Larrikins in Khaki
Larrikins in Khaki

Author: Tim Bowden

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2019-07-15

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 1760871605

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From recruitment and training and the battlegrounds of Palestine, North Africa, Thailand, Burma and beyond, here are the highly individual stories of Australia's World War II Diggers told in their own voices - warts and all. With a reputation for being hard to discipline, generosity to their comrades, frankness and sticking it up any sign of pomposity, Australian soldiers were a wild and irreverent lot, even in the worst of circumstances during World War II. In Larrikins in Khaki, Tim Bowden has collected compelling and vivid stories of individual soldiers whose memoirs were mostly self-published and who told of their experiences with scant regard for literary pretensions and military niceties. Most of these men had little tolerance for military order and discipline, and NCOs and officers who were hopeless at their jobs were made aware of it. They laughed their way through the worst of it by taking the mickey out of one another and their superiors. From recruitment and training to the battlegrounds of Palestine, North Africa, Thailand, New Guinea, Borneo and beyond, here are the highly individual stories of Australia's World War II Diggers told in their own voices - warts and all.

Larrikins
Larrikins

Author: Melissa Bellanta

Publisher: Univ. of Queensland Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 0702247758

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A gripping and inspiring space adventure for kids of all ages from popular author Tristan Bancks. Dash Campbell has only ever had one dream. To go to space. Now he and four others have been given the chance to become the first kids ever to leave our planet. From building rockets behind his family's laundromat in Australia to attending a hardcore Space School in the US, Dash is a long way from home. And he still has an intense month of training ahead before he can even think about that glorious moment of blasting out of Earth's atmosphere and living his dream. But does Dash have what it takes t.

Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia
Larrikins, Rebels and Journalistic Freedom in Australia

Author: Josie Vine

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-03-01

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 3030618560

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Larrikins, Rebels, and Journalistic Freedom is a cultural history of Australian journalism. In a democratic nation where a free news media is not guaranteed, Australian journalism has inherited what could be described as a ‘Larrikin’ tradition to protect its independence. This book mines Australian journalism’s rebelliousness, humor and distinct disrespect for authority in various socio-historical contexts, to explore its determination to maintain professional independence. Beginning with a Larrikin analysis of Australian journalism’s inherited Enlightenment tradition, Dr Josie Vine takes the reader through the Colonial era’s hardships, Federation, two World Wars, the Cold War’s fear and suspicion, the swinging sixties, a Prime Minister’s dismissal, 1980’s neo-liberalism, post-9/11 and, finally, provides a conclusive synthesis of current Australian journalism culture. Throughout, the book highlights the audacious, iconoclastic and determined figure of the Larrikin-journalist, forever pushing boundaries to protect democracy’s cornerstone – freedom of the news media. “Book-length histories of Australian journalism are still relatively rare, but what makes this new arrival particularly welcome is the way in which it is structured around an exploration of the ‘Larrikin paradox’. This refers to the fact that although Australian journalism may profess to be ‘professional’ and ‘reputable’, it can also be raucous, unruly and disrespectful in pursuit of what it sees as its democratic purposes. The Larrikin may be a uniquely Australian figure but the paradox is far from confined to Australian journalism (not least because of the influence of erstwhile Australian Rupert Murdoch on journalism in the Anglosphere), and this book should be of considerable interest to those concerned with the means whereby journalism performs its democratic, Fourth Estate role in modern democracies. This is an extremely very well-informed and highly insightful work which ought to appeal equally to those interested in journalism and in Australian politics.” — Julian Petley, Professor, Brunel University London, UK

Chaos Theory and the Larrikin Principle
Chaos Theory and the Larrikin Principle

Author: Bob Hodge

Publisher: Copenhagen Business School Press DK

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9788763002356

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Summary: Four social scientists from the University of Western Sydney explore management and organizations today, along with their theories and practices, as the 2008 worldwide financial crisis continues, from a perspective that questions much of the intellectual trappings of neo-liberalism. They cover what is wrong with business education, the Larrikin Principle, managerialism, neo-liberalism and its discontents, corruption, power versus goodness at the edge of chaos, soft capital and the informal polity, and culture and organizations in a global world.

