Product Description
· Includes more than fifty illustrations, including color pictures of each Australian species, their bowers, displays and distributional maps

The bowerbirds (family Ptilonorhynchidae) are famed for their unique bower-building behavior. In some species, the bower can be a complex construction of sticks and other vegetable matter that can grow to two meters in diameter and one-and-a-half meters high. Many species are also accomplished mimics, and are able to copy the calls of other bird species, other natural and mechanical sounds and even human speech.

The bowerbirds are confined to Australia and New Guinea and, due to the difficulty in accessing certain areas of their distribution, the study of their habits has been challenging. The twenty existing species are almost equally divided between the two regions, with eight species endemic to Australia, ten to New Guinea and two species occurring in both.

Bowerbirds condenses the published knowledge acquired by ornithologists that have studied the bowerbirds since their discovery, in a format that will suit natural history enthusiasts at any level. While the emphasis of the book is on Australian members of the family, with detailed accounts on each of the ten species, the New Guinea representatives are discussed in general chapters and are included in a supplemental section that covers key areas such as breeding, identification and distribution. ... Read more

Product Description
· Learn about your pet!

Cockatoos are large, intelligent and attractive birds. Of the twenty-one recognized species, fourteen occur in Australia, with three of these also found in New Guinea. Seven species are distributed across the islands of south-east Asia. While many species are common or abundant, an increasing number face extinction due to habitat loss, the illegal bird trade and global warming.

Extensively illustrated, Cockatoos looks at the ecology and conservation of these iconic birds, including their evolution, distribution, feeding and reproduction. It examines the pest status of cockatoos, the impact of the illegal bird trade and the role played by aviculturists in cockatoo conservation programs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Packed cover to cover with full color photographs and plenty of scientific information
Filling the skies of Australia, cockatoos have long captured human imagination. "Cockatoos" is another entry into the Australian Natural History series, discussing this indigenous bird that battles extinction in the modern day. Tracing the story of the cockatoo from its earliest history to modern conservation efforts, "Cockatoos" is packed cover to cover with full color photographs and plenty of scientific information, making it an absolute must for bird lovers.
... Read more

Product Description
This imaginative and resonant book looks at the constitution as a cultural artifact. Irving looks beyond the well-known events, places and figures to locate federation and the constitution in the context of broader social, political and cultural changes. Despite its paradoxical construction, there is something uniquely Australian about the constitution, and it marked a utopian moment as the old century gave way to the new. Irving analyzes the background and outcomes of the recent Constitutional Convention and considers its significance for Australia's future. A new chapter covers the development of the constitution in the twentieth century. ... Read more

Product Description
American Association of Neurologists. A history of clinical neurology in Australia, tracing the last 50 years. Outlines the advancements in both science and technology from Australia's days of colonial dependence on Britain to the high standards for practice and research of today. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing’s Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
This is a complete history of the experience of childhood in Australia. It explores changing patterns of child-rearing and schooling, the care of children, their games, toys and leisure, their work, distinctions based on class, gender and race. It deals with child poverty and health through history, and changing adult perceptions of childhood and adolescence. It is a readable social history of the hcild which also fills a gap in Australian historiography. ... Read more

Product Description
Today Australia has the oldest living crickets, lacewings, beetles, ants, and the only silent cicadas in the world. While these ancestral forms have disappeared from other continents, they have hung on in Australia, maintaining their close associations with the native plants and animals. Australian Insects contains over 300 full-color photographs and detailed illustrations along with an informative text that covers the natural history, life cycles, habits and habitats of insects, as well as giving an overview of all the insect orders present in Australia. A complete chapter is devoted to the collection and observation of insects. Each insect specimen has been fully identified and photographed in its natural environment. The spectacular photographs in Australian Insects are a testament to Bert's acute observational skills and make this book a valuable asset to both professional and amateur entomologists alike. Published by New Holland Publishers, Australia. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (2)

wonderfully researched and written
This book is important and needed in the scholarship of Australian history. It traces the ways we have understood, used and abused the 'spirit of Anzac' since the end of WWI. It is a critical reading of the resurgance of Anzac Day and provides some well researched information for those willing to consider another way of viewing the 'birth of the nation'.
I am one of those who have become increasingly uncomfortable with the rhetoric of Anzac and this book has helped me to understand the reasons for that.
It is not true that the book doesn't make its case by not closely analysing the material provided by the DVA. Lake answers this criticism in the chapter directly. The incredible level of funding provided for the production of educational resources speaks volumes and is certainly worth questioning. If only more education and historical research was funded at this level!
In the end I can do no more than encourage you to read this book and make up your own mind. I think this is the beginning of a conversation Australia is well over due for.

