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In 1954 the empty spaces of Northern Australia represented a challenge. The need to develop this region had been expressed but the possibilities received new emphasis by the discovery of uranium and oil. In a world threatened by shortages of basic materials and food the potential production in mining, cattle agricultural crops and tropical fruits from Australia's North was a matter that demanded careful attention. This books presents an overall picture of the area at that time - its physical characteristics, the beef cattle industry, the mineral and agricultural opportunities and its transport needs while considering the political and administrative background and the social problems which inevitably arose from the occupation of vast territories by a small white population in tropical conditions and finally, the necessity of attracting men and money for developmental projects. The papers printed in this volume were delivered by acknowledged experts to the 1954 Summer School of the Australian Institute of Political Science. -
A profoundly original and thought-provoking book - a critical appraisal of the evolution of science fiction and the part it plays in society today. Intelligent and highly credible, a glimpse of a future in which science fiction has become science fact. An extraordinary blend of memoir, critical analysis of SF, utopian thinking and essays on the nature of dream and the brain, all of which come together brilliantly. Aldiss writes clearly and with conviction and though this book was written in the early 60s, this is taken into account by Aldiss himself. -
These are the REAL below-stairs stories from the time of servants, lords, ladies and the great divide between Upstairs and Downstairs. Margaret Powell - shrewd, unabashed and wickedly funny - was originally interviewed on radio in the late sixties to talk about her life as a servant and the response was so intense that it spawned a series of books of her experiences. Read about the household where she had to iron the bootlaces; the guest who kept hot potatoes in her cleavage...not to mention the gentleman who like to stroke the housemaid's curlers (!). You couldn't invent these stories. -
Author John O'Grady's (Nino Culotta) father, with no practical experience and very little money, threw up city life and became a farmer - he bought his land, worked hard, applied the latest scientific methods - and went broke. Yet O'Grady has wonderful memories of growing up on the farm near Tamworth and recounts them all here with his usual wry humour. -
A group of convicts escape from Norfolk Island in a boat. Only one survives - by killing and eating his companions en route for sustenance until he arrives on Badu Island. He takes over leadership of the natives by besting - then decapitating - the chief. The natives believe him to be the reincarnation of Wongai, friend of the gods, and accept him without question. Their acceptance is tinged with reverence when theydiscover that he is an astute war leader and knows something of agriculture. This tale of the European convict who rose to power in the 1840s as a tribal chief, is based on fact - from the ships log of the HMS Rattlesnake, captained by Owen Stanley. Billy Winn, an escaped convict from Norfolk Island, had, through a reign of terror and treachery, cowed the most fearful of all peoples - the Coral Sea headhunters. -
He was an accomplished organist and interpreter of Bach, a crusader for world peace, and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He made his philosophy of "reverence for life" an ethic for the world. The hospital he founded in Lambaréné (still in operation in present-day Gabon) is a model of what Europeans might have given to Africans throughout colonial history. But above all, Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a talented and compassionate human being. This biography probes beyond the timeworn image of Schweitzer as "the old man in the pith helmet" to reveal the philosopher, scholar, husband, father, humanitarian, and liberal rebel in a conservative church. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
The author's mother, Angela Thirkell, divorced his father when he was a child and brought him to Australia with her new husband. In his earlier memoir The Road to Gundagai he mentions that he eventually became aware of the continued existence of his real father; his second memoir, Humping My Bluey, concluded with him ready to cross the ocean to Canada in search of the man he had not seen in seventeen years. This book tells how he found his father - and how a young man discovered a great new country and homeland. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
A unique study of Vietnam from prehistory to 1972 which places the Vietnam War and Western involvement in perspective. Geography and environment have had a profound effect on Vietnamese history - the Vietnamese have had to contend with the power of neighboring China, a coastline that facilitated French conquest and mountains that divide the Red River delta in the north from the Mekong River valley in the south. Also covered is the legendary origin of the Vietnamese and their emergence before the advent of Chinese influence in the 1st century B.C.; the forces that shaped the centralised Vietnamese state during the era of independence after the expulsion of the Chinese in A.D. 939; and the century of French exploitation, during which nationalist movements arose in the north and south. -
The filming of the iconic Gone With The Wind is probably more fraught than any other film in the history of the industry. This book covers not only the infamous search for Scarlett and the ensuing battle for the role among the great Hollywood ladies, but much more: the difference between the stars and their glossy images; the magnificent manipulation of the publicity machine by Selznick; the endless efforts to get the perfect light for Scarlett's memorable "As God is my witness..." speech; costuming problems; eighteen different script-writers; five different directors. Contains previously unpublished photos and interviews with some of the cast of thousands.
