Looking for Australia
Looking for Australia

Author: John Hirst

Publisher: Black Inc.

Published: 2010-08-02

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1921866543

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What are the qualities at the heart of Australian culture? How did they arise? What distinguishes us from other nations beyond a fondness for calling each other ‘mate’? And what do such national quirks reveal about our society, our past and our attitudes towards it? Looking for Australia is a fascinating collection of essays by historian John Hirst. Together they form a multi-faceted portrait of Australia as a distinctive nation, with its own political culture, character and style, and particular ways of seeing itself. Among other subjects, Hirst considers the effects of convict origins on national character, what drove the bushrangers to their daring deeds, and why Australia has compulsory voting. He examines whether Aborigines played a part in the origins of Australian Rules football, and asks whether Curtin was indeed our greatest prime minister. He discusses how best to tell Australia’s history, and, after reflecting on our past as a British dependency, makes a stirring case for a future, fully independent republic. “He brings a critical, discerning eye to all aspects of Australian history...incisive and compelling” - the Courier Mail “A powerful controversialist … a brilliant historian”—Australian Book Review “This is a brilliant book.” - the Mercury “Hirst’s genius and sincerity shine through, and his easy prose combined with his unorthodox views make for compelling reading.” – Canberra Times “highly recommended” - Bookseller+Publisher “exceptionally subtle and meticulous” - Sydney Morning Herald

The Rock: Looking into Australia's ‘Heart of Darkness’ from the edge of its wild frontier
The Rock: Looking into Australia's ‘Heart of Darkness’ from the edge of its wild frontier

Author: Aaron Smith

Publisher: Transit Lounge

Published: 2020-12-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1925760685

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Journalist Aaron Smith's new memoir holds up a unique mirror to Australia. What he sees is at once amazing, disturbing and revealing. The Rock explores the failings of our nation's character, its unresolved past and its uncertain future from the vantage point of its most northerly outpost, Thursday Island. Smith was the last editor, fearless journalist and the paperboy of Australia's most northerly newspaper, the Torres News, a small independent regional tabloid that, until it folded in late 2019, was the voice of a predominantly Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal readership for 63 years across some of the most remote and little understood communities in Australia. The Rock is a story of self-discovery where Smith grapples to understand a national identity marred by its racist underbelly, where he is transplanted from his white-boy privileged suburban life to being a racial and cultural minority, and an outsider. Peppered with his experiences, Smith gradually and sensitively becomes embedded in island life while vividly capturing the endless and often farcical parade of personalities and politicians including Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott. Smith pulls no punches while he reflects on the history of Terra Australis incognita, dissecting what is truly Australia, and its gaping cultural and moral divide. 'A credit to regional journalism, Aaron carried on the fine tradition of the Torres News holding governments to account and telling stories of everyday life in the Straits, never shying away from controversies, lifting all the rocks and even out foxing prime minister Tony Abbott on his visit to Mabo's grave.' — Stefan Armbruster, SBS 'Aaron Smith makes a huge and extremely valuable contribution to journalism in Australia. With insight and committment he brings issues of national and international significance to audiences in Australia and beyond.' — Dr Tess Newton Cain, Griffith Asia Institute 'Aaron's journalism has provided a rare and valuable insight into issues affecting the Torres Strait Islander community. Navigating cultural protocols and geographical challenges, he has given a voice to some of Australia's most marginalised people and shared important stories that would otherwise have gone unheard.' — Ella Archibald-Binge, Sydney Morning Herald

Look What Came from Australia
Look What Came from Australia

Author: Kevin A. Davis

Publisher:

Published: 2000-03-01

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 9780531164334

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Describes many things that originally came from Australia, including inventions, sports and games, food, musical instruments, animals, and words.

Looking for Alibrandi
Looking for Alibrandi

Author: Melina Marchetta

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 145962128X

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Josephine Alibrandi is seventeen, and in her final year of school. Dealing with her mum and the ways of her Nonna are daunting enough as she prepares for her exams. But Josie is about to discover real life gets in the way of her carefully-made plans. Winner of Children's Book Council Queensland BILBY Awards: Older Reader 2000.