What's wrong with 'What's wrong with Anzac'
What's Wrong With Anzac?, subtitled The Militarisation of Australian History (New South, 2010) is a new book by several Australian historians. It argues that the Anzac legend has an exaggerated and unhealthy predominance in young Australians' sense of Australian identity. This distortion is being promoted in history classrooms through the use of distorted and propagandist resources, especially those produced by the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

What's wrong with What's Wrong With Anzac? I think there are four key weakness:

* The book is presented with an ideological zeal that creates a narrow and irrational approach. It is using history to support an argument, and distorting it.
* The book distorts the reality of what is happening in history classrooms
* It distorts what we mean by `identity'. It looks at 1915 Australia, and freezes it, and says that the responses of students today to the people and events of 1915 must accept or reject those values and attitudes and characteristics. I do not agree with that. Students can discover the ugly aspects of the diggers -- the frequent racism, the occasional brutality, the contemporary attitudes to gender equality -- and reject them, while still embracing those attitudes and values that are still important and desirable in civic behaviour today -- the courage, compassion, self-sacrifice, mateship that are so often identifiable in the soldiers' own writings and actions.
* It is bad history, and weak argument.

The book's argument goes:

* Australian national identity is too much focused on the Anzac legend.
* This over-emphasis on the Anzac legend means that other key elements of national identity such as the development of democratic traditions, Indigenous people's rights, and women's equal rights, are all excluded from students' awareness.
* What is learned about the Anzac legend is a distorted, `militaristic' and romanticised idea of war.
* This distortion is caused primarily by the teaching materials sent to schools by the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA).
* These materials are created by a right-wing government to foster a conservative nationalism rather than a more socially critical one.

If this claim is true it is a very serious criticism of what is going on in history classrooms. History teachers need to look at themselves and do something about it.

I believe that it is not true, and that the writers have no idea of what is happening in classrooms. It is a polemical ideological work, not a valuable contribution to historical or educational understanding.

The first five chapters provide some historical discussion of various elements of the development of the Anzac tradition or legend. Each chapter has something to offer, though usually nothing new or compelling, and nothing that has not been argued better elsewhere.

Now we come to the main chapter, written by Professor Marilyn Lake, asking `How do schoolchildren learn about the spirit of Anzac?'. This is the chapter that is designed to show how DVA materials are creating the `militarisation of history' in our classrooms.

Lake's assertion is that a `veritable tidal wave', a `torrent', a `bombardment' of DVA education resources (four of which I have written over the last five years) are militaristic propaganda created by the evil John Howard to promote his vision of a reactionary nationalism and disarm progressive thought and social action. Her claim is that, through the DVA materials, `History has been appropriated in Australia for militarist purposes and comprehensively re-written in the process . . . The relentless militarisation of Australian history has effectively marginalised other stories, different historic sites and other conceptions of national values.' (page 138)

How does she support this? She lists DVA resources and other government programs (many of them from Labor Governments, by the way). And, undoubtedly, there have been a lot.

So a historian would say: `Let's analyse these resources, and find out what ideas about war and the Anzacs they actually present. What are these resources doing, how are they creating this relentless militarisation?' Sounds like a reasonable approach -- I just wish Lake had done this.

Does Lake describe these resources to the reader? No. So most readers who will not have any ideas what these resources are like will remain in ignorance, being carried along by Lake's implied representation of them.

Does Lake show how the resources present a militaristic or romantic view of war? She does not. Does she offer any critical analysis of the resources? Not a word. She does not say one specific thing about the educational nature of the contents of any of the materials she condemns-- except, very strangely, to quote their description by the DVA as being written by `professional history educators . . . employed to produce state-of-the-art materials that would make school teachers' preparation of lessons so much easier' (page 150), and using `State-of-the-art enquiry-based methodologies . . . equipping students for life-long learning'. (page 148), I'm sorry -- can you please explain to me how this is a bad thing?

Does she show how the resources stifle debate? No. Does she discuss the inquiry-based approach of the resources, and show how they in fact only pretend to encourage student inquiry, but in fact are subtle and effective propaganda? Not done. Does she show how many of these resources are actually used in the classroom? No figures given, nothing said about it. Does she discuss what other resources are available, and how they are used? No. Not at all.

How's that for a strong and persuasive and informed approach! How can you say that the DVA resources are `militarising our history in schools' (page 137) when you do not analyse them in any way, and do not consider any other possible classroom influences?

