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Type: Paperback
Price: 40.00

South Flows the Pearl is a fascinating journey through the history of Chinese Australia. Taking the reader from Shanghai and the Pearl River Delta to լ�е���, Perth, Cairns, Darwin, Bendigo and beyond, it explores the struggles and successes of Chinese people in Australia since the 1850s, as told in their own words.

This unique book was written by an insider. Mavis Yen was born in Perth in 1916, the daughter of a Chinese father and an Australian mother. She lived in both countries and understood what it meant to navigate two worlds, to live through war and revolution, and to experience racial discrimination. In the 1980s she began interviewing elderly Chinese Australians, recording hours of conversations. Her intimate understanding of their languages and life experiences encouraged them to share their stories. Published here for the first time, they will change how you think about Australian history.

“This is a book that offers a new way to be Australian in this country, and casts Chinese Australians as the protagonists in their own stories… When people agree to tell their stories, they speak to the future. Whether or not we listen is up to us.” — Dr Sophie Loy-Wilson, University of լ�е���

Vendor: լ�е���
Type: Paperback
Price: 29.95

Vendor: լ�е���
Type: Paperback
Price: 50.00

For nearly a millennium, universities have searched for knowledge, understanding and truth. Internationally renowned neuro scientist, Professor Maxwell Bennett, evaluates the work of 20 of the greatest scholars in the University of լ�е���’s history and shows how this university’s search has benefited society in manifold ways.

The Search for Knowledge and Understanding demonstrates an interdisciplinary approach, as Bennett crafts short but insightful biographies of some of the most significant scholars that have worked at Australia’s oldest university over the past half century, in medicine, the life sciences, the physical sciences and the humanities and social sciences.

Bennett provides a striking account of how this particular scholarly community has flourished by nurturing scholars and allowing them with the intellectual freedom to pursue their passions. The book clarifies the notion of understanding as it holds in different disciplines and depicts the benefit the world of scholarship can have on the wider community.

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Type: DVD
Price: 24.95

Vendor: լ�е���
Type: Paperback
Price: 25.00

A wave of life stories and autobiographical narratives by Aboriginal women began in the late 1970s and gained momentum a decade later with the publication of Sally Morgan's My Place (1987), which became a bestseller. While some of the books of the first wave focused mainly (if not exclusively) on the author, Aboriginal women's life stories widened over time to include transgenerational histories of the family.

Reading Aboriginal Women's Life Stories is an important discussion of books that have shaped our understanding of contemporary Indigenous Australian literature. Anne Brewster provides an in-depth textual analysis of three key titles and situates them in relation to concepts of history, race, gender, family, storytelling and Aboriginality in modern Australia.

‘Looking back, we can recognise now what an extraordinary phenomenon these life stories are, and how they have changed understandings of Aboriginality and writing ... The return of this classic book in a new edition is a welcome reminder that Anne Brewster's careful, deeply respectful and informed approach to these writings is as necessary now as it ever was.’
Professor Gillian Whitlock FAHA

Vendor: լ�е���
Type: Paperback
Price: 50.00

This Chinese edition of the Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women, edited by Lily Xiao Hong Lee and assisted by Ms Yuk Ping Chan, is published in full Chinese characters.

This volume provides biographical information on the lives, work and significance of over 200 Chinese women whose stories have influenced Chinese culture. These women come from various backgrounds and areas of interest including literature, painting, drama, embroidery, pottery, politics, science, religion and cuisine.

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Type: Paperback
Price: 29.95

‘It’s hard to tell, hard to say, I don't know if the bush babies found me or I found the little creatures.’

May Gibbs’ stories reveal magic in the Australian bush, woven through the voices of her unique and curious characters and through her imagery and humour. It is a magic that continues to captivate generations of Australians.

In this fascinatingly detailed and well researched biography, Maureen Walsh steps into May Gibbs’ magic circle and gives us an insight into one of Australia's most treasured children’s authors.

Commencing with May's birth in middle class London, Maureen details the family's struggles upon their arrival in an unfamiliar land. While their initial encounters of the harsh Australian outback were daunting, a move to Perth brings happier times and leads to May's affinity with the bush. May Gibbs' lively spirit is brought to life with interviews, notes from May's sketchbooks and quotes from her letters and autobiographical notes.

This book is a commitment to the story of May Gibbs and, with the help of those who care for our Australian stories and bush magic, is keeping the memory of May and her characters alive.

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Type: Paperback
Price: 45.00

Lucy Osburn (1836-1891) was the founder of modern nursing in Australia who also pioneered the employment of high status professional women in public institutions. Osburn learned her vocation at Florence Nightingale's school of nursing in London, but her relationship with Nightingale was not the smooth discourse of "Victorian ladies". Godden uses extensive and frank correspondence to build an intriguing picture of life for an independent middle-class woman. Osburn's triumphs and trials in New South Wales typify the struggles the colony faced in its relations with the Mother Country, and with new roles in the workplace for women. An enthralling and enlightening read.

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Type: Paperback
Price: 45.00

Legendary media baron Sir Frank Packer was pugnacious, autocratic and always controversial. After joining forces with Labor politician E.G. Theodore to establish Australian Consolidated Press and the Women's Weekly in the 1930s, his empire grew to encompass newspapers, magazines and the Nine television network.

This absorbing biography traces the newspaper career of Frank's father R.C. Packer from Hobart and the outback to the founding of Smith's Weekly in 1919. Overshadowed by his brilliant father, Frank was an academic failure at school and a mediocre cadet reporter. Despite his own lack of promise as a journalist, Frank came to rule the Australian media landscape with an iron fist.

