Download or read book Rise and Fall of Australia The written by Nick Bryant and published by Random House Australia. This book was released on 2015 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A forensic look at the Lucky Country, from the inside and outside. Never before has Australia enjoyed such economic, commercial, diplomatic and cultural clout. Its recession-proof economy is the envy of the world. It's the planet's great lifestyle superpower. Its artistic exports win unprecedented acclaim. But never before has its politics been so brutal, narrow and facile, as well as being such a global laughing stock. A positive national story is at odds with a deeply unattractive Canberra story. The country should be enjoying The Australian Moment, so vividly described by the best-selling author George Megalogenis. But that description may turn out to be inadvertently precise. It could end up being just that: a fleeting moment. At present the country seems to be in speedy regression, with the nation's leaders, on both sides, mired in relatively small problems, such as the arrival of boat people, rather than mapping out a larger and more inspiring national future. In The Rise and Fall of Australia, BBC correspondent and author Nick Bryant offers an outsider's take on the great paradox of modern-day Australian life: of how the country has got richer at a time when its politics have become more impoverished. In this thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking book, dealing with politics, racism, sexism, the country's place in the region and the world, culture and sport, the author argues that Australia needs to discard the out-dated language used to describe itself, to push back against Lucky Country thinking, to celebrate how the cultural creep has replaced the cultural cringe and to stop negatively typecasting itself. Rejecting most of the national stereotypes, Nick Bryant sets out to describe the new Australia rather than the mythic country so often misunderstood not just by foreigners but Australians themselves.
Download or read book A Coveted Possession written by Michael Atherton and published by Black Inc.. This book was released on 2018-07-02 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intriguing cultural history of the piano in Australia From the instruments that floated ashore at Sydney Cove in the late eighteenth century to the resurrection of derelict heirlooms in the streets of twenty-first-century Melbourne, A Coveted Possession tells the curious story of Australia’s intimate and intrepid relationship with the piano. It charts the piano’s fascinating adventures across Australia – on the goldfields, at the frontlines of war, in the manufacturing hubs of the Federation era, and in the hands of the makers, entrepreneurs, teachers and virtuosos of the twentieth history – to illuminate the many worlds in which the ivories were tinkled. Before electricity brought us the gramophone, the radio and eventually the TV, the piano was central to family and community life. With its iron frame, polished surfaces and ivory keys, an upright piano in the home was a modern industrial machine, a musical instrument and a treasured member of the household, conveying powerful messages about class, education, leisure, national identity and intergenerational history. ‘Michael Atherton cleverly weaves visual, sensual and sonic elements into the piano’s sociocultural history, adding a rich layer to our knowledge of the piano in Australia.’ —Professor Julia Horne, historian
Download or read book The Story of Australia s People written by Geoffrey Blainey and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2015-02-25 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vast continent of Australia was settled in two main streams, far apart in time and origin. The first came ashore some 50,000 years ago when the islands of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea were one. The second began to arrive from Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. Each had to come to terms with the land they found, and each had to make sense of the other. The long Aboriginal occupation of Australia witnessed spectacular changes. The rising of the seas isolated the continent and preserved a nomadic way of life, while agriculture was revolutionising other parts of the world. Over millennia, the Aboriginal people mastered the land's climates, seasons and resources. Traditional Aboriginal life came under threat the moment Europeans crossed the world to plant a new society in an unknown land. That land in turn rewarded, tricked, tantalised and often defeated the new arrivals. The meeting of the two cultures is one of the most difficult and complex meetings in recorded history. In this book Professor Geoffrey Blainey returns first to the subject of his celebrated works on Australian history, Triumph of the Nomads (1975) and A Land Half Won (1980), retelling the story of our history up until 1850 in light of the latest research. He has changed his view about vital aspects of the Indigenous and early British history of this land, and looked at other aspects for the first time. Compelling, groundbreaking and brilliantly readable, The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia is the first instalment of an ambitious two-part work, and the culmination of the lifework of Australia's most prolific and wide-ranging historian. 'Absorbing and important ... the first volume of an ambitious work on the peopling of this continent from its human origins to our own day...bold, rich, wise, authioritative and questioning.' Peter Stanley, The Age 'The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia situates pre-invasion Aboriginal society as a triumphant culture with much to celebrate.' John Maynard, The Age 'Blainey has produced a book that all Australians could and, dare I say it, should read . . . I very much look forward to the next instalment of his bold, rich, wise, wry, authoritative and questioning trilogy.' Canberra Times 'This is the real story of Australia, at last.' Courier Mail 'Blainey delivers a brilliant narrative on Australia's settlement.' Australian Geographic
Download or read book The Australian Disease written by Richard Flanagan and published by Black Inc.. This book was released on 2015-09-23 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Non-freedom to the Western mind is inevitably linked with images of backwardness – Soviet tractors, East German Trabants, Kim Jong Il’s haircut. But non-freedom these days is also iPads, iPhones and a dazzling array of less iconic but ubiquitous consumer goods that flood our stores, our homes and which increasingly are used to define our ideas of worth and happiness. It is a full-lipped smile achieved with the aid of collagen made from skin flensed from dead Chinese convicts. The Australian Disease is Richard Flanagan’s perceptive, hilarious, searing exposé of the conformity that afflicts our public life. From Weary Dunlop to Vassily Grossman, from David Hicks to Craig Thomson, Flanagan takes us on a wildly entertaining and unsettling trip. If we are to find hope, he says, we must take our compass more from ourselves and less from the powerful.
