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Books > History > Australasian & Pacific history
A world of letters retrieves an important but largely forgotten
history of readers, reading practices and cultural debates in early
apartheid South Africa. Corinne Sandwith pursues this history in
the ephemeral spaces of oppositional newspapers, literary
magazines, debating societies and theatre groups. What emerges from
the diverse fragments is a rich tradition of public debate in South
Africa on literature and culture. What also surfaces are a host of
readers and critics - such as A.C. Jordan, Dora Taylor, Jack Cope
and Ben Kies - whose lively cultural interventions form a
significant part of South Africa's literary-cultural and
socio-political heritage. Offering a combination of historical
narrative, critical analysis and biography, this elegantly written
book recovers these neglected reading and debating communities in
order to bring them into the present and to reclaim their
constitutive role in both the literary archive and the public
sphere.
Why are we speaking English? Replenishing the Earth gives a new
answer to that question, uncovering a 'settler revolution' that
took place from the early nineteenth century that led to the
explosive settlement of the American West and its forgotten twin,
the British West, comprising the settler dominions of Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Between 1780 and 1930 the number of English-speakers rocketed from
12 million in 1780 to 200 million, and their wealth and power grew
to match. Their secret was not racial, or cultural, or
institutional superiority but a resonant intersection of historical
changes, including the sudden rise of mass transfer across oceans
and mountains, a revolutionary upward shift in attitudes to
emigration, the emergence of a settler 'boom mentality', and a late
flowering of non-industrial technologies -wind, water, wood, and
work animals - especially on settler frontiers. This revolution
combined with the Industrial Revolution to transform settlement
into something explosive - capable of creating great cities like
Chicago and Melbourne and large socio-economies in a single
generation.
When the great settler booms busted, as they always did, a second
pattern set in. Links between the Anglo-wests and their
metropolises, London and New York, actually tightened as rising
tides of staple products flowed one way and ideas the other. This
're-colonization' re-integrated Greater America and Greater
Britain, bulking them out to become the superpowers of their day.
The 'Settler Revolution' was not exclusive to the Anglophone
countries - Argentina, Siberia, and Manchuria also experienced it.
But it was the Anglophone settlers who managed to integrate
frontier and metropolis most successfully, and it was this that
gave them the impetus and the material power to provide the world's
leading super-powers for the last 200 years.
This book will reshape understandings of American, British, and
British dominion histories in the long 19th century. It is a story
that has such crucial implications for the histories of settler
societies, the homelands that spawned them, and the indigenous
peoples who resisted them, that their full histories cannot be
written without it.
Australian deserts remain dotted with the ruins of old mosques.
Beginning with a Bengali poetry collection discovered in a
nineteenth-century mosque in the town of Broken Hill, Samia Khatun
weaves together the stories of various peoples colonised by the
British Empire to chart a history of South Asian diaspora.
Australia has long been an outpost of Anglo empires in the Indian
Ocean world, today the site of military infrastructure central to
the surveillance of 'Muslim-majority' countries across the region.
Imperial knowledges from Australian territories contribute
significantly to the Islamic-Western binary of the post- Cold War
era. In narrating a history of Indian Ocean connections from the
perspectives of those colonised by the British, Khatun highlights
alternative contexts against which to consider accounts of
non-white people. Australianama challenges a central idea that
powerfully shapes history books across the Anglophone world: the
colonial myth that European knowledge traditions are superior to
the epistemologies of the colonised. Arguing that Aboriginal and
South Asian language sources are keys to the vast, complex
libraries that belie colonised geographies, Khatun shows that
stories in colonised tongues can transform the very ground from
which we view past, present and future.
First Published in 1973. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
On 8 May 1945, Victory in Europe Day-shortened to "V.E.
Day"-brought with it the demise of Nazi Germany. But for the
Allies, the war was only half-won. Exhausted but exuberant American
soldiers, ready to return home, were sent to join the fighting in
the Pacific, which by the spring and summer of 1945 had turned into
a gruelling campaign of bloody attrition against an enemy
determined to fight to the last man. Germany had surrendered
unconditionally. The Japanese would clearly make the conditions of
victory extraordinarily high. In the United States, Americans
clamored for their troops to come home and for a return to a
peacetime economy. Politics intruded upon military policy while a
new and untested president struggled to strategize among a military
command that was often mired in rivalry. The task of defeating the
Japanese seemed nearly unsurmountable, even while plans to invade
the home islands were being drawn. Army Chief of Staff General
George C. Marshall warned of the toll that "the agony of enduring
battle" would likely take. General Douglas MacArthur clashed with
Marshall and Admiral Nimitz over the most effective way to defeat
the increasingly resilient Japanese combatants. In the midst of
this division, the Army began a program of partial demobilization
of troops in Europe, which depleted units at a time when they most
needed experienced soldiers. In this context of military emergency,
the fearsome projections of the human cost of invading the Japanese
homeland, and weakening social and political will, victory was
salvaged by means of a horrific new weapon. As one Army staff
officer admitted, "The capitulation of Hirohito saved our necks."
