Recent Titles in Australian Studies

Pilgrimage- A Traveller’s Guide to Australia’s Battlefields
By Garrie Hutchinson

There has never been a book like Pilgrimage before. Journeying through time and place, author Garrie Hutchinson visits the battlefields where Australians have fought and reveals their past and present. Ideal for armchair travellers and lovers of history, Pilgrimage invites readers on a voyage of discovery. It shows the changing face of Australian battlefields around the world and the tragedy and heroism of a nation at war. $44.95 - ISBN 186 395 3876- Black Inc- August 2006

Whose ABC? The Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1983- 2006
By Ken Inglis

Whose ABC? is the long-awaited definitive history of the ABC since 1983. It includes intricate and never-before-published detail of the reigns of David Hill and Jonathan Shier and the stormy politics of the ABC’s relations with the government. Like its predecessor, This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932-1983, Inglis’s latest work is the product of many years careful research. This much anticipated account of the last twenty years at the ABC will shed light on some of the most controversial and difficult years to date $39.95 - ISBN 186395189X - Black Inc- August 2006

Reflected Light- La Trobe Essays
Edited By Peter Beilharz and Robert Manne

La Trobe University has established a unique reputation in Australia for the grace of its writers and for its contribution to public debate. This book collects reflections, evocations, commentary, criticism and humour by leading writers with a connection to La Trobe. Carefully sequenced and highly readable, these essays throw reflected light on the past and future, on the locality and the wider world. They will stimulate, delight and surprise. $29.95 - ISBN 1863952462 - Black Inc- July 2006

Terra Incognita: New Essays in Australian Studies
Edited by Leigh Dale and Margaret Henderson

Since first contact and invasion, Europeans have imagined Australia in two related ways: as terra nullius, and as terra incognita. While Indigenous Australians have always known the fictiveness of these two modes of imagining this country, it took until the 1992 Mabo decision and legislation in 1993 for there to be legal recognition that Australia was not terra nullius; arguably, the allure of Australia as a mystery, as an unknown, still has a place in the white imagination. Foucault’s analysis of the power/knowledge nexus makes explicit the connections between these two conceptions of Australia, and their role in justifying what could be done to Indigenous peoples. The land’s supposed emptiness signals its mystery, which in turn allows free rei(g)n in the ways in which it may be known, and in the types of knowledges that can become authoritative. Thus the way in which ‘Australia’ was known by the colonisers, and the ways in which this set of knowledges became dominant, have been crucial in securing control of the land and its people. Essays by John J Bradley, Veronica Brady, Ken Gelder, Sneja Gunew, Hilary Harris, Brett Hutchins, Lesley Instone, Judith Kapferer, Christopher Lee, Melissa Lucashenko, Elizabeth Mackinlay, Lyndall Ryan, Simon Ryan, George Seddon, Shirley Tucker and Penny van Toorn.   $34.95 ISBN: 1920845232 Publisher: Bentley, API Network, 2006

Colonial Law Lords: The Judiciary and the Beginning of Responsible Government in New South Wales
By J M Bennett

Responsible Government made an unsteady start when granted to New South Wales in 1856. Still evolving until Federation, the concept was so unsettled as to create major contests between the judiciary and the other arms of government. This book begins with the premature collapse of the first Ministry in August 1856. At stake were the Lower House’s objections to the Colony’s judges being members of the Upper House as "Bunyip Law Lords". Chief Justice Stephen even aspired to be Lord Chancellor of New South Wales. Eventually, the Lower House prevailed. It finishes with a ferocious clash in the 1880s between the Executive and the Judiciary, one of the most spectacular in Australia’s history. The populist Parkes Government refused to allow the disembarkation of Chinese immigrants from a ship in Sydney Harbour. The Supreme Court granted habeas corpus compelling their entry. The Government, driven by community fury, attempted to enforce its will by ministerial direction. Eventually it was forced to give way. Published 14 March 2006 The Federation Press ISBN 1862875987 RRP $27.50

People and Politics in Regional New South Wales - 1856 – 2006 Volume 1-2 (Set)
Edited by Jim Hagan

This two-volume work recounts the political history of each of the eleven regions of country NSW from the time of the first democratic election in 1856 through to 2006. It shows how the different regions with varying and changing problems found political solutions to their particular local issues. It is full of names and places and events, and explains why some people were elected to parliament, and what they promised, and why others were rejected. It shows how the issues changed as the regional economy and demographics changed over the 150 year period. Volume One covers from 1856 through to 1950s. Volume Two covers from the 1950s to 2006. Each Volume is available separately or can be purchased as a set. Published 25 July 2006 The Federation Press
Hardback ISBN 1862875707 Australian RRP $54.95

Making Waves: 10 Years of the Byron Bay Writers' Festival
Edited by Susan Bradley Smith and Marele Day and Fay Knight

From the deeply moving to the powerfully political, more than 20 of Australia’s leading authors offer their ideas and stories for a new collection of writing brimming with passion, wit and humour. In celebration of ten years of the Byron Bay Writers Festival, the cream of Australia’s writing talent use short stories, essays and poetry to address issues that matter to them. Ruth Ostrow writes of loss; Alison Broinowski on the end of the world. Christopher Kremmer turns his focus to the global stage. Nick Earls looks closer to home. David Williamson reflects on falling in and out of favour with his critics. Melissa Lucashenko writes of the ‘deafness’ of white Australia, while, in her final public performance, Thea Astley takes a humorous look at travelling. UQP ISBN: 0702235830RRP - $29.95