Download or read book The Hitler Club written by Gary Gumpl and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the situation of the German-descended population in and around Adelaide and the Barossa before, during and after the Second World War, with particular attention paid to the life and story of Johannes Becker, who was an organiser for the Nazi Party in Australia, and was interred during and deported after the war.
Download or read book There Goes the Neighbourhood written by Michael Wesley and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2011 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time in history, Australia will be uncomfortably close to the designs and demarches of competing great powers. In the years ahead, we will no longer be too small to make a difference. In his book, Wesley points to the key economic and political issues that we need to be considering right now, as a western country geographically and economically tied to Asia, and urgently calls for a renewed public engagement and debate.
Download or read book The Rise And Fall of Athens written by Plutarch and published by Random House. This book was released on 2024-02-29 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plutarch traces the fortunes of Athens through nine lives - from Theseus, its founder, to Lysander, its Spartan conqueror - in this seminal work What makes a leader? For Plutarch the answer lay not in great victories, but in moral strengths. In these nine biographies, taken from his Parallel Lives, Plutarch illustrates the rise and fall of Athens through nine lives, from the legendary days of Theseus, the city's founder, through Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias and Alcibiades, to the razing of its walls by Lysander. Plutarch ultimately held the weaknesses of its leaders responsible for the city's fall. His work is invaluable for its imaginative reconstruction of the past, and profound insights into human life and achievement. This edition of Ian Scott-Kilvert's seminal translation, fully revised with a new introduction and notes by John Marincola, now also contains Plutarch's attack on the first historian, 'On the Malice of Herodotus'.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Australian Democrats written by Bev Floyd and published by Boolarong Press. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the account of a Democrat insider; one who was both a woman and a Queensland President. Its focus on Queensland makes very interesting reading for those of us who shared the experiences.
Download or read book Boganaire written by Paddy Manning and published by Black Inc.. This book was released on 2013-11-18 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From blue collar to billionaire ... Hunter Valley mine electrician Nathan Tinkler borrowed big in 2005, made a fortune from several speculative coal plays, and by 2011 was a self-made billionaire. He had gambled and won, but his volatility and reluctance to pay his debts were making him enemies. He lived the high life as only a young man would, buying luxury homes, private jets, sports cars and football teams, and splurging massively to build a horseracing empire. But Tinkler’s dreams had extended beyond even his resources, and his business model worked only in a rising market. When coal prices slumped in 2012, Tinkler had no cash flow to service his massive borrowings and no allies to help him recover. Within months he was trying desperately to stave off his creditors, large and small, and fighting to save his businesses and his fortune. In this impressive new biography, leading business writer Paddy Manning tells the story of Tinkler’s meteoric rise to wealth, and captures the drama of his equally rapid downfall.
Download or read book Anxious Nation written by David Robert Walker and published by University of Queensland Press(Australia). This book was released on 1999 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the late nineteenth century the Asianisation of Australia has sparked anxious comment. The great catchcries of the day . . the awakening East., . the yellow peril., . populate or perish. . had a direct bearing on how Australians viewed their future. Anxious Nation provides a full and fascinating account of Australia's complex engagement with Asia. Published by the University of Queensland Press in association with the Australian Studies Centre at the University of Queensland and the Journal of Australian Studies. "A thorough and entertaining summation of the discourse between Australia and Asia and an excellent primer, a sweeping but considered overview of the cultural influences that continue to dictate many aspects of that discourse." --John Shaumer, "The Age" "Was Australia destined to be European, Asian or Aboriginal? This book impressively combines the personal and the political; it makes sense of spatial and racial anxieties by exploring Australians' broader sense of their region. Drawing on history, science and literature, David Walker tells of Australia's real and imagined encounters with Asia. He provides us with a deep perspective on our current debates overpopulation, environmental limits, multiculturalism and the legitimacy of Australian settlement. This is a searching history of ideas and intrigue that probes the political and literary dimensions of blood, heat, sun, nerves, sex and dreams. Feverish fears and imaginings are reviewed with sensitivity and cool eloquence." --Tom Griffiths, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU
