Showing 1–12 of 205 results
-
The Songlines
Artist/Author: Chatwin, Bruce$16.00 Add to cart‘Songlines’ or ‘Dreaming Tracks’ are what all Europeans call the labyrinth of invisible pathways that criss-cross Australia, tracks connecting communities and following ancient boundaries. To Aboriginals, they are the ‘Footprints of the Ancestors’; they are both intricate sources of personal identity and territorial markers. Bruce Chatwin provides a fascinating background to indigenous Australian life.
Along these lines, Aboriginals passed the songs which revealed the creation of the land and the secrets of its past. In this magical account, Chatwin recalls his travels across the length and breadth of Australia seeking to find the truth about the songs and unravel the mysteries of their stories. Bruce Chatwin has been able to trace a great deal about an Aboriginal culture as complex as it is different from our own. The conflict between the two ways of life mirrors that within ‘civilised’ man himself. Disputes over the right to excavate land that is sacred to wandering tribes highlight the importance of myth and instinct in the human psyche.
-
Botany Bay and the First Fleet: The Real Story
Artist/Author: Frost, Alan$40.00 Add to cartNow in one definitive volume, Botany Bay and the First Fleet is a full, authentic account of the beginnings of modern Australia.
In 1787 a convoy of eleven ships, carrying about 1400 people, set out from England for Botany Bay, on the east coast of New South Wales. In deciding on Botany Bay, British authorities hoped not only to rid Britain of its excess criminals, but also to gain a key strategic outpost and take control of valuable natural resources.According to the conventional account, it was a shambolic affair: underprepared, poorly equipped and ill-disciplined. Here, Alan Frost debunks these myths, and shows that the voyage was in fact meticulously planned – reflecting its importance to Britain’s imperial and commercial ambitions. In his examination of the ships, passengers and preparation, Frost reveals the hopes and schemes of those who engineered the voyage, and the experiences of those who made it.
The culmination of thirty-five years’ study of previously neglected archives, Botany Bay and the First Fleet offers new and surprising insights into how Australia came to be.
-
The Little Red Yellow Black Book: An introduction to Indigenous Australia (Fourth edition)
Artist/Author: AIATSIS, with Bruce Pascoe$21.00 Add to cartOriginally published in 1994, The Little Red Yellow Black Book has established itself as the perfect starting point for those who want to learn about the rich cultures and histories of Australia’s First Peoples. Written from an Indigenous perspective, this highly illustrated and accessible introduction covers a range of topics from history, culture and the Arts, through to activism and reconciliation. In this fourth edition, readers will learn about some of the significant contributions that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have made, and continue to make, to the Australian nation. Common stereotypes will be challenged, and the many struggles and triumphs that we’ve experienced as we’ve navigated through our shared histories will be revealed. Readers will also learn about some of the key concepts that underpin Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander worldviews including concepts such as the Dreaming, the significance of Ancestral Heroes and Country.
The Little Red Yellow Black Book is for readers of all backgrounds and provides an opportunity to discover more about the diverse, dynamic and continuing cultures of Australia’s First Peoples.
-
Hunter Wine: A History
Artist/Author: McIntyre, Julie, John Germov$50.00 Add to cartTime is an essential element of each glass of wine that we drink. Within moments of it being poured from a bottle, or when a barrel is exposed to air, wine begins to change in subtle and irreversible ways. At the other end of the temporal scale, the bedrock of the vineyard landscapes that grow the grapes to make this wine were formed over millennia past. From the deep past to the current moment, this book shows how historical influences and technological processes have shaped Hunter wine from vine to glass.
The Hunter Valley is Australia’s oldest wine region, so its history and heritage are integral to understanding how Australian wine has evolved. Australian cultures of making, selling and drinking wine are more than echoes of British and European traditions and trends — they represent new practices and styles. Hunter wine is the result of horticultural, chemical, technological, social and economic experimentation by men and women who have migrated to the region since the 1820s. In turn, the Hunter landscape and people have been shaped by the presence of vineyards and wineries since early colonisation.
This book gives new expression to connected histories of nature and culture in the region by viewing them through the lens of wine history.
Shortlisted for 2019 NSW Premier’s History Award: NSW regional and community history prize
‘This beautifully evocative, richly detailed book sets a new benchmark for writing about wine history in Australia.’ — Max Allen, Wine Journalist and author of The History of Australian Wine
‘An important Australian wine book that uncovers new truths, challenges old myths and moves at a cracking pace with a delicious wine tale just right for the present.’ — Jeni Port, Wine Journalist at The Age and 2014 Wine Communicator of the Year
-
Urban Pest Management in Australia (Fifth Edition)
Artist/Author: Staunton, Ion, Phillip Hadlington and John Gerozisis$80.00 Add to cartFor 23 years and through four editions, Urban Pest Management in Australia has been the major reference work for Australian pest control operators. This fifth edition has been extensively revised to support the constantly evolving pest management industry. It features an accessible new format, fully updated chapters, additional colour plates and extra content, including a new section on putting pest control into practice. Ion Staunton draws on his 50 years of industry knowledge to bring Gerozisis and Hadlington’s pest management ‘bible’ to a new generation of technicians.
