Product Description: Few years can justly be said to have transformed the earth: 1914 did.In July that year, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Britain and France were poised to plunge the world into a war that would kill or wound 37 million people, tear down the fabric of society, uproot ancient political systems and set the course for the bloodiest century in human history...read more

Product Description: A fresh look at the Murdoch scandal from award-winning investigative journalist Paul Barry.At the age of 82, Rupert Murdoch is divorcing his third wife Wendi Deng and gearing up for the toughest challenge of his life: to hand his empire on to his children...read more

Product Description: In 1854, Victorian miners fought a deadly battle under the flag of the Southern Cross at the Eureka Stockade. Though brief and doomed to fail, the battle is legend in both our history and in the Australian mind. Henry Lawson wrote poems about it, its symbolic flag is still raised, and even the nineteenth-century visitor Mark Twain called it “a strike for liberty...read more

Product Description: The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more than 100,000 instantly, mostly women, children and the elderly. Many hundreds of thousands more succumbed to their horrific injuries later, or slowly perished of radiation-related sickness...read more

Product Description: This is a comprehensive yet concise and accessible introduction to the history, role, activities and future challenges facing NATO. Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, author Jennifer Medcalf guides the reader through the complex structure of this organization...read more

Product Description: Packed with fascinating facts and insight, this book will fuel dinner party debate, and provide readers with the science and politics behind the world’s most controversial resource.Without oil, there would be no globalization, no plastic, little transport, and a global political landscape that few would recognise...read more

Product Description: The world hasn’t met with destruction on any of the long list of predicted doomsday dates, but the possibility may have got you thinking: has science created more problems than it has solved? What is the point of science at all?Geoffrey Gorham considers these questions and explores the social and ethical implications of science by linking them to issues facing scientists today: human extinction, extraterrestrial intelligence, space colonisation, and more...read more

This is the story of the three-year ordeal of the Sandakan prisoners of war―a barely known episode of unimaginable horror.After the fall of Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese conquerors transferred 2700 British and Australian prisoners to a jungle camp some eight miles inland of Sandakan, on the east coast of North Borneo. For decades after the Second World War, the Australian and British governments would refuse to divulge the truth of what happened here, for fear of traumatizing the families of the victims and enraging the people. The prisoners were broken, beaten, worked to death, thrown into bamboo cages on the slightest pretext, starved and subjected to tortures so hideous that none survived the onslaught with their minds intact, and only an incredibly resilient few managed to withstand the pain without yielding to the hated Kempei-tai, the Japanese military police. But this was only the beginning of the nightmare. In late 1944, Allied aircraft were attacking the coastal towns of Sandakan and Jesselton. To escape the bombardment, the Japanese resolved to abandon the Sandakan prison camp and move 250 miles inland to Ranau, taking the prisoners with them as slave labor, carriers, and draft horses. Their journey became known as the Sandakan Death Marches. Of the 2700 prisoners originally sent to Sandakan, only six―all of them Australians―would survive.This important and harrowing audiobook narrates the full story of Sandakan, as told through the experiences of the participants. Paul Ham has interviewed the families of survivors and the deceased, in Australia, Britain and Borneo, and consulted thousands of court documents in an effort to piece together exactly what happened to the people who suffered and died in British North Borneo, and who was responsible.

Product Description: Whether the fault of tedious teachers or hammy actors, Shakespeare is often seen as dry and impenetrable. In this fastpaced introduction, Ros King sets out to remind us of the sheer beauty and sophistication that can make Shakespeare’s works a joy for any audience...read more

They are young, they are tough, and they were the forward scouts in Australia's war against the Taliban.This is the story of the sappers, the Army engineers in Afghanistan who learned their skills from the original Australian Tunnel Rats of the Vietnam War. Like their compatriots in Vietnam, the Tunnel Rats of Afghanistan have rutted out the enemy from deep inside their caves and hideouts, have defused thousands of improvised explosive devices (the booby traps and landmines of this most recent of wars), built bridges and schools to win a war of hearts and minds, and lost mates at a greater rate than any other group of soldiers. And they, too, have returned home with the devastating baggage of war: post-traumatic stress disorder.Inspiring and action packed, this is the story of a special breed of soldier operating in a modern war against a medieval enemy. It is a story that connects the unsung heroes of Vietnam with the modern heroes of Afghanistan.

Product Description: They are young, they are tough, and they were the forward scouts in Australia's war against the Taliban.This is the story of the sappers, the Army engineers in Afghanistan who learned their skills from the original Australian Tunnel Rats of the Vietnam War...read more

Product Description: Since its inception in 1945, the United Nations has had a powerful but controversial influence on global politics. In this informative guide, Norrie MacQueen provides a clear introduction to its institutions, remit, personalities, and role in the modern world...read more