Download or read book Triumph of the Nomads written by Geoffrey Blainey and published by Springer. This book was released on 1976-06-18 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Cardinal written by Louise Milligan and published by Melbourne Univ. Publishing. This book was released on 2019-03-28 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2018 Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most powerful Catholic, was found guilty of five sexual crimes against children and sentenced to six years’ jail. He was the most senior Catholic figure in the world to be charged by police and convicted of child sex offences. George Pell was a Ballarat boy who studied at Oxford and rose through the Catholic Church ranks to become adviser to Pope Francis and Vatican treasurer. He was expelled from the Pope’s inner circle. As an outspoken defender of Church orthodoxy, supported and championed by the powerful, Pell’s ascendancy was seemingly unstoppable. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse brought to light horrific stories about abuse of the most vulnerable. Pell portrayed himself as the first man in the Catholic Church to tackle the problem. But questions about what the Cardinal knew, and when, persisted. Louise Milligan pieces together decades of disturbing activities highlighting Pell’s actions and cover-ups. The book is a testament to the most intimate stories of complainants. Many people entrusted their secrets to be told here for the first time. Multi-award winning Cardinal reveals uncomfortable truths about a culture of entitlement, abuse of trust and how ambition can silence evil.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of One Nation written by Michael Leach and published by Univ. of Queensland Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Launched with the enthusiasm and support of many thousands of Australians, the One Nation party gave expression to the anger and disenchantment of voters drawn to Pauline Hanson's views on race, immigration and national identity. In this landmark study, scholars in political and social research bring into focus the character and origins of One Nation; its organisation and right-wing links; the unprecedented role of an influential minor party in state parliament; and its indelible impact upon Australian political life. In particular this timely new book analysis One Nation's electoral failure in the 1998 federal and the subsequent NSW elections, and its subsequent deregistration and investigation for fraud. There is a key chapter on Aboriginal Australia written from the Murri perspective, while other chapters offer up intriguing social commentary on the wider issues of an Australian political populism; national identity; and the impact of globalisation.
Download or read book 100 Years written by Paul Kelly and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2001-03-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the forthcoming 5-part television series 100 Years: The Australian Story, this is an exploration of who we are as a nation, where we have come from and where we are going, by one of Australia's most respected political and economic commentato.
Download or read book When America Stopped Being Great written by Nick Bryant and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Nick Bryant is brilliant. He has a way of showing you what you've been missing from the whole story whilst never leaving you feeling stupid.' – Emily Maitlis 'Bryant is a genuine rarity, a Brit who understands America' – Washington Post In When America Stopped Being Great, veteran reporter and BBC New York correspondent Nick Bryant reveals how America's decline paved the way for Donald Trump's rise, sowing division and leaving the country vulnerable to its greatest challenge of the modern era. Deftly sifting through almost four decades of American history, from post-Cold War optimism, through the scandal-wracked nineties and into the new millennium, Bryant unpacks the mistakes of past administrations, from Ronald Reagan's 'celebrity presidency' to Barack Obama's failure to adequately address income and racial inequality. He explains how the historical clues, unseen by many (including the media) paved the way for an outsider to take power and a country to slide towards disaster. As Bryant writes, 'rather than being an aberration, Trump's presidency marked the culmination of so much of what had been going wrong in the United States for decades – economically, racially, politically, culturally, technologically and constitutionally.' A personal elegy for an America lost, unafraid to criticise actors on both sides of the political divide, When America Stopped Being Great takes the long view, combining engaging storytelling with recent history to show how the country moved from the optimism of Reagan's 'Morning in America' to the darkness of Trump's 'American Carnage'. It concludes with some of the most dramatic events in recent memory, in an America torn apart by a bitterly polarised election, racial division, the national catastrophe of the coronavirus and the threat to US democracy evidenced by the storming of Capitol Hill.
Download or read book The Rise The Fall and The Rise written by Brix Smith Start and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise is the extraordinary story, in her own words, of Brix Smith Start. Best known for her work in The Fall at the time when they were perhaps the most powerful and influential anti-authoritarian postpunk band in the world -- This Nation's Saving Grace, The Weird and Frightening World Of ... -- Brix spent ten years in the band before a violent disintegration led to her exit and the end of her marriage with Mark E Smith. But Brix's story is much more than rock n roll highs and lows in one of the most radically dysfunctional bands around. Growing up in the Hollywood Hills in the '60s in a dilapadated pink mansion her life has taken her from luxury to destitution, from the cover of the NME to waitressing in California, via the industrial wasteland of Manchester in the 1980s. What emerges is a story of constant reinvention, jubilant highs and depressive ebbs; a singular journey of a teenage American girl on a collision course with English radicalism on her way to mid-life success on tv and in fashion. Too bizarre, extreme and unlikely to exist in the pages of fiction, The Rise, The Fall and The Rise could only exist in the pages of a memoir.
Download or read book Fairfax The Rise and Fall written by Colleen Ryan and published by Melbourne Univ. Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: COLLEEN RYAN gives the definitive account of the fate of Fairfax. It is the story of greedy media moguls, angry and ambitious politicians, foolhardy heirs and heiresses, zealous journalists, muddling management and the rise of digital media. The once-mighty Fairfax has been a victim of them all. A drama-filled saga that reveals how far Fairfax has fallen.