Best Australian Poetry 2006
Edited by Judith Beveridge

Guest Editor Judith Beveridge, one of Australia’s leading poets, has produced a highly satisfying and stimulating addition to The Best Australian Poetry series. In making her selection of the best 40 poems from Australia’s literary journals, Beveridge – one of Australia’s leading poets – has searched for poems that enact ‘a serious showdown between the word and the poet’. Passionate, vigorous and filled with visitations and mysterious narratives, The Best Australian Poetry 2006 is the liveliest gathering of Australian poetry. UQP ISBN 0702235687 August 28th, 2006

Prisoners of the Japanese: Literary Imagination and the Prisoner of War Experience
by Roger Bourke

‘a marvellous book…intensely stimulating’ – Professor Joanna Bourke.
To date, academic studies have concentrated on non-fiction prisoner-of-war writing: the many memoirs and diaries of former prisoners of the Japanese. Prisoners of the Japanese is the first book to analyse the major fictions of the prisoner-of-war experience under the Japanese. It covers The Bridge on the River Kwai, Neville Shute’s A Town Like Alice, J G Ballard’s Empire of the Sun and John Doyle’s ABC television drama Changi. Prisoners of the Japanese will appeal to scholars and students of film and media, literature, cultural history or war studies as well as to general readers interested in literature and film of the Second World War. The book also includes 8 pages of illustrations. UQP ISBN 0702235644 July 20th, 2006

History of the Book in Australia Volume 3: Paper Empires
by Craig Munro and Robyn Sheahan-Bright

 This new volume in UQP’s History of the Book in Australia series explores Australian book production and consumption from 1946 to the present day. In the immediate postwar era, most books were imported into a colonial market dominated by British publishers. Paper Empires traces this fascinating and volatile half-century, using wide-ranging research, oral history and memoir to explore the worlds of book publishing, selling and reading. After 1945, Australian publishing went from a handful of fledgling businesses to the billion dollar industry of today with thousands of new titles each year and a vast array of imported books. Publishing’s postwar expansion began with the baby boom and the increased demand for school texts, with independent houses blossoming during the 1960s and 70s followed by the current era dominated by global conglomerates. All aspects of print culture are explored, from authorship and editing to bookselling, libraries and reading habits, in the context of today’s rapidly changing publishing landscape with its many technological challenges. A wide range of expert contributors, including book-trade practitioners, have produced this lively and indispensable account of our vital cultural industry. UQP ISBN 0702235598 July 3rd, 2006

Patriots: Defending Australia's Natural Heritage 1946-2004
by William John Lines

 For more than sixty years a small group of dedicated people have been fighting to defend Australia's unique wildlife. Those conservationists battle indifference and hostility from government and developers, whose actions are responsible for the decimation of spectacular natural beauty. Although much has been lost, the conservation movement has won great victories and secured the preservation of some of the world's most pristine, and ecologically important landscapes. Patriots is the powerful and provocative account of this nation-defining struggle. William J. Lines charts the emergence of a national movement whose campaigners and members are forging a new Australian identity enmeshed in nature and committed to its survival. UQP ISBN 0702235547 September 25th, 2006

Caught in Time: Talking Australian History
By Bill Bunbury

A new book by the popular ABC Radio National Social History Presenter, this is a collection of Australian stories based on his oral history radio features Caught in Time is a tapestry of snapshots across time, from before European settlement through to the late twentieth century. Stories range from the fascinating account of the 1711 wreck of the Dutch ship Zuytdorp , to an Australian soldier's remarkable escape and lone voyage across the Mediterranean in the 1940s, to the inspiring late twentieth century journey of a rural community to Reconciliation. Fremantle Arts Centre Press ISBN: 1-92106-484-6 RRP: $24.95

Australia's Quarter Acre: The Story of the Ordinary Suburban Garden
By Peter Timms

In this fascinating and detailed look at the ordinary suburban block, Peter Timms traces the development of its design, its plantings and its hidden meanings, explaining how we have used our gardens for pleasure, relaxation and food production. Dogs and chooks, woodsheds, lavatories, fruit trees, fences and even the illuminated Santa Claus at Christmas--Timms has something new and surprising to say about them all. From plots to plants, Timms describes the decline of the manicured lawn and the productive home vegetable garden, and our passion for roses and gladioli. He uncovers how Australia became the world's first great suburban nation, and how social and economic developments have altered the layouts of front and back gardens. Australia's Quarter Acre is, above all, a spirited defence of the suburban garden, which is, as Timms so lovingly shows, a valuable and unique part of our national heritage. ISBN: 0522851851 Price: $39.95 APN: 9780522851854 / Publisher: MIEG Group: MUP TITLE

Church and State: Australia's Imaginary Wall
By Tom Frame

Few Australians realise that the Constitution does not formally separate Church and State. Tom Frame argues that some contact between organised religion and government is both inevitable and, in some circumstances, highly desirable. But there are continuing and unnecessary tensions, for which Christians are largely responsible. This book explores the nature of the tensions, and how to deal with them. ISBN: 0868409162, UNSW PRESS, July 2006, Price: $16.95