In Implacable Foes, award-winning historians Waldo Heinrichs (a
veteran of both theatres of war in World War II) and Marc
Gallicchio bring to life the final year of World War II in the
Pacific right up to the dropping of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, evoking not only Japanese policies of desperate
defense, but the sometimes rancorous debates on the home front.
They deliver a gripping and provocative narrative that challenges
the decision-making of U.S. leaders and delineates the consequences
of prioritizing the European front. The result is a masterly work
of military history that evaluates the nearly insurmountable trials
associated with waging global war and the sacrifices necessary to
succeed.
Based around the Pacific Islands Regiment, the Australian Army's
units in Papua New Guinea had a dual identity: integral to
Australia's defence, but also part of its largest colony, and
viewed as a foreign people. The Australian Army in PNG defended
Australia from threats to its north and west, while also managing
the force's place within Australian colonial rule in PNG,
occasionally resulting in a tense relationship with the Australian
colonial government during a period of significant change. In
Guarding the Periphery: The Australian Army in Papua New Guinea,
1951-75, Tristan Moss explores the operational, social and racial
aspects of this unique force during the height of the colonial era
in PNG and during the progression to independence. Combining the
rich detail of both archival material and oral histories, Guarding
the Periphery recounts a part of Australian military history that
is often overlooked by studies of Australia's military past.
During WWII, Australia's sports lovers were denied access to
national and international sport, something which had captivated
them since long before Federation. The popularity of racing and
prize fighting during this time was amazing. Two of the most
admired sports heroes were a dynamic southpaw boxer named Vic
Patrick and a thoroughbred equine diva named Flight. Their careers,
which ran side by side, had great similarities. Each was extremely
talented, each created history and each showed a stark, remorseless
courage which epitomised the war years. This is their story, acted
out in front of the Diggers (Australian soldiers), so many of whom
were not only great soldiers but likeable larrikins and inveterate
gamblers, lovers of the punt.
When journalists, developers, surf tourists, and conservation NGOs
cast Papua New Guineans as living in a prior nature and prior
culture, they devalue their knowledge and practice, facilitating
their dispossession. Paige West's searing study reveals how a range
of actors produce and reinforce inequalities in today's globalized
world. She shows how racist rhetorics of representation underlie
all uneven patterns of development and seeks a more robust
understanding of the ideological work that capital requires for
constant regeneration.
Cara David was an orphan from a working-class background in
England, who gained a scholarship to train as a teacher in London.
Her drive and intelligence saw her become a lecturer at the
prestigious Whitelands College, from where she was appointed by Sir
Henry Parkes as founding principal of the new Hurlstone Women's
Training School in Sydney. She met her future husband, the young
mining surveyor Edgeworth David, on the voyage to NSW in 1882. The
Davids became involved with a group of liberal intellectuals who
dominated Sydney's cultural life between the 1890s and the Great
War, all sharing a passion for education, social and legal reform
and the advancement of women. Cara David was to make her mark as a
supporter of women's emancipation in the home and the workplace.
She led the successful temperance campaign in NSW in 1915, one of
the first examples of women using their voting power to influence
legislation. Cara's two daughters both became resourceful women in
their own right. The elder daughter, Margaret, became an
independent politician and community activist until her tragically
early death in a plane crash. Molly, the younger daughter, became a
respected author and environmentalist.
From the arrival of Europeans in the Pacific in the 16th century,
introduced psychoactive drugs have played a crucial role in the
history of societies from China to Peru, and from Alaska to
Australia. Tobacco, followed by opium, distilled alcohol,
caffeinated drinks, as well as laboratory drugs such as morphine
and cocaine, became standardized and massively produced
commodities. These substances joined a local base of indigenous
drugs and fermented beverages to create new traditions of
consumption that characterized entire peoples and cultures. They
were also tools of European domination, so crucial elements of
cultural and economic change: opium in China, coca in the Andes,
and tobacco and spirits in Oceania. New consumption and production
patterns revealed important differences among cultures and polities
of the region, and spawned social problems that, in turn,
transformed collective representations of these substances. Some
became powerful moral symbols that shaped influential social and
political movements, such as the Temperance League in the U.S., and
the anti-opium movement in China.
