Book picks similar to
Melbourne: Then and Now by Heather Chapman


history
australia
non-fiction
australian-history

The Kennedy Autopsy 2: LBJ's Role In the Assassination


Jacob Hornberger - 2019
    military conducted on President’s Kennedy’s body on the night of November 22, 1963. Hornberger’s new book, The Kennedy Autopsy 2, expands on his earlier work. In this new book, you will learn: The important role that Lyndon Johnson played in the U.S. military’s fraudulent autopsy on the president’s body. The significance of various meetings at the National Archives prior to the 1968 presidential race, where autopsy pathologists signed false affidavits relating to the inventory of autopsy photographs. An alternative explanation as to why Johnson suddenly decided to drop out of the 1968 presidential race. How and why Lee Harvey Oswald escaped the U.S. government’s Cold War anticommunist crusade. And much more.

The Prodigal Para: An Afghan War Diary


Andy Tyson - 2018
    He was 47 years old. During his time on the ground he kept a diary. Humorous, authentic and sad, it is a warts and all account of infantry soldiering in a hot and dangerous place. This is his storty.

The Great Book of Badass Women: 15 Fearless and Inspirational Women that Changed History


Rachel Walsh - 2020
    

America: A Narrative History


David E. Shi - 2016
    The leading narrative history that students love to read, now made more relevant and accessible.

Mussolini: History in an Hour


Rupert Colley - 2014
    Famed for his dictatorial style, his political cunning and admired – initially – by Hitler, Mussolini led the National Fascist Party and ruled Italy as Prime Minister from 1922 until his ousting in 1943. In so doing, he paved the way towards Italy’s defeat in World War Two, and some of the 20th century’s most destructive ideologies and practices.Following expulsion from Italian Socialist Party, Mussolini denounced all efforts of class conflict, and instead later commanded a Fascist March on Rome to become the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history. Thereafter he set about dismantling the apparatus of democracy and initiated what would become known as the one-party totalitarian state. With World War II came defeat, humiliation and his bloody deposing. Explaining his ideologies, policies, actions and flaws, ‘Mussolini: History in an Hour’ is the concise life of the man whose ideas helped create some of the worst horrors of the modern history.Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour…

A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia


Thomas Keneally - 2005
    The squalid and turbulent prisons of London were overflowing, and crime was on the rise. Even the hulks sifting at anchor in the Thames were packed with malcontent criminals and petty thieves. So the English government decided to undertake the unprecedented move of shipping off its convicts to a largely unexplored landmass at the other end of the world.Using the personal journals and documents that were kept during this expedition, historian/novelist Thomas Keneally re-creates the grueling overseas voyage, a hellish, suffocating journey that claimed the lives of many convicts. Miraculously, the fleet reached the shores of what was then called New South Wales in 1788, and after much trial and error, the crew managed to set up a rudimentary yet vibrant settlement. As governor of the colony, Phillip took on the challenges of dealing with unruly convicts, disgruntled officers, a bewildered, sometimes hostile native population, as well as such serious matters as food shortages and disease. Moving beyond Phillip, Keneally offers captivating portrayals of Aborigines, who both aided and opposed Phillip, and of the settlers, including convicts who were determined to overcome their pasts and begin anew.With the authority of a renowned historian and the narrative grace of a brilliant novelist, Thomas Keneally offers an insider’s perspective into the dramatic saga of the birth of a vibrant society in an unfamiliar land. A Commonwealth of Thieves immerses us in the fledgling penal colony and conjures up colorful scenes of the joy and heartbreak, the thrills and hardships that characterized those first four improbable years. The result is a lively and engrossing work of history, as well as a tale of redemption for the thousands of convicts who started new lives thousands of miles from their homes.

On Reckoning


Amy Remeikis - 2022
    And what followed was people taking back the conversation from the politicians.On Reckoning is a searing account of Amy's personal and professional rage, taking you inside the parliament - and out - during one of the most confronting and uncomfortable conversations in recent memory.

The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania


Nicholas Clements - 2014
    It was by far the most intense frontier conflict in Australia’s history, yet many Australians know little about it. The Black War takes a unique approach to this historic event, looking chiefly at the experiences and attitudes of those who took part in the conflict. By contrasting the perspectives of colonists and Aborigines, Nicholas Clements takes a deeply human look at the events that led to the shocking violence and tragedy of the war, detailing raw personal accounts that shed light on the tribes, families, and individuals involved as they struggled to survive in their turbulent world. The Black War presents a compelling and challenging view of Australia’s early contact history, the legacy of which reverberates strongly to the present day.

