Showing titles in Australia, New Zealand & Oceania

Australia has a unique place in the history of outlaw motorcycle gangs. From the clubs' beginnings in the swinging '60s, their entry into the amphetamine market in the 1970s, through to the 1984 Milperra Massacre that made world headlines, to the Sydney airport brawl between the Hell's Angels and Comancheros and the brutal murder of Anthony Zervas, Outlaw Bikers in Australia tells how these 'one per cent deviants' grew to dominate the recreational drug market and became major players in the international outlaw biker scene.

Secrets of the Sea is a fascinating introduction to New Zealand's fish and shellfish, weaving together history, biology and culture to reveal how these unique and intriguing creatures have shaped our lives. Ranging from sandy shores and rocky reefs to the open ocean and its cavernous depths, Robert Vennell celebrates the magic and mystery of the world beneath the waves.

In 1931 Molly led her two sisters on an extraordinary 1600-kilometre walk across remote Western Australia. Aged eight, eleven and fourteen, they escaped the confinement of a government institution for Aboriginal children removed from their families. Barefoot, without provisions or maps, tracked by Native Police and search planes, the girls followed the rabbit-proof fence, knowing it would lead them home.

Kamehameha the Great became the sovereign monarch during a time of rapid transition for his islands. His rivals were no longer limited to the kings of Hawaii, Maui, Oahu and Kauai. Ambitious men had arrived from America, England, France, Portugal and Spain, either offering their war material and service personnel to the highest bidder or staking a claim of the islands for themselves and their masters.

Hudson Fysh was a decorated World War I hero who not only founded Australia's national airline, Qantas, but steered it for almost half a century from its humble beginnings with two rickety biplanes to the age of the jumbo jets. One of Australia's celebrated Light Horsemen at Gallipoli, Fysh went on to fly death-defying missions for Lawrence of Arabia with the Australian Flying Corps and battle Germans in deadly dogfights in the skies over Palestine.

El 29 de febrero del año 2000, John Price pidió una orden de alejamiento contra su novia, Katherine Knight. Más tarde, ese mismo día, dijo a sus compañeros de trabajo que ella le había apuñalado y que si alguna vez desaparecía, era porque Knight le había matado. Come hombres, es el relato dramático y apasionante de la primera mujer en Australia condenada a cadena perpetua sin libertad condicional, con la adición especial de "nunca ser liberada". La fascinante narración de Ryan Green introduce al oyente en el horror real experimentado por la víctima.

For the last nine centuries, Hawaiian tradition has used the wickedness of the Maui king Hua to depict the consequences of sacrificing righteousness for superficial political gains. His reign was known for its pointless warfare, waste of resources, and corruption. Condemning his dutiful high priest to death under false pretenses, Hua and his subjects finally earn the wrath of the gods. Drought and famine decimate Maui. The lush countryside of Hana becomes a wasteland. As they flee, the curse follows. Atonement resides with the sons of the murdered priest. If they can be found.

After his interest was piqued by a 19th-century photo of a camel train in a country town, Ryan Butta found himself on the trail of Australia’s earliest Afghan camel-drivers. Separating the bulldust from the bush poetry, he reveals the breadth and depth of white Australian protectionism and prejudice. Told with flair and authority, this gritty alternative history defies the standard horse-powered folklore to reveal the untold debt this country owes to humble dromedaries, their drivers and those who brought them here.

King David Kalākaua introduces us to the people upon whom the legend of the Pele family is based. They departed Samoa as war refugees in the 12th century, settling in the foothills of Mauna Loa. As earthquakes and eruptions occurred during their interactions with the Hawaiians, this family of kahuna were accorded what the king described as “unique sanctity and power”. Pele was as mighty as she was beautiful. The tales of the volcano goddess earned the attention of Kamapuaa, the outcast son of the chief of Oahu who terrorized the island with his band of renegades.

Rural and remote ambulance drivers and paramedics are a dedicated and gutsy bunch who work tirelessly to care for their communities, often in isolated and inhospitable conditions, with few resources but plenty of experience, courage and care. Ambos deal with it all: car crashes, delivering babies, snake bites, heart attacks, lost bushwalkers, drug overdoses—even the occasional crook camel. One thing they are never short of is a story or two to tell.

Aage Krarup Nielsen tager på en sydhavsfærd til de vidunderlige stillehavsøer. Seks dage efter skibet har forladt San Fransisco spejder de øen Oahus mørke, takkede bjergtoppe i horisonten. Senere når ekspeditionen blandt andet til Tahiti, besøger kannibaler og beundrer vidunderlige koralrev. Undervejs fortæller Aage Krarup Nielsen om egnenes skikke og historie, om polynesiernes imponerende kanoer, der for tusindvis af år siden fik dem hele vejen til Hawaii.

Spanning several centuries of history in the Pacific, The Legends and Myths of Hawaiʻi: Fables and Folk-Lore of a Strange People is a collection of Hawaiian stories that were preserved through the ages by oral tradition and documented for posterity by King David Kalākaua in 1887. This massive tome recalls the tales of chiefs and kings, explorers and pirates, prophets, sorceresses, and renegades. This is the first in a series of 22 parts.

