Australian Studies

For over 200 years Australia’s official history has focused on English colonisation and ‘discovery’, with tales of British explorers and first generation white Australians navigating the vast and unfriendly land. But what of the millennia before the English claimed Australia as their own and wrote the history books. 1787 traces the journey of Australia before the infamous 1788 date, to explore just how ‘discovered’ the southern continent was by not only the Indigenous Australians who had lived and prospered for thousands of years, but also the sailors, traders, fishermen and many others who had visited our shores.

This is not about voyages of ‘discovery’, cartography, geography, or hero-captains and their sailing ship adventures. This is a bigger history—of the rise and fall of empires, the shifts in global economies, and their impact on Australia. By charting the encounters with Australia and its original people by several major groups of visitors, primarily the Portuguese, Dutch, Malay, French, and British from the late Middle Ages, 1787 reveals the stories of first encounters between Indigenous Australians and foreigners, placing Indigenous Australians back into our known history rather than a timeless pre-historical one. It’s a fascinating story that shifts focus away from post-colonial history and engages the reader in the eventful and lively stories of Australia as a vast and active land participating in a global history.

Imprint: HARDIE GRANT BOOKS
RRP: $29.99

Land rights, welfare and culture have locked aborigines out of the good life. Land has become a burden, welfare has become disabling, bad behaviour is mistaken for culture. There is a way out. Aborigines must abide by the same rules as every other Australian -- seek out opportunities, study hard, and free themselves from a culture of bad behaviour.

This is in contrast to the white man’s dream of Aboriginal self-determination. This grand experiment has failed. Aborigines, especially those in remote Australia, need an exit strategy from the dream. The exit strategy outlined in this book destroys the rallying cry for culture. Instead, it shows that the way to self-determination is through individual dignity.

Imprint: CONNORCOURT
RRP: $29.99

Coal is the political, economic and cultural totem for debates about climate change. Yet Australian politicians have had a love affair with coal, which has helped lock our politics – and our country – into the fossil fuel age.

This searing book takes apart the pivotal role of the Adani Carmichael mine in the conflict over coal. We see the rise of a fossil fuel power network linking mining companies, mining oligarchs, the big four banks, right-wing think tanks, lobby groups, the conservative media and all sides of Australian politics. On the other side, we have one of the biggest social movements ever seen in Australia in the form of #StopAdani uniting to try to save the Great Barrier Reef, native title rights and to fight the corrupt politics of coal.

Looking into the social, environmental and economic elements of this big fight, as well as the background of Gautam Adani himself, this book tells the full story of one of the lightning rod issues of our time.

Imprint: NEW SOUTH
RRP: $34.99

See wonderful Adelaide and its environs afresh, by both night and day. Enjoy the familiar scenes and discover the obscure in this expansive and insightful collection of images.

Photographed by a local and printed locally, the journey through this book takes you to the heart of what people love about our city including its new iconic architecture, the many old stone buildings, its Botanic Gardens, white-sand beaches and beautiful surrounding countryside. All packed into a neat and high quality collector’s item for you, or a good friend


Imprint: CONSIGNMENT STOCK
RRP: $40.91

Adelaide Central Market: Stories, people and recipes tells the tale of Adelaide's greatest treasure.

These pages capture the memories of traders of yesteryear and the familiar faces who make the Adelaide Central Market such a lively place today. Here you'll find delicious seasonal-driven recipes from stallholders' families, producers and chefs around the state.

Adelaide Central Market has been feeding our city, body and soul, for 150 years. This book of fabulous stories, recipes and images tells its tale, from humble beginnings to a world-renowned cultural and culinary cornucopia.

Imprint: WAKEFIELD
RRP: $79.95

Remember childhood visits to the Adelaide Zoo with a ride in the elephant cart? School lunches and a glass bottle of sun-warmed milk? spending Saturday night at Downtown or Tilt to play arcade games or go rollerskating? rides at Magic Mountain or Dazzleland, dances at local clubs with local bands, early TV shows and sleeping on the lawn on a hot Adelaide summer night?
Adelaide Remember When is the city we remember, in pictures and words. The best of Bob Byrne's hit Facebook page and much more, Adelaide Remember When is a bumper book that shows us bits of Adelaide we've forgotten, local identities and landmarks we loved and reminds us that the best parts of the city haven't changed.

Imprint: NEW SOUTH
RRP: $34.99

A history of the Adelaide's grand scale, international industrial exhibition, celebrating the 50th anniversary of settlement, and honoured Queen Victoria's jubilee. A riot of patriotism/imperialism riddled its course with the pomp and jingoism of the period. The purpose-built building, the six-month exhibition, and the uses and fate of the building complete this collective memory of a now-absent building. Containing contributions by thirty-seven historians it looks at the exhibition and its impact on South Australia.

