The best Australia & New Zealand History books: Reddit reviews

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They also produced a little booklet for soldiers that's a pretty interesting read. The first few pages are about how England is small but full of history, and that England doesn't like show-offs so the American soldiers weren't to start boasting or flashing their cash etc..

I once heard of a story of a US commander in Italy who absolutely hated his posting because he had several British Empire units under his command and wrote letters complaining about all the different races and nationals with religious, cultural and food requirements he was forced to deal with.

It really highlighted how the British Army had these considerations well established and had little problem with integrating units from around the Empire to work together compared to the Americans.

Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore will answer your question in excruciating detail. Mr. Hughes was perhaps the 20th century's most highly accomplished art critic. He was also a native Australian. The book is a very good non-academic history of Australia's settlement by England. At the risk of stating the obvious, the criminals who were sent to Australia had very bleak existences to put it mildly. Note that most of the criminals were sent to Australia for petty offenses.

If you are looking specifically at the history of the penal colonies, try Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore. I read it some time ago and enjoyed it quite a bit.

N.B. Hughes is an Aussie and no fan of the British.

As an addendum to this, I would strongly recommend the book <em>Batavia’s Graveyard: The true story of the mad heretic who led history’s bloodiest mutiny</em> by Mike Dash also known as u/mikedash for a very engaging and comprehensive academic book about this incident and the people involved in it.

Yes. That is: I recall there were two - fundamentally different - schools of thought within the RN/FAA's SHAR-units as of 1982.

• Skipper of HMS Invincible-based NAS.801, Nigel 'Sharkey' Ward, was convinced the SHAR is fully developed and an excellent platform, and taught his pilots to make use of its nav/attack system - including the Blue Fox radar. They acted correspondingly. They also flew CAPs at low altitude, where the Argentinean fighter-bombers operated. Correspondingly, they repeatedly caught and destroyed entire formations of incoming Argentinean fighter-bombers before these could cause any harm.

• Most of other RN/FAA officers haven't held the SHAR FRS.1 in high esteem. Indeed, it seems there was deep mistrust for its nav/attack systems within the HMS Hermes-based NAS.800 (to which Dave Morgan was assigned, too). Between others, SHARs from that squadron flew their CAPs at medium altitude - which is one of reasons why they missed the first formation of the Skyhawks that 'caused' the 'Catastrophe of Bluff Cove', and why Morgan then missed the second one too (arguably, he and his wingman then at least killed three from that second formation, 'but only after' these could've caused even more damage to British naval and ground units).

For related discussions, see Ward's Sea Harrier over the Falklands.

Curiously, Morgan didn't even try to discuss this issue in his Hostile Skies.

It also triggered a 'nuclear' (without the radiation) winter and led to crop failures and mass starvation. The resultant social upheaval in Indonesia led to a Muslim take over. Simon Winchester wrote an extremely readable account of this in 'Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded.' I highly recommend the book and the author.

On the international scale we are close to the least corrupt. Pretty darn good compared to almost all the world.

I think I went through a phase where I thought any national pride was misplaced but I've come out the side. Stories that give society common cause to improve things for more people in society can be incredible important.

Fairness (vs. freedom) is another interesting and valuable element of NZ culture. E.g. vs the US where it's all "my rights" and "freedom" rather than looking after others and ensuring they're treated fairly. https://www.amazon.com/Fairness-Freedom-History-Societies-Zealand/dp/0199832706 It's really feckin unusual for a country to have a TV show about fairness being top rated for decades.

Started reading this book about Karkatoa and I LOVE IT!

Absolutely fascinating and I love the way it’s written. Exactly the style of writing I love. If I wrote a book, i’d write it like this.

I saw that book advertised earlier today. Reviews seem a bit iffy though. Apparently it's not quite as good as his previous books.

A couple of other good books about Sea Harriers in the Falklands are:

Sharkey Ward - Sea Harrier Over the Falklands

&

David Morgan - Hostile Skies

Sharkey's is especially good, however, take note that he is viciously anti-RAF.

I haven't read Harrier 809 yet - I will ... but I have read and enjoyed "Sea Harrier over the Falklands" by Commander Sharkey Ward (who wasn't too complimentary towards the British high command). It will be interesting to compare the two. https://www.amazon.ca/Harrier-Over-Falklands-Sharkey-Commander/dp/0304355429/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&amp;keywords=sharkey+ward&amp;qid=1610816591&amp;sr=8-2

Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny by Mike Dash

Check out the reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. It's definitely more than a bloody mutiny story.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0609807161/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Not sure about a visual guide in this style, but the US published tons of handbooks like this for different locations - look at "frequently bought together" for more examples.

Here's a PDF of a 1944 Soldier's Guide to the Japanese Army, which includes some detailed exploration of uniforms, equipment, etc.

Probably never read this book.

There was a section about how someone had their eye ripped open by a swooping magpie.

It's a fantastic book if you're interested in the Harrier or want to know a lot about it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sea-Harrier-Over-Falklands-PAPERBACKS/dp/0304355429

That's also good if you want to read a pilots account of flying one in combat.

It's out of print, but if you have a Kindle look out for John Birmingham's Leviathan. It's probably the best popular general history of Sydney.

This is an old book now but it pretty much has all our dangerous flora and fauna with information on attacks or fatalities that have resulted from each one. Would highly recommend. http://www.amazon.com/Australias-Dangerous-Creatures-Readers-Digest/dp/0864380186 What I linked is an early edition but they did make them late into the 90s I think.

I'm a climate change skeptic; I should probably mention that off the bat.

But ecological disturbances (droughts, epidemics, etc.) often trigger mass migrations, which in turn trigger wars when people migrate somewhere where there are already people.

Interestingly, there's a fair amount of evidence that they can also trigger fundamentalist movements. In Krakatoa the author talks about how Islamic fundamentalism took off in Indonesia right after the famous volcano. A lot of people's lives had been completely destroyed and they were looking for something hard to hold onto.

There is a wonderful book about this called (appropriately) Krakatoa by Simon Winchester full of interesting facts and anecdotes about this remarkable event.

As a Canadian, I find Australian history to be very interesting.

The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes is a great read... up to it's final couple of chapters on the 20th Century, when Australian history becomes pretty similar to any of the other Dominion's.

May I suggest a few replacements...

We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific

The Cruiser's Handbook of Fishing

This might not be in the same vein, but check out Krakatoa by Simon Winchester. It's a book on the legendary volcano explosion in the late 19th century that temporarily disrupted global weather pattern in that year.

Just my 2 cents here, but if you want to understand our history a little more, I recommend Fairness and Freedom. It compares NZ and the US so will help you to understand our culture and indigenous rights history against the background of your own history, which in turn might help you to understand the comparison a little more.

http://www.amazon.com/Fairness-Freedom-History-Societies-Zealand/dp/0199832706

I enjoyed Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester.

Also, and this one isn't strictly geo, but it's awesome, The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean. Basically a history of the periodic table. And it's really funny too.

Oh, no, no, no. I recommend to you a close read of The Fatal Shore, by Robert Hughes, which will get you better understanding of how it wasn't ever a "nation of inmates", as you say.

That won't cover the period where the world was falling in love with Australia, though, and it flirted closely with being the best of all of the other Big Experiments up into the '90s (with some extremely notable and regrettable exceptions). I don't know what reading to recommend for that, unfortunately.

I am a massive fan of your work.

If you come to Vancouver... can I Buy you many beers (or drink of choice) and talk history ?

Also, I can suggest an awesome book on Australian History, that I think will make an awesome Ken Burns Doco

Simon Winchester is really good. I enjoyed Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman.