Weakness and Deceit by BONNER RAYMOND

$32.99 AUD

Category: History

The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple

$29.99 AUD

Category: History | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019 'Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India - A book of beauty' Gerard DeGroot, The Times In August 1765 the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish in his richest provinces a new administration run by English merchants who collected taxes through means of a ruthless private army what we would now call an act of involuntary privatisation. The East India Company's founding charter authorised it to 'wage war' and it had always used violence to gain its ends. But the creation of this new government marked the moment that the East India Company ceased to be a conventional international trading corporation dealing in silks and spices and became something much more unusual- an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business. In less than four decades it had trained up a security force of around 200,000 men twice the size of the British army and had subdued an entire subcontinent, conquering first Bengal and finally, in 1803, the Mughal capital of Delhi itself. The Company's reach stretched until almost all of India south of the Himalayas was effectively ruled from a boardroom in London. The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world's most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders. In his most ambitious and riveting book to date, William Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power. ...Show more

Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler

$29.99 AUD

Category: History

"A brilliant reconstruction of the saga of power, glory, and invasion that is the one-thousand year story of Constantinople. A truly marvelous book." --Simon Winchester Ghost Empire is a rare treasure--an utterly captivating blend of the historical and the contemporary, narrated by a master storyteller . The story is a revelation: a beautifully written ode to a lost civilization combined with a warmly observed father-son adventure far from home. In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul. Fired by Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire--centered around the legendary Constantinople--we are swept into some of the most extraordinary tales in history. The clash of civilizations, the fall of empires, the rise of Christianity, revenge, lust, murder. Turbulent stories from the past are brought vividly to life at the same time as a father navigates the unfolding changes in his relationship with his son. ...Show more

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War (PB) by Ben Macintyre

$22.99 AUD

Category: War History

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"The best true spy story I have ever read."--JOHN LE CARR   The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with his greatest spy story yet, a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War .   If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.   Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky's nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre's latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carr , it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man's hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations. ...Show more

Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler

$39.99 AUD

Category: History

GHOST EMPIRE is a rare treasure - an utterly captivating blend of the historical and the contemporary, realised by a master storyteller. In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul. Fired by Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire - centred ar ound the legendary Constantinople - we are swept into some of the most extraordinary tales in history. The clash of civilizations, the fall of empires, the rise of Christianity, revenge, lust, murder. Turbulent stories from the past are brought vividly to life at the same time as a father navigates the unfolding changes in his relationship with his son. GHOST EMPIRE is a revelation: a beautifully written ode to a lost civilization, and a warmly observed father-son adventure far from home. ...Show more

And the Show Went on: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alan Riding

$29.99 AUD

Category: History

On June 14, 1940, German tanks rolled into a silent and deserted Paris. Eight days later, a humbled France accepted defeat along with foreign occupation. While the swastika now flew over Paris, the City of Light was undamaged, and soon a peculiar kind of normalcy returned as theaters, opera houses, movi e theaters, and nightclubs reopened for business. Shedding light on this critical moment of twentieth-century European cultural history, "And the Show Went On "focuses anew on whether artists and writers have a special duty to show moral leadership in moments of national trauma. ...Show more

Macquarie (HB) by Grantlee Kieza

$39.99 AUD

Category: Australian | Reading Level: 3 Biography

A lively and engaging portrait of a towering and complex figure of Australian colonial history. Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming the harsh, foreboding penal colony of New Holland into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also help ed shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and business people. However, the governor's ambitions for the colony (which he lobbied to have renamed 'Australia') brought him into conflict with the continent's original landowners, and he was responsible for the deaths of Aboriginal men, women and children, brutally killed in a military operation intended to create terror among local Indigenous people. So, was Macquarie the man who sowed the seeds of a great nation, or a tyrant who destroyed Aboriginal resistance? In this, the most comprehensive biography yet of this fascinating colonial governor, acclaimed biographer Grantlee Kieza draws on Macquarie's rich and detailed journals. He chronicles the life and times of a poor Scottish farm boy who joined the British army to make his fortune, saw wars on five continents and clawed his way to the top. Ultimately, Macquarie laid the foundations for a new nation, but, in the process, he played a part in the dispossession of the continent's original people. Lover, fighter, egalitarian, autocrat - Lachlan Macquarie is a complex and engaging character who first envisaged the nation we call Australia.           ...Show more

Saga Land by Richard Fidler; Kari Gislason

$39.99 AUD

Category: History

'I adored this book - a wondrous compendium of Iceland's best sagas' - Hannah Kent A new friendship. An unforgettable journey.A beautiful and bloody history. This is Iceland as you've never read it before ... Broadcaster Richard Fidler and author K ri G slason are good friends. They share a deep attac hment to the sagas of Iceland - the true stories of the first Viking families who settled on that remote island in the Middle Ages.These are tales of blood feuds, of dangerous women, and people who are compelled to kill the ones they love the most. The sagas are among the greatest stories ever written, but the identity of their authors is largely unknown. Together, Richard and K ri travel across Iceland, to the places where the sagas unfolded a thousand years ago. They cross fields, streams and fjords to immerse themselves in the folklore of this fiercely beautiful island. And there is another mission: to resolve a longstanding family mystery - a gift from Kari's Icelandic father that might connect him to the greatest of the saga authors.   ...Show more

Who Owns History? The Case of Elgin's Loot (HB) by Geoffrey Robertson

$39.99 AUD

Category: History | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

The controversy about the Elgin Marbles continues to rage. This book will be the first to propound a system for the return of cultural property, based on human rights law principles that are being developed by the courts to decide whether artworks, manuscripts and sculptures have cultural importance and have been acquired in circumstances that morally require their return to enable peoples to enjoy the 'keys to their history'. The book examines how the past can be experienced - by everyone. It will ask what is the difference between an original and a perfect copy, and in what circumstances that difference should require uplifting of the relic and bringing it back home. Geoffrey Robertson has been involved in a number of celebrated cases - he acted with Amal Clooney to provide the Greek Government with legal arguments for reuniting the Parthenon Marbles, and took successful action for Tasmanian Aboriginals to force London's Natural History Museum to return the remains of their ancestors. In this book he will discuss these cases, and will conclude by describing, in non-legal language, a rule that can be applied to decide in particular cases how museums and private collections should distinguish treasures that are not 'theirs'. ...Show more

Dictatorland - The Men Who Stole Africa by Paul Kenyon

$22.99 AUD

Category: History

One dictator grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-story-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. One austere, incorruptible leader shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. The Libyan army officer who authored a new work of political philosophy, The Green Book, and lived with a harem of female soldiers, running his country like a mafia family business. And behind these stories of fantastic violence and excess lie the dark secrets of Western greed and complicity, the insatiable taste for chocolate, oil, diamonds, and gold that have encouraged dictators to rule with an iron hand, keeping their people in dire poverty. ...Show more

Where Soldiers Lie: The Quest to Find Australia's Missing War Dead (HB) by Ian McPhedran

$39.99 AUD

Category: War History | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

What drives veterans, military experts and forensic investigators to dedicate years to search for and identify the remains of fallen warriors? What does it mean to the families of the dead to be able to lay them to rest? Over thirty five thousand Australian soldiers and airmen are still listed as Missin g In Action from the wars of the 20th Century. Telling the moving story of the determination and skill of the searchers who apply old-fashioned detective work and cutting-edge science to solve the mysteries of the missing and bring peace of mind and solace to their families and to all those who serve, Where Soldiers Lie follows these investigators and scientists on their mission to locate and identify unrecovered war casualties and to unlock their secrets. From the jungles of Vietnam, where one man led a decade-long battle to recover and bring home the final six, to Korea, Papua New Guinea and the fields of the Somme, Flanders and Fromelles, Where Soldiers Lie is a deeply human story of perseverance, luck and resolution, a story of incredible determination against difficult odds, of exacting forensic analysis and painstaking detective work, to uncover and identify the remains of Australian soldiers, in battlefield over the decades, and to bring their remains home. Powerful, moving and compelling reading. ...Show more

Encounters Unforeseen - 1492 Retold by Andrew Rowen; David Atkinson (Illustrator)

$0.00 AUD

Category: History

After 525 years, the traditional literature recounting the history of Columbus's epic voyage and first encounters with Native Americans remains Eurocentric, focused principally--whether pro- or anti-Columbus--on Columbus and the European perspective. A historical novel, Encounters Unforeseen: 1492 Retol d now dramatizes these events from a bicultural perspective, fictionalizing the beliefs, thoughts, and actions of the Native Americans who met Columbus side by side with those of Columbus and other Europeans, all based on a close reading of Columbus's Journal, other primary sources, and anthropological studies.The drama alternates among three historic Ta no chieftains--Caonab , Guacanagar , and Guarionex--and a Ta no youth Columbus captures, Spain's Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, and Columbus himself. It depicts the education, loves and marriages, and other life experiences each brought to the unforeseen encounters and then their astonishment, fears, and objectives in 1492 and 1493. The focus includes the Ta no "discovery" of Europe, when Columbus hauls the captive and other Ta nos back to Spain, as well as the chieftains' reactions to the abusive garrison of seamen Columbus leaves behind in the Caribbean. Throughout, the Ta no protagonists are neither merely victims nor statistics, but personalities and actors comparable to the European, and their side of the story is forcefully told.The novel weaves a fascinating tapestry of scenes and dialogues from the historical record, often incorporating text from primary sources. Isabella plots her dynastic marriage, argues with Ferdinand over who's supreme, and wages war to expand their kingdoms. The chieftains take multiple wives to consolidate their rules, vie to marry the beautiful Anacaona, and battle Caribe raiders. An unknown Columbus conceives a fanciful voyage, marries advantageously to promote it, and yet suffers an agonizing decade of ridicule and rejection. Guacanagar rescues Columbus when the Santa Mar a sinks, but Caonab questions Guacanagar 's generosity, and Guarionex is vexed, having witnessed a religious prophecy of Ta no genocide inflicted by a "clothed people." Columbus teaches his captive Christianity, initiating the following centuries' collision of Christianity with Native American religion and spirits.The Ta no stories depict both events known to have occurred (e.g., the chieftains' ascensions to power, the prophecy of genocide, the captive's baptism in Spain) and known practices or experiences (e.g., inter-island canoe travel, a hurricane, a Caribe wife raid, a batey game). The Isabella and Ferdinand stories include their establishment of the Inquisition, subjugation and Christianization of the Canary Islands, completion of the Reconquista, and expulsion of the Jews from Spain, illustrating European doctrines of conquest, enslavement, and involuntary conversion and how the sovereigns ruled over Old World peoples before encountering Native Americans. The Columbus stories portray his pre-1492 sailing experiences and the evolution of his world outlook, and his thoughts during the encounters embody the concepts underlying the European subjugation of Native Americans over the following centuries. Stark societal differences are illustrated, with the Europeans practicing African slavery and the Ta nos sharing food as communal property.A Sources section briefly discusses interpretations of historians and anthropologists contrary to the author's presentation, as well as issues of academic disagreement.The result is a gripping, personal, documented, and bicultural portrayal of the voyage that reshaped the course of world history, written at its 525th anniversary. ...Show more