Imprint: DIRECT FROM SUPPLIER
RRP: $49.95

A very Australian story of heroism and healing.

In 2004 Garth Callender, a junior cavalry officer, was deployed to Iraq. He quickly found his feet leading convoys of armoured vehicles through the streets of Baghdad and into the desert beyond. But one morning his crew was targeted in a roadside bomb attack. Garth became Australia's first serious casualty in the war.

After recovering from his injuries, Garth returned to Iraq in 2006 as second-in-command of the Australian Army's security detachment in Baghdad. He found a city in the grip of a rising insurgency. His unit had to contend with missile attacks, suicide bombers and the death by misadventure of one of their own, Private Jake Kovco.

Determined to prevent the kinds of bomb attacks that left him scarred, Garth volunteered once more in 2009 – to lead a weapons intelligence team in Afghanistan. He was helicoptered to blast zones in the aftermath of attacks, and worked to identify the insurgent bomb-makers responsible.

Revealing, moving, funny and full of drama, Garth Callender's story is one of a kind.

Imprint: BLACK INC
RRP: $29.99

The gripping finale to Three Crooked Kings and Jacks and Jokers brings to a close Matthew Condon's best-selling true-crime trilogy.

In 1983, the soon-to-be-knighted Police Commissioner Terry Lewis continues to turn a blind eye to the operation of The Joke, a highly organised system of graft payments from illegal gambling, prostitution and illicit drugs. As the tentacles of this fraudulent vice network spread, the fabric holding together the police, judiciary and political system starts to unravel. All Fall Down offers an unprecedented insight into the Fitzgerald Inquiry and Lewis's subsequent years in prison, and explores the real story behind the dramatic exit of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Drawing from interviews with key players who have, until now, been afraid to speak publicly, All Fall Down celebrates the bravery of those unsung heroes who risked everything to expose the truth.

This epic trilogy provides the definitive account of an unforgettable period in Queensland's history. The devastating consequences of those decades of corruption still reverberate today.

Imprint: UNI OF QUEENSLAND PRESS
RRP: $32.99

Antipodes: In Search of the Southern Continent is a new history of an ancient geography. It reassesses the evidence for why Europeans believed a massive southern continent existed, and why they advocated for its discovery.

When ships were equal to ambitions, explorers set out to find and claim Terra Australis said to be as large, rich and varied as all the northern lands combined. Antipodes charts these voyages voyages both through the imagination and across the High Seas in pursuit of the mythical Terra Australis. In doing so, the question is asked: how could so many fail to see the realities they encountered? And how is it a mythical land held the gaze of an era famed for breaking free the shackles of superstition?

That Terra Australis did not exist that didn’t stop explorers pursuing the continent to its Antarctic obsolescence, unwilling to abandon the promise of such a rich and magnificent land till it was stripped of every ounce of value it had ever promised. In the process, the southern continent an imaginary land became one of the shaping forces of early modern history.

Imprint: MONASH UNIVERSITY PRESS
RRP: $39.95

As a journalist, Leigh Sales often encounters people experiencing the worst moments of their lives in the full glare of the media. But one particular string of bad news stories - and a terrifying brush with her own mortality - sent her looking for answers about how vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing event. What are our chances of actually experiencing one? What do we fear most and why? And when the worst does happen, what comes next?

In this wise and layered book, Leigh talks intimately with people who've faced the unimaginable, from terrorism to natural disaster to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Expecting broken lives, she instead finds strength, hope, even humour. Leigh brilliantly condenses the cutting-edge research on the way the human brain processes fear and grief, and poses the questions we too often ignore out of awkwardness. Along the way, she offers an unguarded account of her own challenges and what she's learned about coping with life's unexpected blows.

Warm, candid and empathetic, this book is about what happens when ordinary people, on ordinary days, are forced to suddenly find the resilience most of us don't know we have.

Imprint: HAMISH HAMILTON
RRP: $34.99

A beautifully produced, lavishly illustrated commemorative volume drawing on the Memorial's unique collection of Gallipoli-related objects, photographs, artworks, diaries, letters, maps and personal memorabilia.

This landmark publication commemorates the centenary of the Great War's Gallipoli campaign, 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916. ANZAC Treasures approaches the subject of Gallipoli not only from a military perspective but also in terms of its social impact and its role in commemoration and nation building. It does so through the Memorial's immensely rich and varied National Collection, which provides a tangible link to ANZAC and gives an unparalleled insight into its many facets. The legend and reality of ANZAC are encapsulated within the relics, photographs, artworks, documentary records, personal diaries and letters that are displayed to dramatic and moving effect in a beautifully designed and produced commemorative volume.

Imprint: MURDOCH BOOKS
RRP: $69.99