History & Archaeology Books

This graphic book brings to life the struggles of daily life on the goldfields and the powerful events of the Eureka stockade.The extraordinary story of Eureka is one that Australians have revisited since it happened in 1854. Why did British Army Red...

'Even a military that is solely dedicated to preparing for war creates, simply by existing, a suite of responsibilities that has very little to do with combat.' - Tristan Moss and Tom RichardsonThere is a lot more to military life than war. From...

The Sixties an era of protest, free love, civil disobedience, duffel coats, fl ower power, giant afros and desert boots, all recorded on grainy black and white fi lm footage marked a turning point for change. Radicals found their voices and used them...

For the first time, Serving in Silence? reveals the integral role played by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender men and women in Australia's military after the Second World War. Their powerful personal stories, recounted with searing honesty,...

In the beginning, there was the river - before the beach, before the drain, before the dredging, before the dams, before numerous other actions that altered the stream.River Dreams reveals the complex history of the Cooks River in south-eastern Sydney -...

SHORTLISTED for ACT Book of the YearRUNNER-UP in the Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Book Prize 2019'An apparition of an adult wandering albatross comes into view. A small flutter and powerful wings arch upward in a slow, poised descent...

** Shortlisted, NSW Premier's History Awards 2022, Australian History Prize **** Winner, Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Book Prize 2023 **Australia's deep past and its modern history are intrinsically linked to the Pacic. In Australia & the...

Head-aches. Dizziness. Can't sleep. Bad dreams (never have been released). The rice jungle had some compensation to some of us who just don't seem to make a success of our return - ROBERT, A RETURNED POWThis landmark and compelling book follows...

'How is it our minds are not satisfied? What means this whispering in the bottom of our hearts?' Listening to the whispering in his own heart, Henry Reynolds was led into the lives of remarkable and largely forgotten white humanitarians who...

Shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards 2019: History Irish immigrants although despised as inferior on racial and religious grounds and feared as a threat to national security were one of modern Australia's most...

The first ever book devoted entirely to the golden years of the Sydney underworld.In the late 1960s Sydney was one of the most prosperous places on earth and one of the most corrupt. A large proportion of the population was engaged in illegal gambling...

**2019 Nib Military History Prize Finalist** For Valour tells the remarkable stories of the 100Australians who have been awarded the Victoria Cross for exceptional acts ofbravery and self-sacrifice in battle. From Captain Neville Howse of the NewSouth...

After decades of silence, Serving Our Country is the first comprehensive history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's participation in the Australian defence forces.While Indigenous Australians have enlisted in the defence forces since the...

A new edition of this bestselling Australian classic.After the Japanese invasion of Burma in late 1941,11-year-old Colin McPhedran was forced to flee his homeland on foot, across thesteep Patkoi Mountain Ranges, to safety in India. Over a three-month...

In Australia's rush to commemorate allthings Anzac, have we lost our ability to look beyond war as the central pillarof Australia's history and identity?Thepassionate historians of the Honest History group argue that while war has beenimportant to...

Chester Wilmot (19111954) was a renowned Australian war correspondent, broadcaster, journalist and writer. Covering the first triumphant North African battles of Bardia, Tobruk and Derna, the heartbreaking disaster of the Greek Campaign, the epic...

In compelling fiction, memoir, essays, poetry and communiqus, the dramatic story of the Intervention and the despair, anguish and anger of the First Nations people of the Territory comes alive.The Intervention: An anthology is an extraordinary...

Contrary to what you may think, local Aboriginal people did not lose their culture and die out within decades of Governor Phillip's arrival in Sydney in 1788.Aboriginal people are prominent in accounts of early colonial Sydney, yet we seem to skip a...

Niel Black, a Scot from Argyllshire, arrived in Melbourne in September intending to make his fortune. Ambitious and determined, Black became one of the most successful and energetic squatters in the Western District of Victoria a livestock breeder and a...

This is the story of how an ordinary bloke from the bush became the key figure in a movement that would change the shape of our cities and bring about lasting political and legal reform. This is the story of the house that Jack Mundey built...

It was no wonder I was glad to be down in Woolloomooloo. The Old Fitzroy reminded me of how Kings Cross used to be.Told in his vivid and entertaining style, Louis Nowra writes Woolloomooloo's biography, drink in hand, from the vantage point of...

This gorgeous book celebrates not just an illustrious swimming club on one of the most beautiful spots on Sydney Harbour but also the joy to be found in swimming itself. And while there can be few sensations more immediate and invigorating than diving...

