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Who would imagine that democracy in NSW was won through fierce political battles and street rallies? The Southern Tree of Liberty sheds light on this turbulent and violent period in Australian history. For twenty years, the advocates of democracy mobilised the working class and fought hard to bring popular rule to the colony. The elites, on the other hand, used their legislative powers to halt this march towards liberty, most notably in the Constitution of 1853. There were many colourful characters involved in the push for self-government: Charles Harpur, the native-born poet who wrote ‘The Tree of Liberty (A Song for the Future)’; Johann Lhotsky, the revolutionary who spent five years i...
In this moving, funny and sometimes chilling book, leading Australians open their ASIO files and read what the state's security apparatus said about them. Writers from across the political spectrum including Mark Aarons, Phillip Adams, Nadia Wheatley, Michael Kirby, Peter Cundall, Gary Foley and Anne Summers confront – and in some cases reclaim – their pasts. Reflecting on the interpretations, observations and proclamations that anonymous officials make about your personal life is not easy. Yet we see outrage mixed with humour, not least as ASIO officers got basic information wrong a lot of the time, though many writers have to contend with personal betrayal. Some reflect on the way their political views have – or haven’t – changed. Meredith Burgmann and all those who were spied on have produced an extraordinary book where those being watched look right back.
Sometimes people read history and are overwhelmed. They discover a nightmare past of conspiracies and duplicities. Only the doings of powerful people are recorded. They conclude that history has no room for people like them.In these essays, Rowan Cahill and Terry Irving show that a knowledge of history can make people want to act in order to make history. The authors criticise mainstream history for its top-down certainties. Instead, they see history from the bottom-up, acknowledging the productivity and creativity of working people.They argue for a radical history that reveals uncertainties and challenges, leaving everything, including the future, open.
When lorry drivers in Northampton slapped stickers on their cabs declaring ‘No truck with the Chilean Junta!’ they were doing more than threatening to boycott. They were asserting their own identity as proud unionists and proud internationalists. But what did trade unionists really know of what was happening in Chile? And how could someone else’s oppression become a means to solidify your own identity? The labour movements of Britain and Australia used ‘Chile’ as an impetus for action and to give meaning to their own political expression, though it was not all smooth sailing. Throughout the 1970s, social movements and unions alternately clashed and melded, and those involved with ‘Chile’ were also caught within the unhappy marriage of the cross-cultural left. This book draws together the events and stories of these complex times.
The Pursuit of Justice is the first book to examine three separate instances of soldiers risking their lives during wartime to protest injustices being perpetrated by military authorities: within the United States Army during the American Civil War, the Australian Imperial Force during World War I, and the British Army during World War II. Nathan Wise explores the three events in detail and reveals how-despite the vast differences in military forces, wars, regions of the world, and eras-the soldiers involved all shared a common sense of justice and responded in remarkably similar ways.
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Australia's Spies and their Secrets tells the inside story of the rise and fall of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) - Australia's premier spy body. Based on thousands of documents never before revealed, along with interviews with over thirty former ASIO officers and many of those spied upon, this fascinating book exposes the secret dimensions of Australia's post-war politics and history. It is certain to provoke debate and controversy. In this ultimate Australian spy story, investigative journalist David McKnight: rewrites the known history of the Petrov Royal Commission; instances actual cases of Soviet espionage in Australia; tells how a gigantic system of security ...
Collector’s Edition, Limited Release - Full Colour Hardback There is no more iconic military helicopter than the Bell UH-1 Iroquois. That truth is etched in stone – literally – in the Vietnam Memorial on Anzac Parade, Canberra, where the image of three Iroquois helicopters landing to extract troops in Phu?c Tuy Province in August 1967 captures their enduring legacy. Flown by Australians of all three Services between 1962 and 2007, the Iroquois served the nation in peace and war — from Malaysia and Vietnam to the Middle East and the South Pacific. It saved lives in search-and-rescue missions – from those stranded on rooftops during devastating floods to those plucked from stormy sea...