The Spectre of Afghanistan
The Spectre of Afghanistan

Author: Amin Saikal

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-01-28

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1788317661

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Aiming to connect a number of divergent perspectives on the current state of Afghanistan, this book outlines the country's past and present instability and how this impacts and is conceptualised by its neighbours as well as by international heavyweights such as Russia, China and the United States. Given Afghanistan's extensive cross-border ethnic, linguistic, sectarian and cultural ties with its neighbours – whatever transpires in the war-torn country is bound to have regional and global security implications. This study focuses on the current formal and informal defensive policies the states of Central Asia may or may not have in place in the event of the Afghan situation deteriorating further or the Taliban-led insurgency substantially widening their influence. The book also considers the positions and policy responses of three influential actors in the region: Russia, China and the United States. It assesses the convergence of interests between these great powers in stabilising Afghanistan, and their divergence of geopolitical objectives in the region. With President Donald Trump unpredictably upheaving American policy in Afghanistan, an assertive Russia continuing to expand its influence across Central Asia and China seeking to have a wider economic and security role in the region, this book offers a timely assessment of an internationally-important topic.

The Book Thieves
The Book Thieves

Author: Anders Rydell

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-02-06

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0735221235

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"A chilling reminder of Hitler’s twisted power." —BBC For readers of The Monuments Men and The Hare with Amber Eyes, the story of the Nazis' systematic pillaging of Europe's libraries, and the small team of heroic librarians now working to return the stolen books to their rightful owners. While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves—Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe’s libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own that they could use to wage an intellectual war on literature and history. In this secret war, the libraries of Jews, Communists, Liberal politicians, LGBT activists, Catholics, Freemasons, and many other opposition groups were appropriated for Nazi research, and used as an intellectual weapon against their owners. But when the war was over, most of the books were never returned. Instead many found their way into the public library system, where they remain to this day. Now, Rydell finds himself entrusted with one of these stolen volumes, setting out to return it to its rightful owner. It was passed to him by the small team of heroic librarians who have begun the monumental task of combing through Berlin’s public libraries to identify the looted books and reunite them with the families of their original owners. For those who lost relatives in the Holocaust, these books are often the only remaining possession of their relatives they have ever held. And as Rydell travels to return the volume he was given, he shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it.

A Kind of Victory
A Kind of Victory

Author: Craig Wilcox

Publisher: National Library of Australia

Published: 2014-07-01

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0642278571

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In 1899, on the eve of the Boer War, Captain Charles Cox from Parramatta took 100 Australian cavalrymen to train with the British army in England. These military apprentices became British soldiers as well as Australian ones. But everything went wrong. Publicity got in the way of cavalry drill which, in any case, the Australians were allowed to shirk. The debacle ended with Cox volunteering his little command for the Boer War, with the British making him get the consent of his government and his men, and finally with a murder on a lonely farm in South Africa. There was no more talk of Australian fighting men morphing into colonial members of the British army. Still, the newspapers said the venture was a brilliant success, that Australians had proved themselves natural warriors, that the British Empire was stronger for what happened-all of which Australians rejoiced to hear. It was, in the end, a kind of victory.

Tin Can Titans
Tin Can Titans

Author: John Wukovits

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Published: 2017-03-14

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 0306824310

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An epic narrative of World War II naval action that brings to life the sailors and exploits of the war's most decorated destroyer squadron. When Admiral William Halsey selected Destroyer Squadron 21 (Desron 21) to lead his victorious ships into Tokyo Bay to accept the Japanese surrender, it was the most battle-hardened US naval squadron of the war. But it was not the squadron of ships that had accumulated such an inspiring resume; it was the people serving aboard them. Sailors, not metallic superstructures and hulls, had won the battles and become the stuff of legend. Men like Commander Donald MacDonald, skipper of the USS O'Bannon, who became the most decorated naval officer of the Pacific war; Lieutenant Hugh Barr Miller, who survived his ship's sinking and waged a one-man battle against the enemy while stranded on a Japanese-occupied island; and Doctor Dow "Doc" Ransom, the beloved physician of the USS La Vallette, who combined a mixture of humor and medical expertise to treat his patients at sea, epitomize the sacrifices made by all the men and women of World War II. Through diaries, personal interviews with survivors, and letters written to and by the crews during the war, preeminent historian of the Pacific theater John Wukovits brings to life the human story of the squadron that bested the Japanese in the Pacific and helped take the war to Tokyo.

The Ways of the Bushwalker
The Ways of the Bushwalker

Author: Melissa Harper

Publisher: UNSW Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780868409689

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The first full length history of bush walking in Australia. Offers some marvellous pen portraits of the extraordinary characters that pioneered bushwalking in this country.