In a riveting combination of memoir, reportage and political and intellectual history, Ashenden traces the strange career of the great Australian silence—from its beginnings in the first encounters of Black and white, through the work of the early anthropologists, the historians and the courts in landmark cases about land rights and the Stolen Generations, to still-continuing controversy.

Provoked by a half-hidden account, Ashenden sets out to understand how the story of ‘relations between two racial groups within a single field of life’ has been told and not told, in this town and across the nation. In a riveting combination of memoir, reportage and political and intellectual history, Ashenden traces the strange career of the great Australian silence.

When Campbell & Clark, Scottish merchants based in India, dispatched an Indian ship hurriedly renamed the Sydney Cove to the colony of NSW in 1797, they were hoping to make their fortune. The ship's 'speculative' cargo included all kinds of products to entice the new colony's inhabitants, including 7,000 gallons of rum intended to be sold to the Rum Corp. But when the ship went down north of Van Diemen's Land, cargo master William Campbell and 16 other crew members decided to walk the 600 miles to Sydney Town to get help and rescue crew and cargo.

When Ned Kelly and his band of young tearaways ambushed and killed three brave policemen in a remote mountain camp in 1878, they sparked the biggest and most expensive manhunt Australia had seen. The desperate search would end when Kelly and his gang, wearing suits of armour, tried to derail a train before waging their final bloody gun battle with police in the small Victorian town of Glenrowan.

In cemeteries throughout Australia, gravestones hint at our history - tales of true crime, early settlement, mystery, tragedy, health epidemics, unsolved murders, love lost, and sacrifice. The Grave Tales series reveals more than the headstone can ever tell. Written by journalists Helen Goltz and Chris Adams, these stories feature people who willingly or unwillingly were participants in events that made headlines. The series offers individual short stories of heroes, victims, trailblazers, and patriots, encapsulating the journeys that lead to their resting places.

The west coast of Tasmania has always held true to a distinct identity that endures to this day. It is based on geography and a history of isolation from the rest of the island. The mountain ranges running down the west of Tasmania are a natural barrier to the more populated eastern regions of the island and flourished through exporting lumber and valuable minerals. Despite this, no roads existed to the east coast until 1932.

The Birdsville Track runs through three deserts, from Marree in northern South Australia, to Birdsville in outback Queensland. This legendary, dirt road has a rich folk history, intriguing culture, and unique ecosystems. But it doesn't give up its secrets easily, unless you have the Birdsville Track Audio Tour of course!

The Birdsville Track runs through three deserts, from Marree in Northern South Australia, to Birdsville in outback Queensland. This legendary, dirt road has a rich folk history, intriguing culture and unique ecosystems. But it doesn’t give up its secrets easily - unless you have the Birdsville Track Audio Tour of course! The Birdsville Track Audio Tour has 45 tracks and 138 minutes of professional-quality audio. The tracks are designed to be played at set points along the Birdsville Track, as shown on the map.

Australia es mucho más que un enorme país. Y mucho más que la isla más grande del mundo. Es un universo aparte. Árida, con una climatología extrema y una fauna atípica (y en muchos casos muy peligrosa), Australia también tiene gentes hospitalarias, ciudades muy modernas y otros muchos secretos por descubrir. ¿Cómo no enamorarse de un lugar fascinante que no se parece a ningún otro?

Buraadja provides a powerful account of the Liberal Party’s approach to indigenous affairs. The party’s record of successes and failures is frankly evaluated as an important basis for developing effective approaches to persistent problems.

On August 25, 1895, Ernest Alfred Hall was born into a pioneering Australian family that lived on a 313-acre property called "Cloverdale" near the hamlet of Beech Forest, south of the Otway Ranges, some 200 kilometres south west of Melbourne, Victoria. As a child, it seemed he would be destined for the life of a farmer in a country that was just realising its independence through Federation, yet his path was to be diverted by the cataclysmic events that befell Europe and the British Empire.

New Zealand is a country that has forever been admired for its beautiful landscapes - a wilderness that barely seems to be touched by humans. The populated areas are surrounded by forests, plains, rocky mountains - even beaches. All of this gives New Zealand that heavenly vibe. However, the place we admire today has been heavily affected by its history. People who wanted to farm the land versus people who wanted to keep the land the way it is. A land that, despite the wars it had been through, has managed to hang on to its beauty.

In the relatively short history of colonial Australia, one event stands apart, both for its revolutionary spirit and its impact: The Eureka Rebellion of December 3, 1854. This was the only time in Australian history when a government was resisted by free subjects of the Crown in a violent conflict. It only took place in one colony, Victoria, but it was an important event in the evolution of the democratic government in Australia as a whole. The Eureka Rebellion analyzes the chain of events that led to the fighting and its lasting impact.

