Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1761060538
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Get Book Here
Book Description
From an eccentric musical genius to an escaped convict who ended up Japan, Jim Haynes reveals some of Australia's most amazing, and sometimes unbelievable, true life stories The petty thief... who escaped Van Diemen's Land, twice, stole the government brig and set sail for Japan, where, by the Shogun's decree, all foreigners were to be executed. The world's best cricketer a champion of Aboriginal people who 'invented' Aussie Rules, survived the worst massacre of white settlers in Australia's history and killed himself with a pair of scissors. The eccentric musical genius ...who played in the greatest concert halls in the world but pushed his favourite piano stool between venues in a wheelbarrow. Over the many years Jim Haynes has spent exploring and writing about the quirkier events and people in Australia's history, he has discovered characters who have amazed, surprised and simply baffled him. This is a book about some of those men and women and their remarkable, out-of-the-ordinary and almost unbelievable lives. As he always does, Jim has discovered that there is more to the story than first meets the eye. Who knew that the first man hanged in Australia made an artefact now valued at over one million dollars? Or that an Australian swimmer was the highest-paid act on the American vaudeville circuit and the star of the first million-dollar movie ever made? And that the father of the first Australian woman to serve in parliament was hanged for murder? With a light touch, a wry eye and his gifts as a master storyteller, Jim shares the tales and adventures of a group of heroic, feisty, flawed and pioneering characters who have shaped our nation and introduced Australia to the world.
Author: Jim Haynes (Australian author and entertainer)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780369353108
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 471
Get Book Here
Book Description
From an eccentric musical genius to an escaped convict who ended up Japan, Jim Haynes reveals some of Australia's most amazing, and sometimes unbelievable, true life stories.
Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781760877620
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Get Book Here
Book Description
From an eccentric musical genius to an escaped convict who ended up Japan, Jim Haynes reveals some of Australia's most amazing, and sometimes unbelievable, true life stories
Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1761185586
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Get Book Here
Book Description
An incredible collection of true crime characters from Australia's master storyteller. The bold, the bad, and the slightly mad... Criminality, some say, is part of Australia's national identity, and in Great Australian Rascals, Rogues and Ratbags Jim Haynes profiles fifteen larger-than-life Aussie rogues - some of our greatest ne'er-do-wells from colonial times to the modern era. These stories uncover the truth and expose the myths about characters ranging from the most despicable examples of humanity, to those whose courage has to be admired and whose so-called 'crimes' were unjustly punished. This fascinating collection features felons who have sprung from Australia's underbelly since 1788, such as the infamous Kate Leigh of the razor gangs; the convict Mary Bryant, who in 1791 escaped from the Sydney penal settlement and somehow made it back to England; James Hardy Vaux, who was sent to Australia no less than three times; Henry James O'Farrell, the madman who attempted to murder Prince Alfred in Sydney in 1868; and John Leak, who was repeatedly charged with insolence, disobedience and being absent without leave in World War I - and awarded the Victoria Cross. Told with Jim's inimitable combination of history and humour, Great Australian Rascals, Rogues and Ratbags is packed with murders, mystery and miscreants: true stories of true criminals from Australia's past. 'entertaining . . . highly readable . . . you will find some genuinely amazing new facts and insights.' ArtsHub
Author: Robert Wuthnow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691210713
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Get Book Here
Book Description
How American respectability has been built by maligning those who don't make the grade How did Americans come to think of themselves as respectable members of the middle class? Was it just by earning a decent living? Or did it require something more? And if it did, what can we learn that may still apply? The quest for middle-class respectability in nineteenth-century America is usually described as a process of inculcating positive values such as honesty, hard work, independence, and cultural refinement. But clergy, educators, and community leaders also defined respectability negatively, by maligning individuals and groups—“misfits”—who deviated from accepted norms. Robert Wuthnow argues that respectability is constructed by “othering” people who do not fit into easily recognizable, socially approved categories. He demonstrates this through an in-depth examination of a wide variety of individuals and groups that became objects of derision. We meet a disabled Civil War veteran who worked as a huckster on the edges of the frontier, the wife of a lunatic who raised her family while her husband was institutionalized, an immigrant religious community accused of sedition, and a wealthy scion charged with profiteering. Unlike respected Americans who marched confidently toward worldly and heavenly success, such misfits were usually ignored in paeans about the nation. But they played an important part in the cultural work that made America, and their story is essential for understanding the “othering” that remains so much a part of American culture and politics today.
Author: Jim Haynes
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1761063219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Get Book Here
Book Description
Jim Haynes upturns some of the long-held myths of Australian history with surprising results. With all the skills of the master storyteller that he is, Jim Haynes exposes some of the great myths of Australian history. Did you know that Portuguese and Spanish explorers probably found the east coast of Australia before Captain Cook, and that the Rum Rebellion was not caused by rum? And what about Banjo Paterson writing Waltzing Matilda? As for Ned Kelly being a brave freedom-fighting rebel, in truth he was a thief, a thug and a murderer. The Ashes have nothing to do with cricket, the Ghan is not named after Afghan cameleers and Hargraves lied about discovering gold in New South Wales. Surprising, confounding, revealing and fun, Jim Haynes takes us on another great journey through Australian history and folklore.