Meet Rose


Sherryl Clark - 2011
    . . and Rose lives with her family in a big house in Melbourne. She wants to play cricket, climb trees and be an adventurer! But Rose's mother has other ideas. Then Rose's favourite young aunt comes to town, and everything changes. Will Rose's mother let Aunt Alice stay? And will Rose ever get to do the things she loves?Meet Rose and join her adventure in the first of four stories about a Federation girl who's determined to do things her way!

White House Confidential: The Little Book of Weird Presidential History


Gregg Stebben - 2001
    Focusing on the qualities that never made it into White House press releases, the authors look at their sexual misdeeds and strange family relationships, scandals that engulfed administrations, fights with enemies, and questionable money matters. Dip into these pages to find out: Which president was famous for being the richest man alive because of all his brilliant real estate deals? Which president was born in Canada, and was ineligible to hold the office of president? Which president caused some problems by trying to grow “strange herbs” in the White House garden? Which president often ordered White House staff to rub Vaseline into his scalp while he ate breakfast in bed? Which president often called his deputy chief of staff “Turd Blossom”?Updated with new material about many presidents including George W. Bush and Barack Obama, White House Confidential will have you laughing (and sometimes cursing!) as you take a second look at the next occupant of the Oval Office.

The Death of Trotsky (Kindle Single)


Cecelia Holland - 2015
    In The Death of Trotsky, Cecelia Holland brings this fated and fatal day to life, from its quotidian beginnings to its dramatic close. Between Trotsky’s waking and his final rest, she probes the outer-workings and inner thoughts of those who were with him till the end, illuminating a man who exited life as he lived it: defiantly. Cecelia Holland, author of more than 30 books and articles, lives in northern California with her family.Cover Design by Adil Dara.

Escape From the Ghetto: The Breathtaking Story of the Jewish Boy Who Ran Away from the Nazis


John Carr - 2021
    

Truganini


Cassandra Pybus - 2020
    As a child, Cassandra didn't know this woman was Truganini, and that she was walking over the country of her clan, the Nuenonne, of whom she was the last.The name of Truganini is vaguely familiar to most Australians as 'the last of her race'. She has become an international icon for a monumental tragedy: the extinction of the original people of Tasmania within her lifetime. For nearly seven decades she lived through a psychological and cultural shift more extreme than most human imaginations could conjure. She is a hugely significant figure in Australian history and we should know about how she lived, not simply that she died. Her life was much more than a regrettable tragedy. Now Cassandra has examined the original eyewitness accounts to write Truganini's extraordinary story.A lively, intelligent, sensual young woman, Truganini managed to survive the devastating decade of the 1820s when the clans of south-eastern Tasmania were all but extinguished. Taken away from Bruny Island in 1830, she spent five years on a journey around Tasmania, across rugged highland and through barely penetrable forests, with the self-styled missionary George Augustus Robinson, who was collecting all the surviving people to send them into exile on Flinders Island. She managed to avoid a long incarceration on Flinders Island when Robinson took her to Victoria where she was implicated in the murder of two white men. Acquitted of murder, she was returned to Tasmania where she lived for another thirty-five years. Her story is both inspiring and heart-wrenching, and it is told in full in this book for the first time.‘For the first time a biographer who treats her with the insight and empathy she deserves. The result is a book of unquestionable national importance.’—Professor Henry Reynolds, University of Tasmania

Almost a Mirror


Kirsten Krauth - 2020
    Like fireflies to the light, Mona, Benny and Jimmy are drawn into the elegantly wasted orbit of the Crystal Ballroom and the post-punk scene of 80s Melbourne, a world that includes Nick Cave and Dodge, a photographer pushing his art to the edge. With precision and richness Kirsten Krauth hauntingly evokes the power of music to infuse our lives, while diving deep into loss, beauty, innocence and agency. Filled with unforgettable characters, the novel is above all about the shapes that love can take and the many ways we express tenderness throughout a lifetime.As it moves between the Blue Mountains and Melbourne, Sydney and Castlemaine, Almost a Mirror reflects on the healing power of creativity and the everyday sacredness of family and friendship in the face of unexpected tragedy.

The Bush


Don Watson - 2014
    But what do we mean by 'the bush', and how has it shaped us? Starting with his forebears' battle to drive back nature and eke a living from the land, Don Watson explores the bush as it was and as it now is: the triumphs and the ruination, the commonplace and the bizarre, the stories we like to tell about ourselves and the national character, and those we don't. Via mountain ash and mallee, the birds and the beasts, slaughter, fire, flood and drought, swagmen, sheep and their shepherds, the strange and the familiar, the tragedies and the follies, the crimes and the myths and the hope – here is a journey that only our leading writer of non-fiction could take us on. At once magisterial in scope and alive with telling, wry detail, The Bush lets us see our landscape and its inhabitants afresh, examining what we have made, what we have destroyed, and what we have become in the process. No one who reads it will look at this country the same way again.