Australia's official war correspondent during WWI, Charles Bean wasalso Australia's first official war historian and the driving force behindthe creation of the Australian War Memorial. Famously criticised forhis deliberate myth-making as editor of The...

'Australian governments find it easy to go to war. Their leaders seem to be able to withdraw with a calm conscience, answerable neither to God nor humanity.'Australia lost 600 men in the Boer War, a three-year conflict fought in the...

WINNER of the 2020 Ernest Scott Prize for HistoryShortlisted for the 2020 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction Australian Book Review's Books of the Year 2019 (read more here)In1970 homosexuality was...

I became an urban historianbecause I believed that our cities deserved more of our curiosity and idealism. In City Dreamers Graeme Davison restoresAustralian cities, and those who created them, to their rightful place in thenational imagination. Building...

Since the arrival of the First Fleet there have been Gypsies in Australia, yet their experiences have never been included in any official histories. In Australian Gypsies, award-winning memoirist and novelist Mandy Sayer weaves together a vivid,...

Why do Australians know the names of Charles Bean, Alan Moorehead and Chester Wilmot, but not Agnes Macready, Anne Matheson and Lorraine Stumm?This is the hidden story of Australian and New Zealand women war reporters who fought for equality with their...

The ultimate handbook for exploring Sydney's cemeteries - from crowded inner-city plots to spacious burial grounds in semi-rural spots.Cemeteries are not simply places for the dead - they are designed for the living. Visiting cemeteries to admire the...

The history of Aborigines in Van Diemen's Land is long. The first Tasmanians lived in isolation for as many as 300 generations after the flooding of Bass Strait. Their struggle against almost insurmountable odds is one worthy of respect and admiration,...

In 1857 all of the Arts students at the University of Sydney could fit into a single photograph. Now there are more than one million university students in Australia. After World War II, Australian universities became less elite but more...

Andrew Tink's superb book tells the story of Australia in the twentieth century, from Federation to the Sydney 2000 Olympics. A century marked by the trauma of war and the despair of the depression, balanced by extraordinary achievements in sport,...

The Cold War was a turbulent time to grow up in. Family ties were tested, friendships were torn apart and new beliefs forged out of the ruins of old loyalties. In this book, through twelve evocative stories of childhood and early adulthood in Australia...

A million Australians went to Bali last year, following the millions of others who have made their way across Asia over the past century. Many travellers returned thinking they knew Asia and their personal experiences helped shape popular attitudes. This...

Most convicts arriving in New South Wales didn't expect to make their fortunes. Some went on to great success, but countless convicts and free migrants struggled with limited prospects, discrimination and misfortune. Many desperate people turned to The...

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...

*Winner of theLes Carlyon Literary Prize**Longlisted for the 2019 CHASS Australia Book Prize*The Sydney Warstells the history of military engagements between Europeans and Aboriginal Australians described as 'this constant sort of war'...

1940. Wartime Australia. Key members of Menzies' government die in a fiery plane crash. What went wrong and what happened next? In August 1940 Australia had been at war for almost a year when a Hudson bomber the A16-97 carrying ten people,...

In this landmark book, Stuart Macintyre explains how a country traumatised by World War I, hammered by the Depression and overstretched by World War II became a prosperous, successful and growing society by the 1950s. An extraordinary group of...

What does contemporary China's diverse and exciting fiction tell us about its culture, and the relationship between art and politics?The Subplot takes us on a lively journey through a literary landscape like you've never seen before: a vast...

A one-volume history of the most consequential political movements of our time - populism, nationalism, socialism - and how they are influencing the twenty-first century.The distinguished political analyst John Judis has brought out a book with Columbia...

Vigil takes you to the frontlines of the battle for democracy in China, helping readers truly understand what's at stake, and how China rules. The story of Hong Kong's struggles can also bring into sharper focus issues associated with China's...

Award-winning author Stephen Dando-Collins brings his renowned expertise toRebels Against Rome, where he showcases many of the rebellious movements against the Great Roman Empire, as well as the rebels behind these lost causes and the circumstances that...

Award-winning author Stephen Dando-Collins brings his renowned expertise to Constantine at the Bridge, where he unveils how the Battle of the Milvian Bridge marked the point of no return for Rome and shaped the Western world as we know it.The AD 312...

Unlike other books on epidemics, which either focus on the science behind how microbes cause disease or tell first-person accounts of one particular disease, Epidemics: The Impact of Germs and Their Power over Humanity takes a holistic approach to...

Expert historian and author Stephan Dando-Collins chronicles the First Jewish Revolt and its important role in both Roman and Jewish historical memory.Dando-Collins details the conflict from both sides of the 7-year campaign. His examination of the...