Ah, but she does quote from Anna Clark's study History's Children. Evidence at last! Clark interviewed hundreds of students and teachers about their history education experiences in the classroom. Lake quotes Clark expressing surprise at how many children `now assume a "militarised national identity" is "intrinsically Australian".' Clark certainly does say that in the first half of her analysis of Anzac in schools, and also that she was `concerned that these lessons were generating nationalist sentiment rather than "historical understanding".' (page 137) And we could all agree that this is an important concern. But, surprise, surprise, she does not go on to quote Clark's equal emphasis in the second half of the same chapter, that many students and teachers are critically analysing the Anzac legend, looking to decide for themselves what it means and if it is appropriate. Selective quoting does not make for a convincing argument, and is not, I would say, good historical method.

Nor is anonymous quoting. Here is Lake: `Many school teachers are concerned at the way in which the militarisation of Australian history has come to dominate the curriculum' -- no footnote, no evidence given, no source for this information, no names quoted, and no analysis of who studies what in history classes, or even what is required in the curriculum. Yet these anonymous teachers `are acutely aware of their dependence on the extensive resources now supplied by the DVA'! Dependence! Come on, is Lake suggesting that there are no other educational resources on Australia and the wars that teachers can use? If so, she is being terribly gullible! I suggest she looks at the catalogue of any major publisher's website and looks at their range of history text books. Look also at the way they represent war and the Anzacs, and she will not find the mindless romanticisation that she says is in students' minds as they walk out of their classrooms.

She will also, by doing this, realise the ridiculousness of her claim that the areas she would like to see more emphasised, `Australia's pioneering achievements in building a democratic society and a welfare state, in extending equal rights to women and Indigenous Australians, in fostering multiculturalism and racial equality' (page 156), are not being addressed in classrooms. They are in fact very well covered in these same texts, and in ways that she would find compatible with her own agenda. Yet she claims these areas are being `silenced' by the DVA resources -- presumably the wars are all that are taught every year! Look at the curriculum documents, Professor Lake!

Let's finish by considering the implications of what Lake is saying. If these propagandist DVA resources are flooding classrooms, corrupting the students, creating little Hitler Youth (or Howard Youth), suppressing independent thought, and pushing Indigenous Australians, women and democrats out of the curriculum -- then who is overseeing this? Teachers! Teachers, you are either complicit in encouraging this, or so dumb that you cannot see what sort of lessons you are giving. That is the logic of Lake's claim.

Of course we need to be worried about those students who glorify war and romanticise the Anzacs. Of course we need to teach the reality of war. Of course we need to see other historical influences in what we choose as part of our national identity. That's why the DVA produces the materials, to counter ignorance, distortion and unthinking and uncritical acceptance of ideas about war and the Anzacs and Australian identity.

The DVA materials she criticises include much primary source material on the realities of war, the existence of racism and sexism among troops, the existence of brutality and of self-inflicted wounds, the physical and mental pain that endures long after war's end. And, all this and more is presented in a way that asks students to think for themselves, to come to informed and balanced conclusions of their own. Readers can see these evil DVA educational resources for themselves at [...] and make their own critical evaluation of them. Lake does not seem to see the qualities of the resources that I believe are there, the blinkers of her ideology are just too narrowing.

Lake, when challenged with this claim that she is knowingly and deliberately misrepresenting the nature of the DVA resources in constructing her argument, says that we critics are `missing the point'. She says the real criticism is that the DVA should not be sending any resources out, it's not about the quality of the resources. Her point about the role of a government department in developing classroom resources can be debated, but she is being disingenuous in saying that she is not really criticising the materials themselves. Her argument clearly is that there is a direct connection between what is happening in schools and the primacy of the DVA resources as the agency of those events. She makes the argument, it is the whole basis of her chapter, she cannot say she is being misrepresented or misunderstood.

How do schoolchildren learn about the spirit of Anzac? Don't look to this book or to Lake for an answer, she doesn't know. I suggest it's better to start with Anna Clark, who looked at students' attitudes (though not the resources that can produce them), and wrote:

'As kids flock to honour Australia's wartime history, their growing commemoration of the Anzac Legend in the classroom needs to be accommodated -- but it needs to be done so that their historical understanding is expanded rather than limited to any simplistic or uncontested national narrative, especially when so many students are interested in Australia's place in the world. This doesn't mean we should reject icons such as the Anzacs, for they are powerful markers in Australia's past. But we do require space for these national narratives to be discussed critically in class. So long as there's social and political pressure to define our national character, surely the best way for students to deal with contrasting ideas about Australian history and identity is to bring the discussion into the classroom. That way they can actually contribute to the debate itself.'

