History

The Unlucky Australians

by Frank Hardy
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genre History · Non-fiction

Bestselling author Frank Hardy’s seminal account of the Wave Hill Station strike, an event that launched the game-changing Indigenous land rights campaign.

In 1966, led by Vincent Lingiari, the Gurindji and other Indigenous peoples working on Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory did something radical: they went on strike. They wanted equal wages—and land rights. Author Frank Hardy happened to be there. In The Unlucky Australians he tells the story of this walk-off, one that resulted in a successful land rights claim—a term Hardy has been credited for inventing in this important book, first published in 1968.

Some twenty years later, in 1991, Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody released a song about the strike which quickly captured national attention: ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’. In the 40th Anniversary edition of this book, Kelly is quoted as saying, ‘I‘d heard of the Gurindji Wave Hill walk-off story in my travels over the years. Kev Carmody and I went on a camping trip in Queensland and came up with a melody and an idea. Then I read Frank’s book which put me right there.’

Reviewing this same anniversary edition for The Age , Nathan Hollier wrote: ‘It seems amazing that The Unlucky Australians has never been made into a movie. It is unbelievable that it has been out of print for so long. This is a great story that is of enormous importance to all Australians. That sounds like hyperbole, but it isn’t.’

What is unbelievable now is that the book fell out of print once again. The good news is that its inclusion in the Untapped Collection has rescued it for future generations.

Frank Hardy (1917–1994) was a journalist, novelist and scriptwriter. His books include Power without Glory (1950), the satire Outcasts of Foolgarah (1971), also in the Untapped Collection, and The Dead Are Many (1975).

The Sectarian Strand

by Michael Hogan
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genre History · Non-fiction

A comprehensive examination of the profound impact of religion and religious rivalries on the development of Australian society from the convict era onwards.

Academic, author and former Catholic priest, Michael Hogan’s research focus is religion and politics. He’s written and edited more than twelve books. His most recent work is Cradle of Australian Political Studies: Sydney’s Department of Government (2015). The Sectarian Strand was first published in 1987.

The Moth Hunters

by Josephine Flood
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genre History · Non-fiction

A landmark work documenting in detail the pre-history of the Australian Alps.

‘Dr Flood essays a total picture of Aboriginal communities and their use of and impact on terrain through time. ‘Pure’ archaeology is not enough. Archaeology plus the environmental sciences is not enough. Ethnohistory is not enough — for it is a view from the wrong side of the frontier. Only from an amalgam of archaeology, landscape sciences and documentary studies can a living portrait be moulded of any part of Australia and its people.’ So wrote Sylvia Hallam in the journal, Aboriginal History in 1982 in her review of The Moth Hunters.

Hallan also noted of Flood that: ‘She employed a great variety of skills — herself a climber, bushwalker, surveyor, photographer, field archaeologist, excavator, artefact assemblage analyst, statistician, and historian; and she marshalled and drew on the skills of others — amateur, student and professional archaeologists; geographers, zoologists, botanists; bush men, climbers, landowners. Her data range from field monuments, artefact scatters and excavated stratified sites; through stone tool assemblages, distributions and environmental resources; to early European descriptive accounts of Aborigines in a landscape.’ She concludes by stating the book to be ‘a most impressive and important piece of work.’ And so it has proven to be, over forty years from its first publication in 1980.

Josephine Flood AM is an archeologist, author and former director of the Aboriginal Heritage Section of the Australian Heritage Commission. Her works include The Moth Hunters (1980), Archeology of the Dreamtime (1983) and The Riches of Ancient Australia (1993). Her most recent book is the revised edition of The Original Australians (2019).

Port Arthur

by Margaret Scott
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genre History · Non-fiction

This is the first book on the tragic event that became known as the Port Arthur massacre, the day a lone gunman killed thirty-five people beginning at an historic site on the Tasman Peninsula; and it is still one of the most comprehensive and important. 