The Ride is one man's journey by bicycle through New Zealand, attempting to regain his health. Join him as he travels around the North and South Islands, including Queenstown, the Wanaka Air Show, Dunedin, the Whanganui River, White Island volcano, and the wonderful, relaxed small town of Whanganui. Mr. Main describes his background, his health issues, and goes into detail on his life-long fight with Lyme disease.

In Loving Country, co-authors Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukurolgou show travellers how to see the country as herself, to know her whole and old story and to find the way to fall in love with her, our home. Listeners are encouraged to discover sacred Australia by reconsidering the accepted history and hearing diverse stories of her Indigenous people. The intention of this audiobook is to foster communication and understanding between all peoples and country, to encourage environmental and social change.

If you think Australia’s history is straightforward, you’re dead wrong. This is a land of the strange, the spooky and the unexplained. From the eerie ball of light that stalked a terrified family across the Nullabor, to the whereabouts of Victoria’s parliamentary mace, to the unidentified body found propped up on an Adelaide beach, and, yes, to the whereabouts of Ned Kelly’s skull, you’ll find our history has plenty of mysterious twists and unanswered questions.

From his perch in the Rocky Mountains, Mr. Buckley looks far over the horizon to Ireland where the Buckley journey to America began generations ago and then turns effortlessly to an opposite horizon to describe the lives of the inhabitants of Micronesia and the social and working adventures he shared with them first in the Peace Corps and later in a return visit with his family.

Australia's contributions in the Pacific War are often forgotten in history lessons today. However, Australia faced the bombing of its cities and invasions of nearby islands much like the rest of the world, and stood up to fight as needed. They placed a central role from 1942 to 1943 in the New Guinea Campaign and defended Japanese forces invading Port Moseby. Japanese forces then invaded the Australian mainland, trying to cut supply lines, but were fought back by valiant forces. Take to the ground and skies during this mix of intense land and air battles.

This story tells of my pioneer colonist forebears and their arrival and settlement in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1838 after many difficult months at sea. They landed only a year after the proclamation of the city of Adelaide. At this time houses were made from reeds from the banks of Adelaide's Torrens River, the port of Adelaide was surrounded by swamp with the area referred to in those early days as "Mudholia" or "Dustholia".

A battle that could not be won. An island that could not be defended. An ally that could not be trusted. A little known story of two Australian battalions abandoned in Java during World War II and the heroes who kept them alive in the worst of Japan's prisoner of war camps. They were thrown into a hopeless fight against an overwhelming enemy. Later, hundreds died as prisoners of war on the Thai-Burma Railway and in the freezing coal mines of Taiwan and Japan. Through it all, wrote Weary Dunlop, they showed 'fortitude beyond anything I could have believed possible'.

The British Colonization of New Zealand: The History of New Zealand from Settlement to Dominion analyzes the expeditions that discovered New Zealand and the early settlements and conflicts waged there from 1650 to 1850. You will learn about the European settlement of New Zealand like never before.

History colliding with the now. These are just some of the stories and personalities featured in the Grave Tales series. Grave Tales: Sydney visits cemeteries to feature people who willingly, or unwillingly, were participants in events that made local and national headlines. They may have lived in the same suburbs, streets, and even the same houses as exist now, or unexpectantly came to rest, in Sydney, Australia.

The greatest escape story of Australian colonial history by the son of Australia's best-loved storyteller. In 1823, cockney sailor and chancer James Porter was convicted of stealing a stack of beaver furs and transported halfway around the world to Van Diemen's Land, before being sent to Sarah Island. Many had tried to escape Sarah Island; few had succeeded. But when Governor George Arthur announced that the place would be closed and its prisoners moved to the new penal station of Port Arthur, Porter, along with a motley crew of other prisoners, pulled off an audacious escape.

The story of the emergence and dominance of two brilliant Australian soldiers who commanded the most effective armies in defeating the Germans and the Turks in the Great War. Monash and Chauvel is a gripping narrative history that follows the extraordinary campaigns of the two most outstanding battlefield commanders of the First World War across all the Allied armies: John Monash and Harry Chauvel.

The story of the clipper ships, and the tens of thousands of migrants they brought to the Australian colony of the 19th century, is one of the world's great migration stories. For anyone who travelled to Australia before 1850, it was a long and arduous journey that could take as much as four months. With the arrival of the clipper ships, and favourable winds, the journey from England could be done in a little over half this time.

An entertaining collection of insider yarns by an Aussie Test cricket legend. 'In the Test arena, Dennis Lillee was never beaten. West Indian champion Viv Richards had taken the sword to all the international bowlers of his era. But when he came up against Lillee, it was a heavyweight fight between unrelenting combatants. Their contests were always take-no-prisoners affairs.'

The ultimate collection of Australia's craziest cons and mad schemes from a master storyteller. Australia is the birthplace and setting of some of the wildest, craziest and least-likely-to-succeed cons and rorts in history. From the cleverest double-crosses to the most unlikely and maddest schemes, master storyteller Jim Haynes reminds us that we've never been shy of pulling a trick or two.