There speaks a good approach to teaching history, and the DVA resources seek to support that, rather than negate it. ... Read more

Product Description
The 1890s in Australia were a time of social and industrial upheaval. They also nurtured a flourishing radical culture: anarchists, socialists, single taxers, feminists and republicans. This book, informed by feminist and cultural studies, recreates that political and social vision and shows the radicals' influence, and their resonances in the 1990s. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume examines the military obligation of government during the first century of the Commonwealth of Australia.During this time, the defense has endured two world wars as well as a series of other military engagements.Although the reputation of military has become a significant factor in the lives and views of Australians, the topic rarely receives public interest.This book explains the complexities of this essential strand of the Commonwealth. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Another good Australian Centenary History
This a well written book covering the Royal Australian Air Force
from its origins as the Australian Flying Corps in World War 1 to
2001. The author expresses forthright opinions on politicians and
on senior RAAF officers.
As regards World War 2 he emphasises the significant contribution
made by Australian aircrew to the allied bomber offensive against
Germany and stresses the very high casuality rate.
He discusses the main aircraft types used by the force.
There are good photographs of significant players and aircraft.
All in all a most interesting book ... Read more

Product Description
Australians are surrounded by beaches. But this enclosure is more than a geographical fact for the inhabitants of an island continent; the beach is an integral part of the cultural envelope. This work analyzes the history of the beach as an integral aspect of Australian culture. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description

Product Description
Many of the elements ascribed to traditional Aboriginal beliefs and practices are the result of contact with external peoples--Melanesians and Indonesians, as well as Europeans.This controversial and provocative book is the first detailed and continent-wide study of the impact of outsiders on Australian Aboriginal worldviews.The author separates out a common core of religious belief that1111 precontact spirituality of Australian Aborigines more concerned with place than with any philosophy of time or origins.A Place for Strangers investigates Aboriginal myth, ritual, cosmology and philosophy, and also examines social organization, subsistence patterns and cultural change. It will be of great interest to readers in anthropology, religious studies, comparative philosophy, Aboriginal studies and Australian history. ... Read more

Product Description
Now, for the first time, Australian crime fiction's lurid and elusive past is exposed. Over nearly two hundred years, hundreds of authors and thousands of stories have created a unique national crime fiction.

No other country's writers are so likely to sympathise with the criminals, or find the police a thoroughly threatening presence.Stephen Knight's unique and sophisticated study shows that this fiction explores criminal disorder in distinctly national terms.The goldfields mystery, the Aboriginal detective, the glamorous lesbian cop and the post-modern puzzle all reveal distinctive aspects of Australianness. ... Read more

Product Description
This work interprets Australia's economic experience as a process of mastering a constantly changing risk environment. It begins by focusing on the aboriginal experience and progresses through to current attitudes, institutions, and patterns of development--showing how they have been shaped by Australia's risk environment. ... Read more

Product Description
Blackfellas' Point lies on the Towamba River in southeastern New South Wales in Australia. As the river descends rapidly from its source, it winds its way through state forest, national park and farming land. Around twenty-five kilometres before it reaches the sea, it passes through Towamba, the small village in which Mark McKenna now owns eight acres of land. Mark's land looks across the river to 'Blackfellas' Point', once an Aboriginal camping ground and meeting place.

Looking for Blackfellas' Point is a history that begins by looking across the river to the arc of bush that is 'Blackfellas' Point. From there, Mark McKenna's gaze pans out--from the history of one place he knows intimately, to the history of one region, and, ultimately, to the history of Australia's quest for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Looking for Blackfella's Point? You will be disappointed.
The writing style of the author can be described in one word - turgid.

It is a very plodding book that waffles along and doesn't really go anywhere.

Written by an historian with little sense of either prose or purpose.

Not very good. ... Read more

Product Description
Elena Govor has given voice to a part of Australian cultural history that until now has been silent. Extraordinarily, it was men born in the former Russian Empire that constituted the most numerous group in the First Australian Imperial Force, after those of Anglo or Celtic background – almost one thousand Russian Anzacs. This book is a history of Russian multiethnic communities in Australia, and passionately rediscovers ties, formerly severed, between the children and grandchildren of Russian Anzacs and their Russian past. ... Read more

Product Description
This exceptional volume presents a detailed account of kinship and marriage in an Australian Aboriginal community on the island of Mornington in Northern Queensland. Employing case histories to demonstrate the reasons and counter-reasons that the elders advance for accepting or rejecting proposed marriages, it documents the fundamental changes that occurred in the late 1960s. David McKnight traces how, under the hegemony of the Presbyterian missionaries, young people began to identify with the European Australian world and eventually succeeded in defying the authority of the elders, seeking to marry according to their own inclination. What appears to have been a simple matter of personal choice turned out to have devastating social consequences. The volume is the result of the author's numerous field trips to the island over the past 35 years and what amounts to over five years of living with the Mornington Islanders. ... Read more