History : Australia & Oceania

A groundbreaking history of convicts in Australia which lays bare the distortions and myths that caused the nation to deny its own past. more...

Price: $27.99

The inaugural winner of The Iremonger Award for Writing on Public Issues, this is a provocative exploration of urbanised Australia and a passionate plea for the suburbs to be given their rightful place in Australia's public consciousness. more...

Price: $19.95

Graham Huggan presents a revisionist account of the history of Australian literature, in which contemporary ideas taken from postcolonial criticism and critical race theory are used to inform fresh readings of this outstanding and sometimes deeply unsettling national literature whose writers and readers belong just as unmistakably to the wider world. - ;The Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures series offers stimulating and accessible introductions to definitive topics and key genres and regions within the rapidly diversifying field of postcolonial literary studies in English. In a provocative contribution to the series, Graham Huggan presents fresh readings of an outstanding, sometimes deeply unsettling national literature whose writers and readers just as unmistakably belong to the wider world. Australian literature is not the unique province of Australian readers and critics; nor is its exclusive task to provide an internal commentary on changing national concerns. Huggan's book adopts a transnational approach, motivated by postcolonial interests, in which. contemporary ideas taken from postcolonial criticism and critical race theory are productively combined and imaginatively transformed. Rejecting the fashionable view that Australia is not, and never will be, postcolonial, Huggan argues on the contrary that Australian literature, like other settler. literatures, requires close attention to postcolonial methods and concerns. A postcolonial approach to Australian literature, he suggests, is more than just a case for a more inclusive nationalism; it also involves a general acknowledgement of the nation's changed relationship to an increasingly globalized world. As such, the book helps to deprovincialize Australian literary studies. Australian Literature also contributes to debates about the continuing history of racism in Australia-a history in which the nation's literature has played a constitutive role, as both product and producer of racial ten more...

Price: $75.00

The post-war period in Australian cultural history sparked critical debate over notions of nation-building, multiculturalism and internationalization. Australian Post-War Documentary Film tackles all these issues in a considered and wide-ranging analysis of government, institutional and also radical documentaries. On one level, the book is a selective history of Australian documentary film in the immediate post-war years. It also charts the rise of a progressive film culture. As a whole it is a thorough study of the international flows of film culture. Williams illustrates these themes by critiquing the key films of the era, including the seminal The Back of Beyond, often cited as the greatest Australian film of all time. Australian Post-War Documentary Film retells film history by reading these documentaries as part of a nexus of international, and particularly Australian filmic, written and dramatic texts, with close attention to textual analysis. The book will appeal to anyone interested in international cinema, the way that it theorizes the period and offers a host of international comparisons, widening its ideas to the fabric of cultural production that surrounds all art works. more...

Price: $10.00

The first volume of a unique history of Australia where people are always centre stage, from bestselling author Thomas Keneally who brings to life the vast range of characters who have formed our national story. more...

Price: $35.99