-
Salt: Selected Stories and Essays
Artist/Author: Pascoe, Bruce$35.00 Add to cartA collection of stories and essays by the award-winning author of Dark Emu, showcasing his shimmering genius across a lifetime of work.
This volume of Bruce Pascoe’s best and most celebrated stories and essays, collected here for the first time, traverses his long career and explores his enduring fascination with Australia’s landscape, culture and history.
Featuring new fiction alongside Pascoe’s most revered and thought-provoking nonfiction – including from his modern classic Dark Emu – Salt distils the intellect, passion and virtuosity of his work. It’s time all Australians know the range and depth of this most marvellous of our writers.
About the Author: Bruce Pascoe is an award-winning writer and a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man. He is a board member of First Languages Australia and Professor of Indigenous Knowledge at the University of Technology Sydney. In 2018 he was named Dreamtime Person of the Year for his contribution to Indigenous culture.
-
The Fauna of King Island: A Guide to Identification and Conservation Management
Artist/Author: Donaghey, Richard (Editor)$59.00 Add to cartThis amazingly comprehensive book covers the ecology and conservation management of invertebrate and vertebrate fauna of terrestrial and freshwater habitats of King Island. As well, it includes a chapter on geology, soils and land use history. The final chapter is a field guide to the veterbrates of King Island and gives accounts of all the species of freshwater fish, frogs, reptiles, mammals and most of the resident and regular visiting birds with cross-references to the plates.
-
Wildlife Conservation in Farm Landscapes
Artist/Author: Lindenmayer, David, Damian Michael, Mason Crane, Sachiko Okada, Daniel Florance, Philip Barton, Karen Ikin$50.00 Add to cartAn increasing number of Australians want to be assured that the food and fibre being produced on this continent have been grown and harvested in an ecologically sustainable way. Ecologically sustainable farming conserves the array of species that are integral to key ecological processes such as pollination, seed dispersal, natural pest control and the decomposition of waste.
-
Tropical Marine Life of Australia: Plants and Animals of the Central Indo-Pacific
Artist/Author: Edgar. Graham$60.00 Add to cartTropical Marine Life of Australia is the definitive guide to tropical Australian and central Indo-Pacific marine life, covering over 2,400 species of animals and plants. Groups covered include seaweeds, corals, molluscs, crustaceans, fishes, reptiles and mammals. The characteristics of each species are outlined, including distinguishing features, distribution and rarity. This indispensable guide covers all common species likely to be encountered by divers and shoreline ramblers, and also many of the more rare species or those with an unusual appearance or lifestyle.
-
Flinders: The Man Who Mapped Australia
Artist/Author: Mundle, Rob$25.00 Add to cartThe fascinating story of the exceptional maritime explorer, Matthew Flinders – the man who put Australia on the map.
Shipwrecks, storms, death and danger – Matthew Flinders encountered it all on his courageous quest to circumnavigate and chart the treacherous Terra Australis coastline.
From the drama of epic voyages and devastating shipwrecks; his part in the naming of Australia; his cruel imprisonment by the French on Mauritius for six long and harrowing years; the heartbreaking separation from his beloved wife; and the comfort he got from his loyal cat, Trim; to his tragic death at just forty.
This is a gripping adventure biography that details the life of Flinders, a true hero whose name is forever woven into the fabric of Australian history.
-
Ferdinand Bauer: The Australian Natural History Drawings
Artist/Author: Norst, Marlene F.$65.00 Read moreOUT OF PRINT. A biography of one of the pioneers of botanical and natural history art showcases Bauer’s drawings made on a historic 1801 voyage to Australia. His attention to detail gave scientists an excellent study of Australian plants and animals. Most of these drawings and watercolors have never before been published
-
Mallee Country: Land, People, History
Artist/Author: Broome, Richard, Charles Fahey, Andrea Gaynor, Katie Holmes$40.00 Add to cartMallee Country tells the powerful history of mallee lands and people across southern Australia from Deep Time to the present. Carefully shaped and managed by Aboriginal people for over 50,000 years, mallee country was dramatically transformed by settlers, first with sheep and rabbits, then by flattening and burning the mallee to make way for wheat. Government backed settlement schemes devastated lives and country, but some farmers learnt how to survive the droughts, dust storms, mice, locusts and salinity – as well as the vagaries of international markets – to become some of Australia’s most resilient agriculturalists. In mallee country, innovation and tenacity have been neighbours to hardship and failure.
Mallee Country is a story of how land and people shape each other. It is the story of how a landscape once derided by settlers as a ‘howling wilderness’ covered in ‘dismal scrub’ became home to citizens who delighted in mallee fauna and flora, and fought to conserve it for future generations. And it is the story of the dreams, sweat and sorrows of people who face an uncertain future of depopulation and climate change with creativity and hope.