Author: Dale L. Walker
Publisher: Forge Books
ISBN: 1466815132
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 560
Get Book Here
Book Description
"Walker constructs a compelling narrative that is a string of unusual profiles rather than an analytic account of a major event in American history." - Publishers Weekly The Oregon Country! For a century that fabled place, lying somewhere beyond the Rocky Mountains at the farthest reaches of the continent galvanized the American people. Its riches, in furs, timber, fish, and fecund soil for farming, awakened the avarice of nations. Spain, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States all vied for this trackless Eden of the pacific littoral, and not until the 1840s did the Americans claim it once and for all. In these pages are the explorations of the fierce Scots who scaled the mountains and mapped the rivers of the Oregon country before the time of Lewis and Clark; the imperial fiefdom created for profit and Britannia by the fur-trading ventures of the Hudson's Bay Company; John Jacob Astor's ill-fated experiment on the Columbia River; the mountain men who risked their lives in Indian country in pursuit of beaver furs; and the arrival of the missionaries and pioneers of the Oregon Trail. Pacific Destiny is the Spur Award-winning story for best historical non-fiction, told by a distinguished chronicler of nineteenth century America. A story of the clashing of empires, coveting the matchless wealth of the Pacific Northwest-the story of The Oregon Country. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Author: Charles Cockell
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319293494
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Get Book Here
Book Description
This volume provides an in-depth discussion on the central question – how can people express and survive dissent and disagreement in confined habitats in space? The discussion is an important one because it could be that the systems of inter-dependence required to survive in space are so strong that dissent becomes impossible. John Locke originally said that people have a right to use revolution to overthrow a despotic regime. But if revolution causes violence and damage that causes depressurisation with the risk of killing many people, is it even permissible to have a revolution? How then are people to express their liberty or dissatisfaction with their rulers? The emergence of structures of dissent and disagreement is an essential part of the construction of a framework of liberty in space (revolution is just the extreme example) and thus the topic deserves in-depth and immediate attention. Even today, the way in which we assemble organisations and corporations for the government and private exploration of space must take into account the need for mechanisms to allow people to express dissent.
Author: Carey Rockwell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1609777433
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Get Book Here
Book Description
This, the fourth book in the "Tom Corbett" series by "Carey Rockwell" (whoever he was in real life) -- is, like all of the "Tom Corbett" books, something special. It's another tale of the three young men who serve in the Solar Guard as Space Cadets. The Solar Guard is establishing its first colony on a star far away in space, and of course, our heroes are in on the mission. But somehow a villain named Paul Vidac has wormed his way into the Cadets' assignment -- replacing Capt. Strong as Lt. Governor. The man means nothing but evil, and if the cadets don't catch him at it, it'll be the end of them for certain. . . .
Author: Terry Smyth
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 0857986821
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Get Book Here
Book Description
Captain Edward Denny Day--the only law "from the Big River to the sea"--was Australia's greatest lawman, yet few have heard of him. This is his story. Once there was a wilderness: Australia's frontier, a dangerous and unforgiving place where outlaws ruled the roads and killers were hailed as heroes. It was here, in 1838, that one man's uncompromising sense of justice changed history and shocked the world. Denny Day was a vicar's son from Ireland. A member of the Anglo-Irish ruling class, as a young man Day joined the British Army before resigning to seek his fortune in New South Wales. There he accepted the most challenging role in the young colony: keeping the peace on the frontier. Denny Day's abiding legacy is the capture of the perpetrators of the Myall Creek Massacre--the most infamous mass-murder in Australian history, and the first time white men were convicted of the murder of Aborigines. Yet Day won no praise for bringing to justice the killers of 28 innocent men, women, and children at Myall Creek. Rather, he was scorned and shunned, fiercely attacked by the press, by powerful landowners who hired the colony's top lawyers to defend the killers, and by the general public. The 11 men tracked down and arrested by Day faced two sensational trials, and seven of them were eventually found guilty of murder and hanged. The case sparked an international outcry, resulting in stricter government policies protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples. There are many colorful characters, both heroes and villains, in Denny Day's story: inspirational frontier women; outlaws captured in a desperate firefight; brave and wily Aboriginal resistance leaders; gormless colonial officials; privileged English nobles and persecuted Irish immigrants; convicts and freemen; and, for good measure, an American pirate. Denny Day was commended for bravery during his lifetime, but only in regards to taming the frontier settlements. Even in his obituary, Myall Creek is not mentioned.
