Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story
by Christina Thompson
from Bloomsbury USA
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson’s marriage to a Maori man. As an American graduate student studying literature in Australia, Thompson traveled on vacation to New Zealand, where she met a Maori known as “Seven.” Their relationship was one of opposites: he was a tradesman, she an intellectual; he came from a background of rural poverty, she from one of middle-class privilege; he was a “native,” she descended directly from “colonizers.” Nevertheless, they shared a similar sense of adventure and a willingness to depart from the customs of their families and forge a life together on their own.
In this extraordinary book, which grows out of decades of research, Thompson explores the meaning of cross-cultural contact and the fascinating history of Europeans in the South Pacific, beginning with Abel Tasman’s discovery of New Zealand in 1642 and James Cook’s famous circumnavigations of 1769–79. Transporting us back and forth in time and around the world, from Australia to Hawaii to tribal NewZealand and finally to a house in New England that has ghosts of its own, Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All brings to life a lush variety of characters and settings. Yet at its core, it is the story of two
people who, in making a life and a family together, bridge the gap between two worlds.
The Songlines
by Bruce Chatwin
from Penguin (Non-Classics)
The late Bruce Chatwin carved out a literary career as unique as any writer's in this century: his books included In Patagonia, a fabulist travel narrative, The Viceroy of Ouidah, a mock-historical tale of a Brazilian slave-trader in 19th century Africa, and The Songlines, his beautiful, elegiac, comic account of following the invisible pathways traced by the Australian aborigines. Chatwin was nothing if not erudite, and the vast, eclectic body of literature that underlies this tale of trekking across the outback gives it a resonance found in few other recent travel books. A poignancy, as well, since Chatwin's untimely death made The Songlines one of his last books.
The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding
by Robert Hughes
from Vintage Books
An extraordinary volume--even a masterpiece--about the early history of Australia that reads like the finest of novels. Hughes captures everything in this complex tableau with narrative finesse that drives the reader ever-deeper into specific facts and greater understanding. He presents compassionate understanding of the plights of colonists--both freemen and convicts--and the Aboriginal peoples they displaced. One of the very best works of history I have ever read.
The history of the birth of Australia which came out of the suffereing and brutality of England's infamous convict transportation system. With 16 pages of illustrations and 3 maps.
The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific
by Paul Theroux
from Mariner Books
In one of his most exotic and breathtaking journeys, the intrepid traveler Paul Theroux ventures to the South Pacific, exploring fifty-one islands by collapsible kayak. Beginning in New Zealand's rain forests and ultimately coming to shore thousands of miles away in Hawaii, Theroux paddles alone over isolated atolls, through dirty harbors and shark-filled waters, and along treacherous coastlines. This exhilarating tropical epic is full of disarming observations and high adventure.
Australia ABCs: A Book About the People and Places of Australia (Country Abcs)
by Sarah Heiman
from Picture Window Books
- Made with the Best Quality Material with your child in mind.
- Top Quality Children's Item.
Australia ABCs Book
The Mongols (The Peoples of Europe)
by David Morgan
from Wiley-Blackwell
The revised second edition of this highly praised introduction to the Mongol Empire takes account of recent scholarship in the field.
- Provides an overview of the government, religion, and politics of the Mongolian Empire
- Considers the effects of Mongol military campaigns on other countries and peoples in China, Russia, Persia and Europe
- Assesses the astonishing military career of Chingiz (Genghis) Khan
- Now includes a new epilogue assessing the contribution of recent scholarship to our understanding of the Mongols’ history
- Well-illustrated by maps and photographs throughout
The Mongol Empire was the largest continuous land empire known to history, its violent creation the major political event of the thirteenth century world. Yet little is known the history of Christendom's most formidable eastern neighbour. In this classic history, David Morgan explains how the vast Mongolian Empire was organized and governed, examining the religious and political character of the steppe nomadic society. He assesses the astonishing military career of Chingiz (Genghis) Khan, considers the nature of Mongol imperial government, and the effects of Mongol campaigns on the countries and peoples they conquered in China, Russia, Persia and Europe. His narrative extends to the collapse of the Empire and the formation of a People's Republic as a Russian satellite state. For this second edition, the author provides a new epilogue assessing the contribution of recent scholarship to our understanding of the Mongols' history, and updating his own interpretations in light of those advances. This new chapter, together with an updated bibliography, will refresh the book for a new generation of readers.
Ancient Hawaii
from Kawainui Press
How ancient Polynesian explorers found the Hawaiian Islands, the most remote in Earth's largest sea; how they navigated, how they viewed themselves and their universe, and the arts, crafts, and values by which they survived and prospered without metals or the fuels and inventions believed necessary for life today.
The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People
by Tim Flannery
from Grove Press
The Journals of Captain Cook (Penguin Classics)
by James R. Cook
from Penguin Classics
A new one-volume abridged edition of Cook's famous journals--"a majestic story of epic proportions"(Philip Edwards in the Introduction)
Captain Cook's Journals provide his vivid first-hand account of three extraordinary expeditions between 1768 and 1779. These charted the entire coast of New Zealand and the east coast of Australia and brought back detailed descriptions of Tahiti, Tonga, and a host of previously unknown islands in the Pacific including the Hawaiian Islands. The journals amply reveal the determination, courage, and skill that enabled Cook to wrestle with the continuous dangers of uncharted seas and the problems of achieving a relationship with the peoples whose unannounced guest he became. This edition, abridged from the definitive four-volume Hakluyt Society edition, makes Cook's inimitable personal account of his years of voyaging widely accessible for the first time and includes an Introduction to each voyage, a Glossary of unusual words, indexes of people and places, and a Postscript assessing the controversy surrounding Cook's death.
Selected and Edited with Introductions by Philip Edwards
The Explorers: Stories of Discovery and Adventure from the Australian Frontier
from Grove Press
+++
