Australian Dictionary of Biography Volume 2: 1788-1850, I-Z

Biographies & Memoirs

Reference & Collections

Melbourne University Publishing

For centuries the mystery of the 'Terra Australis Incognita' had attracted people of many lands and cultures. The first inhabitants, driven there by hunger and more powerful enemies, had found their way to its southernmost parts, to be left there undisturbed to develop their way of life. Then, in the search for gold and spices, for souls to convert, for new lands to conquer, others were led nearer and nearer to its shores. The long quest for a Terra Australis ended in the coming of European civilization to Austral-Asia."

A History of Australia: From the Earliest Times to the Age of Macquarie

History

Clark, Manning

Australia & Oceania

This third volume takes the story of Australia to the momentous discovery of gold and the separation of Victoria from New South Wales. The story is one of destruction as well as construction, the destruction of the Aborigines and the construction of an essentially English bourgeois society and the taming of an alien and seemingly sterile land along the coastal country. 
This is not a general Australian history and it is not a definitive or quantitative analysis. It is a work of art, a living and breathing account of the remaking of a primitive continent, history come alive.

A History of Australia, Vol. III : The Beginning of an Australian Civilization 1824-1851

Since 1966 the Australian Dictionary of Biography has provided Australians with concise, informative and fascinating descriptions of prominent men and women of this country who contributed their vision and energies to a growing nation.

Australian Dictionary of Biography Volume 5: 1851-1890: K-Q

Pike, Douglas

The late Manning Clark aims to bring to attention the foibles and strengths in every person, traits forced to the fore in the hardship and trauma that occured during the establishment and develpment of white settlement in Australia. Clark sets out to use the tragedies and successes of national heroes such as explorerers and generals, and those of the average person such as soldiers at Gallipoli and farmer's wives, to create a memorable tableau.

A History of Australia, Vol. 5: The People Make Laws 1888-1915

C. M. H. Clark

This is the authoritative account of one of the longest and most important surveying cruises of the golden age of world hydrography. This voyage of HMS Herald, under the command of Henry Mangles Denham, encompassed much of the South-west Pacific and substantial parts of the Australian coast. From 1852 to 1861, the Herald surveyed and charted known land masses and suspected hazards, thereby establishing safe routes for shipping. That some of these charts are still in use is testimony to the accuracy and skill of those who created them. Commander David makes extensive use of the journals of Denham and his officers to describe mid-nineteenth-century techniques of surveying and charting, often undertaken in hazardous conditions. His book also provides an unusual and often entertaining view of the difficulties experienced in field work. The collection of natural history specimens, another part of the Herald's task, resulted in significant additions to British collections. Botanical and ornithological discoveries are described using current nomenclature, and the habits of some species now threatened or extinct are examined through the journals of the Ship's scientists. The South-west Pacific at the time of Denham's voyages was simulataneously a mission field, a site of commercial activity, and a colonial outpost. The accounts of the Herald's contact with native peoples are enriched by detailed descriptions of cultural practices, and give an insight into the complex and often uneasy relationships between colonial officials, missionaries and natives. Almost a decade's voyaging brought the ship and her crew to remote and inhospitable locations, threatened them with storms, disease, hunger and illness, and separated them from home and families. It also earned for them a lasting place in the history of maritime surveying.

Voyage of HMS Herald: To Australia and the South-west Pacific 1852-1861 under the command of Captain Henry Mangles Denham (Miegunyah Press Series, 2nd Ser., No. 3)

DAVID, Andrew

Travel

Daniel Mannix: The Quality of Leadership

B.A. Santamaria

Many people need a better understanding of the formation, classification, properties and fertility of soils - specifically Australian soils. Soil science, once restricted to schools of agricultural science and horticulture, now reaches out to secondary and tertiary students of ecology, geography and environmental science, to people concerned with natural resource management, to farmers - even to the home gardener. This comprehensive, interesting and readable book is not just another textbook. It is an institution. First published in 1948, Professor Leeper's book became, in the course of four editions, the bible in its field. Inevitably it dated - but nothing of comparable quality replaced it. Dr Nick Uren has updated the bible. His revision includes substantive work on the theoretical underpinnings of major soil properties, conversion to standardized units, new and revised illustrations and tables. Most importantly, the book now better encompasses the whole of Australia. As each country has its own soils and usually its own scheme of soil classification, the textbooks of other countries have limited usefulness here. Now, again, we have our own. Its staying qualities are proven. As an introduction to soils, there is simply nothing to match it.

Soil Science: An Introduction

Engineering & Transportation

Leeper, G.W.

Uren, N.C.

Engineering

The first dozen years of European settlement of Australia are fixed in our minds by powerful images raised from an incomplete historical record. Alan Frost, after collecting a greatly expanded range of documents from archives around the world, sets the record straight. The images he challenges are immediately familiar and include overcrowded and unhealthy English prison hulks, hasty decisions based on overly optimistic assessment of the land's fertility, a poorly equipped and managed First Fleet, subsequent neglect by Britain, callous treatment of Aborigines, and the opportunistic and aberrant use of the notion of terra nullius.

Botany Bay Mirages: Illusions of Australia's Convict Beginnings

Frost, Alan

In 1962, the first volume of Manning Clark's "A History of Australia" appeared. For the next two-and-a-half decades Clark unfolded his tragic celebration of white Australian history. Today, the six-volume history is one of the masterpieces of Australian literature. It is also one of the most passionately debated visions of Australian history. Clark's Australians are men and women of lively goodwill and deep sinfulness, of generous idealism and unthinking brutality. He dramatizes the motivating forces of Australian life - cowardice and vision, cruelty and defiance, greatness of spirit and the spiritual vacuity of the suburbs - all of them locked in the unceasing struggle which builds a nation. Michael Cathcart has re-orchestrated Clark's epic narrative in this single volume. Every page of this abridgement rings with Manning Clark's voice. Here, at last, the general reader can encounter the deep resonances, pessimism and passion of Manning Clark - Australian historian and prophet. Michael Cathcart is co-author of "Mission to the South Seas: the Voyage of the Duff" and author of "Defending the National Tuckshop", a study of conservative responses to the Great Depression.

A History of Australia

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