He was famous for his spectacular takeover bids and editorial interventions, his closeness to Prime Minister Menzies and his pitched battles with unions. A philanthropist as well as a philanderer, he bullied his staff including his sons Clyde and Kerry. In 1960s լ�е���, he jostled with the rising Rupert Murdoch for control of the country's largest newspaper market.

A keen sportsman, Frank's first successes were in the boxing ring and on the polo field. In 1962 he mounted Australia's first challenge for the America's Cup in the yacht Gretel, named after his late wife.

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Type: Paperback
Price: 30.00

Vendor: լ�е���
Type: Paperback
Price: 26.95

The year was 1945. The place was San Francisco. The topic was the world.

Ashley Hogan tells the story of a moment in human history when Australia became known for its courage and liberalism. At the conference that founded the United Nations, Australia spoke to the Great Powers on behalf of the other nations of the world with a voice that commanded universal respect. That voice belonged to Dr Herbert Vere Evatt.

Three years later, Doc Evatt's commitment to an international order that included all nations was rewarded by his election as President of the General Assembly. His belief that lasting peace could not be secured without economic and social justice flowered into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Moving in the Open Daylight is a short book about a big story. For a world that has once again become rent by inequality and war, it is an important and inspiring story.

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Type: Paperback
Price: 65.00

Vendor: լ�е���
Type: Paperback
Price: 39.95

As a poet, editor and author, Richard Appleton was driven by a love of language and ideas, and a desire that Australians might better understand their country and themselves. He wrote an incisive, accurate prose interspersed with a telling humour. This book provides fresh and valuable insights into Australia’s evolving society, politics and culture over the second half of the 20th century.

“Recollections of a Member of the լ�е��� Push is full of revelations for a Melbourne person, reminding me of a time when most Australians lived in parallel universes. Richard and I were born in the same year but he operated inside the milieu of լ�е��� libertarianism, far removed from the prim Methodism and Fabian socialism which existed, without flourishing, in Melbourne. As a Labor Party activist, Richard became increasingly frustrated by the way factions operated, and his experiences had an eerie resemblance to my own. He worked creatively in editing new editions of The Australian Encyclopaedia in which I played a tiny role as contributor, and his chapters on this project are hilarious. Richard has left a valuable and provoking memoir which I encourage you to read.”
– Barry Jones

“Philosopher and encyclopaedist Richard Appleton was a doyen of the լ�е��� Push, our most original Bohemia. For forty years, he was famed there for his debonair ways, his cigarette-holders and his dramatic Parisian car, but also for his gift of sharing friendship. The Navy’s loss was a clear gain for our culture.”
– Les Murray

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Type: Paperback
Price: 50.00

A star debater at school, Norman Haire had always wanted to be an actor. Forced to study medicine, he followed his other passion: saving the world from sexual misery. When he arrived in London in 1919 he was a poor Jewish outsider from Australia. By 1930 he had a flourishing gynaecology practice in Harley Street, a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and a country house. His parties were attended by the medical, intellectual and cultural elite.

As a prominent sexologist and a campaigner for birth control, Haire took a leading role in the world's first international conference on birth control in 1922 and organised, with Dora Russell, the World League for Sexual Reform's highly successful 1929 Congress in London. He lectured in America, Germany, France and Spain, and wrote and edited many accessible books on sex education.

In 1940 Haire returned to Australia where he attracted a loyal following, but was also hounded by the security service. The ABC Board was censured in parliament for choosing him as the key speaker in a population debate, and his weekly advice column in the magazine Woman was strongly opposed by the Catholic Church. Peter Coleman called Haire 'one of Australia's most famous freethinkers and sex reformers'. This biography pays a tribute to this tenacious, humane, witty, innovative and brave man's contribution to birth control, sexology and human rights history.

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Type: Paperback
Price: 59.95

When Archibald Liversidge first arrived at լ�е��� University in 1872 as reader in geology and assistant in the laboratory, he had about ten students and two rooms in the main building. In 1874 he became professor of geology and mineralogy and by 1879 he had persuaded the senate to open a faculty of science. He became its first dean in 1882.

In 1880 he visited Europe as a trustee of the Australian Museum and his report helped to establish the Industrial, Technological and Sanitary Museum, which formed the basis of the present Powerhouse Museum's collection. Liversidge also played a major role in the setting up of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, which held its first congress in 1888.

This book provides a fascinating history for anyone interested in Archibald Liversidge, his contribution to crystallography, mineral chemistry, chemical geology, strategic minerals policy and a wider field of colonial science.

If you are interested in this title you might also be interested in The Liversidge Research Lectures: The Royal Society of NSW Series 1931–2000 which can be viewed at

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Type: Paperback
Price: 39.95

Despite several landmarks across the state bearing his name, John Hunter, the second governor of New South Wales, remains somewhat of an enigma. His solitary, career-driven life on land and at sea was tumultuous. He went from a talented mariner to a captain responsible for the loss of the supply ship HMS Sirius in 1790, and then HMS Venerable in 1804. As a governor, he had a tough time making his mark and taking charge, and eventually failed. Upon his return to England, he went to great lengths to redeem his standing in society and succeeded in becoming an esteemed retired Vice-Admiral. His diaries, drawings and maps remain important for study of the founding of modern Australia.

Robert Barnes’ portrayal of a well-accomplished, but at times disastrously ineffective, man sheds light on his struggle to be a respected leader.