Volume 3 of The Official History of Australian Peacekeeping,
Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations explores Australia's
involvement in six overseas missions following the end of the Gulf
War: Cambodia (1991 99); Western Sahara (1991 94); the former
Yugoslavia (1992 2004); Iraq (1991); Maritime Interception Force
operations (1991 99); and the contribution to the inspection of
weapons of mass destruction facilities in Iraq (1991 99). These
missions reflected the increasing complexity of peacekeeping, as it
overlapped with enforcement of sanctions, weapons inspections,
humanitarian aid, election monitoring and peace enforcement.
Granted full access to all relevant Australian Government records,
David Horner and John Connor provide readers with a comprehensive
and authoritative account of Australia's peacekeeping operations in
Asia, Africa and Europe."
What role did the queen play in the governor-general Sir John
Kerr's plans to dismiss prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1975, which
unleashed one of the most divisive episodes in Australia's
political history? And why weren't we told? Under the cover of
being designated as private correspondence, the letters between the
queen and the governor-general about the dismissal have been locked
away for decades in the National Archives of Australia, and
embargoed by the queen potentially forever. This ruse has furthered
the fiction that the queen and the Palace had no warning of or role
in Kerr's actions. In the face of this, Professor Jenny Hocking
embarked on a four-year legal battle to force the Archives to
release the letters. In 2015, she mounted a crowd-funded campaign,
securing a stellar pro bono team that took her case all the way to
the High Court of Australia. Now, drawing on never-before-published
material from Kerr's archives and her submissions to the court,
Hocking traces the collusion and deception behind the dismissal,
and charts the private role of High Court judges, the queen's
private secretary, and the leader of the opposition, Malcolm
Fraser, in Kerr's actions, and the prior knowledge of the queen and
Prince Charles. Hocking also reveals the obstruction, intrigue, and
duplicity she faced, raising disturbing questions about the role of
the National Archives in preventing access to its own historical
material and in enforcing royal secrecy over its documents.
Dr Hulbert's researches into City Status in the UK gave him a
unique insight into the situation in Scotland and especially in
Perth. As Provost of Perth & Kinross, and leader of Perth's
campaign, he is the ideal person to tell the inside story of the
tactics deployed to achieve the restoration of Perth's City Status,
the most important event in Perth's history in nearly 200 years.
"Unlike cricket, which is a polite game, Australian Rules Football
creates a desire on the part of the crowd to tear someone apart,
usually the referee." This is only one of the entertaining and
astute observations the U.S. military provided in the pocket guides
distributed to the nearly one million American soldiers who landed
on the shores of Australia between 1942 and 1945. Although the Land
Down Under felt more familiar than many of their assignments
abroad, American GIs still needed help navigating the distinctly
different Aussie culture, and coming to their rescue was
"Instruction for American Servicemen in Australia, 1942," The
newest entry in the Bodleian Library's bestselling series of
vintage pocket guides, this pamphlet is filled with pithy notes on
Australian customs, language, and other cultural facts the military
deemed necessary for every American soldier.
From the native wildlife--a land of "funny animals"--to the
nation's colonial history to the general characteristics of
Australians--"an outdoors sort of people, breezy and very
democratic"--"Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia"
gives a concise yet amazingly informative overview of the island
nation. Regarding Aussie slang, it notes that "the Australian has
few equals in the world at swearing. . . . The commonest swear
words are 'bastard' (pronounced 'barstud'), 'bugger, ' and 'bloody,
' and the Australians have a genius for using the latter nearly
every other word." The pamphlet also contains a humorous
explanation of the country's musical traditions--including an
annotated text of "Waltzing Matilda"--as well as amusing passages
on sports, politics, and the Aussies' attitudes toward Yanks and
Brits.
A fascinating look at a neglected Allied front in the Southern
hemisphere, "Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia,
1942" follows its successful predecessors as a captivating
historical document of a pivotal era in history.