Looking South
Looking South

Author: Lorne K. Kriwoken

Publisher: Federation Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9781862876576

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Australia has a long, rich and significant history in Antarctic affairs. Since 1933 Australia has asserted a claim to 42 per cent of the continent as the Australian Antarctic Territory. Australia was an original signatory to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty and has subsequently played an active role in international governance of Antarctica under the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). Almost half a century after the adoption of the Antarctic Treaty, and in the first decade of the 21st century, Antarctica is better known but is still not completely understood to science. It has been designated a natural reserve devoted to peace and science and whilst some matters, such as mining, have been put on hold, other issues present both continuing and new challenges. These challenges include the implications for Antarctica of global climate change, and indeed the continent's role in the generation of the world's weather; the environmental, political and ethical implications of increasing human activity in the region; and the goals of maintaining or developing the most appropriate governance mechanisms given the complex legal circumstances. There had been no contemporary analysis of Australia's involvement in Antarctic matters until 1984 when "Australia's Antarctic Policy Options", edited by Professor Stuart Harris, brought together a diverse and intellectually powerful array of Australians focussed on Antarctic law, policy and the social sciences. This volume provided a benchmark by which to measure the tenor of Australia's Antarctic agenda and as such has been of great assistance to the development of Looking South. Consequently, 20 years on Looking South explores how the issues identified have developed, what significant new issues have emerged and how Antarctica is placed in the current political Australian agenda.

Australia's Democracy
Australia's Democracy

Author: John Hirst

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9781865088457

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This work explores what sort of democracy Australians have made. It traces the establishing of democratic rights and freedoms from convict times until the present; from the era when racism limited political rights to today's concern that everyone's human rights be respected; from the demand that governments be free to carry out the people's wishes to the current desire to see all government power checked and controlled. It also examines notable Australian innovations like the secret ballot and the basic wage.

From the Edge
From the Edge

Author: Mark McKenna

Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing

Published: 2016-10-03

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0522862608

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In March 1797, five British sailors and 12 Bengali seamen struggled ashore after their longboat broke apart in a storm. Their fellow-survivors from the wreck of the Sydney Cove were stranded more than 500 kilometres southeast in Bass Strait. To rescue their mates and to save themselves the 19 men must walk 700 kilometres north to Sydney. That remarkable walk is a story of endurance but also of unexpected Aboriginal help. From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories recounts four such extraordinary and largely forgotten stories: the walk of shipwreck survivors; the founding of a 'new Singapore' in western Arnhem Land in the 1840s; Australia's largest industrial development project nestled amongst outstanding Indigenous rock art in the Pilbara; and the ever-changing story of James Cook's time in Cooktown in 1770. This new telling of the central drama of Australian history ;the encounter between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, may hold the key to understanding this land and its people.

The Chinese Face in Australia
The Chinese Face in Australia

Author: Lucille Lok-Sun Ngan

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-06-07

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1461421314

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The book explains how multi-generational Australian-born Chinese (ABC) negotiate the balance of two cultures. It explores both the philosophical and theoretical levels, focusing on deconstructing and re-evaluating the concept of ‘Chineseness.’ At a social and experiential level, it concentrates on how successive generations of early migrants experience, negotiate and express their Chinese identity. The diasporic literature has taken up the idea of hybrid identity construction largely in relation to first- and second-generation migrants and to the sojourner’s sense of roots in a diasporic setting somewhat lost in the debate over Chinese diasporas and identities are the experiences of long-term migrant communities. Their experiences are usually discussed in terms of the melting-pot concepts of assimilation and integration that assume ethnic identification decreases and eventually disappears over successive generations. Based on ethnography, fieldwork and participant observation on multi-generational Australian-born Chinese whose families have resided in Australia from three to six generations, this study reveals a contrasting picture of ethnic identification.

The Cambridge Economic History of Australia
The Cambridge Economic History of Australia

Author: Simon Ville

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-10-08

Total Pages: 710

ISBN-13: 1316194485

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Australia's economic history is the story of the transformation of an indigenous economy and a small convict settlement into a nation of nearly 23 million people with advanced economic, social and political structures. It is a history of vast lands with rich, exploitable resources, of adversity in war, and of prosperity and nation building. It is also a history of human behaviour and the institutions created to harness and govern human endeavour. This account provides a systematic and comprehensive treatment of the nation's economic foundations, growth, resilience and future, in an engaging, contemporary narrative. It examines key themes such as the centrality of land and its usage, the role of migrant human capital, the tension between development and the environment, and Australia's interaction with the international economy. Written by a team of eminent economic historians, The Cambridge Economic History of Australia is the definitive study of Australia's economic past and present.