Acclaimed poet, author, and long-time resident of the tight-knit community where the tragedy took place, Margaret Scott doesn’t focus only on the event. Instead she places it in context, giving a history of the site and how the community grew away from its dark past as a penal colony while still trying to do justice to those who suffered there, before reconstructing what happened on April 28th, 1996 using interviews, official court documents, and press releases. She doesn’t sensationalise the tragedy but instead manages to shine a light on the everyday people whose small acts of kindness and bravery in the face of terror showed a community banding together – and the power of human compassion. 

Margaret Scott (1934–2005) was an award-winning poet, academic, novelist and non-fiction writer. She was awarded the Centenary Medal for her outstanding contribution to Tasmanian literature.

Noonkanbah

by Steve Hawke and Michael Gallagher
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genre History · Non-fiction

The multi-award-winning first-hand account of the dispute over the proposal to mine sacred land at Noonkanbah Station in Western Australian in 1978. The proposal led to walk-offs, a blockade, government intervention, and the formation of the Kimberley Land Council. The dispute became a landmark Indigenous land rights campaign.

On the launch of an exhibition in 2018 to mark Noonkanbah’s 40th anniversary, Kimberley Land Council Acting Chief Executive Officer Tyronne Garstone described the dispute as a ‘David and Goliath battle’. 

First published in 1989, Noonkanbah won the Human Rights Australia Literature Award that same year. The following year it won the National Book Council Award for Non-Fiction and the Special Award in the WA Week Literary Awards.

Steve Hawke is a novelist, playwright and award-winning non-fiction author. His most recent work is The Valley (2018). Michael Gallagher worked as a photographer from from 1978 to 1986. His projects included assisting the Noonkanbah Community, the Kimberley Land Council and the Swan Valley Fringedwellers with documentation in their campaigns. After this period he worked as a historian and anthropologist in heritage and native title matters in Western Australia.

Great Convict Escapes in Colonial Australia

by Warwick Hirst
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genre History · Non-fiction

Six vividly told true stories of daring, desperate and dangerous escape attempts by colonial era convicts. Just how did Mary Bryant make it from Sydney to Timor in an open boat? And how did the murderous cannibal Alexander Pearce managed to escape not once, but twice, and with what dire consequences?

Based on original documents and accounts, this book is a story of human endeavour and resourcefulness—and those who’ll fight for their liberty no matter the cost. First published in 1999; this revised edition was published in 2003.

Warwick Hirst is an archivist who has also worked as the Mitchell Library’s Curator of Manuscripts, and writer of narrative non-fiction. His books include My Dear, Dear Betsy (1993), Great Convict Escapes in Colonial Australia (1999; 2003), The Man Who Stole the Cyprus (2008) and most recently, Wreck (2015).

Far from a Low Gutter Girl

by Margaret Barbalet
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genre History · Non-fiction

Drawing on the letters of girls who were made state wards, acclaimed writer and historian Margaret Barbalet’s Far From a Low Gutter Girl reveals the real world of Australian domestic servants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, amplifying their voices for the first time.

Far from a Low Gutter Girl was first published to critical acclaim in 1983. In addition to non-fiction, Margaret Barbalet has written essays, children’s books, poetry, short stories, novels and has worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Fate of a Free People

by Henry Reynolds
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genre History · Non-fiction

This award-winning and critically acclaimed book from one of Australia’s best known historians challenges the myth about the fate of Tasmania’s Indigenous people, vividly describing the extent of their resistance to colonisation, discussing the terms of the peace agreement under which they called themselves the ‘free Aborigines of Van Diemen’s Land’, and arguing that they weren’t defeated—but betrayed.

First published in 1995, Fate of a Free People won the NBC Banjo Award for Non-Fiction.

Henry Reynolds is an Honorary Research Professor, Aboriginal Studies Global Cultures & Languages at the University of Tasmania and one of Australia’s best known historians. His books include The Other Side of the Frontier (1981), The Law of the Land (1987), Why Weren’t We Told? (1999) which won the Queensland Premier’s Harry Williams Award for Literary Work Advancing Public Debate, Nowhere People (2005) and, with Marilyn Lake, the multi-award-winning Drawing the Global Colour Line (2008). His most recent work is Unnecessary Wars (2016).