A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more
at www.luminosoa.org. Multiculturalism as a distinct form of
liberal-democratic governance gained widespread acceptance after
World War II, but in recent years this consensus has been
fractured. Multiculturalism in the British Commonwealth examines
cultural diversity across the postwar Commonwealth, situating
modern multiculturalism in its national, international, and
historical contexts. Bringing together practitioners from across
the humanities and social sciences to explore the legal, political,
and philosophical issues involved, these essays address common
questions: What is postwar multiculturalism? Why did it come about?
How have social actors responded to it? In addition to chapters on
Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand, this volume also
covers India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore, and Trinidad, tracing
the historical roots of contemporary dilemmas back to the
intertwined legacies of imperialism and liberalism. In so doing it
demonstrates that multiculturalism has implications that stretch
far beyond its current formulations in public and academic
discourse.
This book provides a new approach to the historical treatment of
indigenous peoples' sovereignty and property rights in Australia
and New Zealand. By shifting attention from the original European
claims of possession to a comparison of the ways in which British
players treated these matters later, Bain Attwood not only reveals
some startling similarities between the Australian and New Zealand
cases but revises the long-held explanations of the differences. He
argues that the treatment of the sovereignty and property rights of
First Nations was seldom determined by the workings of moral
principle, legal doctrine, political thought or government policy.
Instead, it was the highly particular historical circumstances in
which the first encounters between natives and Europeans occurred
and colonisation began that largely dictated whether treaties of
cession were negotiated, just as a bitter political struggle
determined the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi and ensured
that native title was made in New Zealand.
The first comprehensive account to place the Pacific Islands, the
Pacific Rim and the Pacific Ocean into the perspective of world
history. A distinguished international team of historians provides
a multidimensional account of the Pacific, its inhabitants and the
lands within and around it over 50,000 years, with special
attention to the peoples of Oceania. It providing chronological
coverage along with analyses of themes such as the environment,
migration and the economy; religion, law and science; race, gender
and politics.
In this companion to the HBO(r) miniseries-executive produced by
Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman-Hugh Ambrose reveals
the intertwined odysseys of four U.S. Marines and a U.S. Navy
carrier pilot during World War II.
Between America's retreat from China in late November 1941 and the
moment General MacArthur's airplane touched down on the Japanese
mainland in August of 1945, five men connected by happenstance
fought the key battles of the war against Japan. From the debacle
in Bataan, to the miracle at Midway and the relentless vortex of
Guadalcanal, their solemn oaths to their country later led one to
the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and the others to the coral
strongholds of Peleliu, the black terraces of Iwo Jima and the
killing fields of Okinawa, until at last the survivors enjoyed a
triumphant, yet uneasy, return home.
In "The Pacific," Hugh Ambrose focuses on the real-life stories of
the five men who put their lives on the line for our country. To
deepen the story revealed in the miniseries and go beyond it, the
book dares to chart a great ocean of enmity known as The Pacific
and the brave men who fought. Some considered war a profession,
others enlisted as citizen soldiers. Each man served in a different
part of the war, but their respective duties required every ounce
of their courage and their strength to defeat an enemy who
preferred suicide to surrender. The medals for valor which were
pinned on three of them came at a shocking price-a price paid in
full by all.
Outback Stories - Tracks Further Out explores the lives of outback
Australians who shaped the cultural, political and artistic
landscape. From Burke and Wills disastrous expedition across the
continent to Eddie Mabo's historic land rights claim; from John
Bradley Murdoch's chilling murders to horrific croc attacks in far
North Queensland; from the studios Pro Hart and Sidney Nolan to the
singing careers of Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter.Ian Ferguson has
compiled a comprehensive and enlivening collection of stories about
Australia and some of its most interesting inhabitants. A great
insight into Australia's history past and present, in an easy to
read, snappy format.
This groundbreaking study understands the 'long history' of human
rights in Australia from the moment of their supposed invention in
the 1940s to official incorporation into the Australian government
bureaucracy in the 1980s. To do so, a wide cast of individuals,
institutions and publics from across the political spectrum are
surveyed, who translated global ideas into local settings and made
meaning of a foreign discourse to suit local concerns and
predilections. These individuals created new organisations to
spread the message of human rights or found older institutions
amenable to their newfound concerns, adopting rights language with
a mixture of enthusiasm and opportunism. Governments, on the other
hand, engaged with or ignored human rights as its shifting
meanings, international currency and domestic reception ebbed and
flowed. Finally, individuals understood and (re)translated human
rights ideas throughout this period: writing letters, books or
poems and sympathising in new, global ways.
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