its occupation of the highest position in Renaissance society forms a gripping tale. Erudite, witty, and always insightful, Hibbert removes the layers of myth around the Borgia family and creates a portrait alive with his superb sense of character and place. ...Show more

The Convict Valley: The Bloody Struggle on Australia's Early Frontier by Mark Dunn

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian History

In 1790, five convicts escaped Sydney by boat and were swept ashore near present day Newcastle. They were taken in by the Worimi people, given Aboriginal names and started families. Thus began a long and at times dramatic series of encounters between Aboriginals and convicts in the second settlement in Australia. The fertile valley of the Hunter river was the first area outside of Sydney explored by the British, and it became one of the largest penal settlements. Yet today manicured lawns and prosperous vineyards hide the struggles, violence and toil of the thousands of convicts who laid its foundations. The Convict Valley uncovers this rich colonial past, as well as the story of the original Aboriginal landholders. While there were friendships and alliances in the early years, in the mad scramble for land in the 1820s as the Valley was opened to free settlers, tensions increased and bloodshed ensued. With fascinating stories about convicts, white settlers and the Aboriginal inhabitants that have long been forgotten, The Convict Valley is a new Australian history classic. ...Show more

Pocket Essentials: History of the Cathars by Sean Martin

$15.00 AUD

Category: General | Series: Pocket Essential Ser.

Catharism was the most successful heresy of the Middle Ages. The Cathars taught that the world is evil and must be transcended through a simple life of prayer, work, fasting, and non-violence. They completely rejected the Catholic Church and all its trappings; Cathar services and ceremonies, by contrast , were held in fields, barns, and in people's homes. Finding support from the nobility in the fractious political situation in southern France, the Cathars also found widespread popularity among peasants and artisans. And again unlike the Church, the Cathars respected women, and women played a major role in the movement. Alarmed at the success of Catharism, the Church founded the Inquisition and launched the Albigensian Crusade to exterminate the heresy. While previous Crusades had been directed against Muslims in the Middle East, the Albigensian Crusade was the first Crusade to be directed against fellow Christians, and was also the first European genocide. With the fall of the Cathar fortress of Montsegur in 1244, Catharism was largely obliterated, although the faith survived into the early 14th century. Today, the mystique surrounding the Cathars is as strong as ever, and Sean Martin recounts their story and the myths associated with them in this lively and gripping book. ...Show more

Memento Mori: What the Romans Can Tell Us about Old Age and Death by P. V. Jones

$20.00 AUD

Category: General

In this revealing and entertaining guide to how the Romans confronted their own mortality, Peter Jones shows us that all the problems associated with old age and death that so transfix us today were already dealt with by our ancient ancestors two thousand years ago. Romans inhabited a world where man, k nowing nothing about hygiene let alone disease, had no defences against nature. Death was everywhere. Half of all Roman children were dead by the age of five. Only eight per cent of the population made it over sixty. One bizarre result was that half the population consisted of teenagers. From the elites' philosophical take on the brevity of life to the epitaphs left by butchers, bakers and buffoons, Memento Mori ('Remember you die') shows how the Romans faced up to this world and attempted to take the sting out of death. ...Show more

Dark History of the Tudors - Murder, Adultery, Incest, Witchcraft, Wars, Religious Persecution, Piracy by Judith John

$15.00 AUD

Category: British History

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

Mozart the Freemason : The Masonic Influence on His Musical Genius by Brigitte Jack (TRN); Massin Cain

$15.00 AUD

Category: General

An exploration of Mozart's strong ties to Freemasonry and how its principles profoundly shaped his musical work - Reveals how Mozart structured his music on Masonic ritual and ceremony to provide a musical lexicon of Masonic symbols - Shows that Freemasonry plays the same role in Mozart's work as Luther an Christianity plays in that of Bach Thanks to recently discovered documents, we now have a fuller picture of the esoteric influences on the life and work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Musicologist Jacques Henry shows that the Masonic influence on Mozart goes beyond those pieces, such as The Magic Flute, that fulfilled a ritual purpose for the composer. His works actually provide a complete musical lexicon of Masonic symbols inspired by the principles of the craft and the spirit of the Masonic quest. Mozart constructed his Masonic compositions by creating auditory correspondences to the symbols present in the rituals, choosing keys and tempos that transpose their content into harmony. His understanding of the use of symbol allowed him to create music that would lead the listener into a harmony that transcended earthly existence. A number of musicologists believe that the place of the Masonic spiritual vision in Mozart's work is comparable to that held by Lutheran Christianity in the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. Mozart wed his deep understanding of music to the esoteric wisdom he gained as a Freemason. He shows that when we lose ourselves in the expression of pure harmony, it is the same as the symbol being lost in what it symbolizes. Jacques Henry provides a rigorous and original analysis of Mozart's works that reveals their inner meaning as shaped by the composer's profound embrace of the spiritual principles of Freemasonry. ...Show more

A Short History of the Victorian Era by Gordon Kerr

$15.00 AUD

Category: British History | Series: Pocket Essentials Ser.

Beginning in the 1830s and ending with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, the Victorian Era saw the British Empire--the largest the world had seen--dominate the world. British ingenuity in the fields of technological development and the heavy industry of its Industrial Revolution led to Britain being dubbed "the workshop of the world" while its Royal Navy policed the world's oceans helping to create what has become known as a "Pax Britannica." This book details the sweeping social and economic changes that took place during this period but also examines the events of the time and the lives of the eminent Victorians who contributed so much to British success--men and women such as Florence Nightingale, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Charles Darwin. This is the story of the greatest period in British history, a period that still resonates in today's Britain. ...Show more

Hannibal by Ernle Bradford

$15.00 AUD

Category: General

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

The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey ()

$25.00 AUD

Category: History

The Darkening Age is the largely unknown story of how a militant religion comprehensively and deliberately extinguished the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in centuries of unquestioning adherence to 'one true faith'. Despite the long-held notion that the early Christians were meek and mild, g oing to their martyr's deaths singing hymns of love and praise, the truth, as Catherine Nixey reveals, is very different. Far from being meek and mild, they were violent, ruthless and fundamentally intolerant. Unlike the polytheistic world, in which the addition of one new religion made no fundamental difference to the old ones, this new ideology stated not only that it was the way, the truth and the light but that, by extension, every single other way was wrong and had to be destroyed. From the 1st century to the 6th, those who didn't fall into step with its beliefs were pursued in every possible way: social, legal, financial and physical. Their altars were upturned and their temples demolished, their statues hacked to pieces and their priests killed. It was an annihilation. Authoritative, vividly written and utterly compelling, this is a remarkable debut from a brilliant young historian. ...Show more