History : Australia & Oceania

In Jackson's Track Revisited Carolyn Landon returns to the story told by Daryl Tonkin in Jackson's Track (Penguin, Australia, 1999) – the tale of his life in the great Gippsland forest living among Aboriginal timber workers. Just as his family hoped, Tonkin's memoir has created the space for more stories. In Jackson's Track Revisited, the voices of Aboriginal people who lived at the Track mingle with those of the White Australians who tried to 'improve' their lives in the 1950s, the era of assimilation. An exploration of the historical factors surrounding Tonkin's story leads to discussion of the Victorian Aborigines Welfare Board, the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League and the policy of assimilation that was so prevalent in mid-twentieth century Australia. This concise book contains many surprises. The new stories take complex twists and turns as Landon explores the motives of all the players – and this involves revisiting Tonkin's own memories. As Landon seeks others' interpretations of events, she also analyses her own changing understandings, uncovering the prejudices she, as interviewer, researcher and historian, has brought to the project. The testimony of one Aboriginal participant is particularly unforeseen and forthright. It shows that the way the Kurnai people see themselves has escaped the constructions White Australians have placed upon them ever since invasion. Finally, Jackson's Track Revisited focuses on the friendship between Landon and Pauline Mullett, daughter of Daryl Tonkin. Mullett leads Landon into her existing culture – a culture which many White people believed no longer existed – helping Landon to find meaning in all the stories. more...

Price: $11.30

Doris Kartinyeri is a Ngarrindjeri woman and one of thousands of Aboriginal people stolen from her family and institutionalised in a home for Aboriginal children. This book tells the story of maintaining a sense of aboriginality in the face of cultural destruction. Her book details the South Australian Aboriginal more...

Price: $12.95

4RAR/NZ (ANZAC) Battalion's second tour in Vietnam more...

Price: $39.95

An beautiful and tragic love story told through the letters explorer George Bass exchanged with his new, young wife Elizabeth during their very short marriage. Theirs was a passionate and extraordinary love affair carried out across the oceans, a love that Elizabeth never let go as she wrote increasingly despairing letters to her husband already lost at sea. more...

Price: $36.00

A full account of the life, times and mysterious disappearance of George Bass, one of Australia's most significant maritime explorers, from the author of the highly acclaimed Discovery and The Life of Matthew Flinders. more...

Price: $39.95