The Cartographic Eye
The Cartographic Eye

Author: Simon Ryan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1996-09-13

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780521577915

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The Cartographic Eye is about the mythologies of land exploration, and about space and the colonial enterprise in particular. An innovative investigation of the presumptions, aesthetics and politics of Australian explorers' texts, it concentrates on the period 1820-1880. Simon Ryan looks at the journals of John Oxley, Thomas Mitchell, Charles Sturt and Ludwig Leichhardt and shows that they are not the simple, unadorned observations the authors would have us believe, but are complex networks of tropes. The Cartographic Eye scrutinises and undermines the scientific and literary methodology of exploration. Its insightful analysis of the tendencies of colonialism will make a major contribution to 'new historicist' interrogations of colonialism. It will be a crucial text for readers in Australian literary and cultural studies, and for those interested in colonial discourse and postcolonial theory.

Last Explorer
Last Explorer

Author: Simon Nasht

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.

Published: 2012-08

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 161608717X

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In the tradition of The Ice Master and Endurance, here is the incredible story of the first truly modern explorer, whose death-defying adventures and uncommon modesty make this book itself an extraordinary discovery. Hubert Wilkins was the most successful explorer in history--no one saw with his own eyes more undiscovered land and sea. Largely self-taught, Wilkins became a celebrated newsreel cameraman in the early 1900s, as well as a reporter, pilot, spy, war hero, scientist, and adventurer, capturing in his lens war and famine, cheating death repeatedly, meeting world leaders like Lenin and Stalin, and circling the globe on a zeppelin. Apprenticing with the greats of polar exploration, including Shackleton in the Antarctic, Wilkins recognized the importance of new technologies such as the airplane and submarine. He helped map the Canadian Arctic and plumbed the ocean depths from the icecap. A pioneer in the truest sense of the word, he became the first man to fly across the North Pole, which won him a knighthood; the first to fly to the Antarctic and discover land there by airpla≠ and the first to take a submarine under the Arctic ice. Grasping the link between the poles and changing global weather, Wilkins was a visionary in weather forecasting and the study of global warming. A true hero of the earth, he changed the way we look at our world.

Burke and Wills
Burke and Wills

Author: Peter FitzSimons

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Published: 2017-10-31

Total Pages: 702

ISBN-13: 0733634095

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The iconic Australian exploration story - brought to life by Peter FitzSimons, Australia's storyteller. 'They have left here today!' he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left just hours ago. MELBOURNE, 20 AUGUST 1860. In an ambitious quest to be the first Europeans to cross the harsh Australian continent, the Victorian Exploring Expedition sets off, farewelled by 15,000 cheering well-wishers. Led by Robert O'Hara Burke, a brave man totally lacking in the bush skills necessary for his task; surveyor and meteorologist William Wills; and 17 others, the expedition took 20 tons of equipment carried on six wagons, 23 horses and 26 camels. Almost immediately plagued by disputes and sackings, the expeditioners battled the extremes of the Australian landscape and weather: its deserts, the boggy mangrove swamps of the Gulf, the searing heat and flooding rains. Food ran short and, unable to live off the land, the men nevertheless mostly spurned the offers of help from the local Indigenous people. In desperation, leaving the rest of the party at the expedition's depot on Coopers Creek, Burke, Wills, Charley Gray and John King made a dash for the Gulf in December 1860. Bad luck and bad management would see them miss by just hours a rendezvous back at Coopers Creek, leaving them stranded in the wilderness with practically no supplies. Only King survived to tell the tale. Yet, despite their tragic fates, the names of Burke and Wills have become synonymous with perseverance and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. They live on in our nation's history - and their story remains immediate and compelling.

Following Burke and Wills Across Australia
Following Burke and Wills Across Australia

Author: Dave Phoenix

Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING

Published: 2015-06

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 1486301592

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Every Australian has heard of Burke and Wills but few have travelled in their footsteps. In 2008, historian Dave Phoenix decided to walk across Australia from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria, following the track taken by the ill-fated Burke and Wills Expedition. Now you can follow them too. Following Burke and Wills Across Australia guides you on a road trip that follows one of history’s great transcontinental journeys, sharing the explorers’ experiences on the way. Maps lay out a route that takes you as close as possible to the Expedition’s track. As you travel the outback roads, you can learn all the details of the day to day journey of the Expedition from the explorers’ own words, and compare what you see with their descriptions of the country in 1860–61. Each chapter provides information about what to see now: the location and descriptions of the markers and memorials placed along the route over the 150 years since the Expedition, and places where you can stand where the explorers stood and look out over prospects they drew and described. The book is a perfect companion for those wanting to see outback Australia, and at the same time understand a journey that has attained mythic status in the history of Australian exploration. Even if you want to follow only part of the track, this is the book for you.

The Explorers
The Explorers

Author: Tim Flannery

Publisher: Text Publishing

Published: 2013-11-20

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 1921922435

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The explorers of Australia tell an epic story of courage and suffering, of dispossession and conquest, of a moving frontier between European invaders and the Aboriginal custodians of the continent. This compelling anthology documents almost four centuries of exploration and takes us into a world of danger, compassion and humour. Many of the stories beggar belief. Maori chief Te Pahi saves the lives of condemned thieves in Sydney in 1805. Hume and Hovell argue over their frying pan. John Ainsworth Horrocks is shot by his camel. Brilliantly edited and introduced by Tim Flannery, The Explorers draws on the most remarkable body of non-fiction writing ever produced in Australia.

Explorers of the Southern Sky
Explorers of the Southern Sky

Author: Raymond Haynes

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1996-06-27

Total Pages: 550

ISBN-13: 9780521365758

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The most comprehensive account of Australian astronomy to date.

The Australian Explorers
The Australian Explorers

Author: George Grimm

Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand

Published: 2024-02-05

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13:

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Persons who have yet to make their acquaintance with the early history of New South Wales will learn with surprise that the colony had been founded for almost a quarter of a century before the Blue Mountain barrier was crossed. For so long a period it was scarcely possible to proceed more than forty miles from Sydney in any direction. Many a despairing look must those early settlers have cast on the frowning ramparts of the range, which, leaving only a narrow margin between itself and the sea, threatened to convert the cradle of the colony into a Procrustes' bed, to which its dimensions would have to conform in the future, as they had done in the past. This sense of confinement was the harder to bear that it was met with in a land of freedom; and many a time did the caged eagle dash itself with fruitless rage against the bars of its prison. A record of the unsuccessful attempts to get beyond the main range would form a heroic chapter of our history, and one, too, of which we might well feel proud, if there is any truth in the saying that in great undertakings it is glorious even to fail. Within four months after the arrival of the "first fleet" our annals present a picture of Governor Phillip and party struggling laboriously westward to the gorges of the mountains.