Manning Clark's work provokes violent reactions for and against. His majestic six-volume A History of Australia 'helped us to know who we are'. Yet attacks on Clark stretch back fifty years, and Peter Ryan accused him recently of writing 'gooey subjective pap, much of it false'.These essays offer detailed, scholarly analysis of the History—its style and structure, its dominant themes, its treatment of women and Aborigines, its sense of place, its reliability. They examine C...

The First World War marked the emergence of the Dominions on the world stage as independent nations, none more so than Australia. The country's sacrifice at Gallipoli in 1915, and the splendid combat record of Australian troops on the Western Front not only created a national awakening at home, but also put Great Britain in their debt, ensuring them greater influence at the Peace Conferences. Australia was represented at Versailles by the Prime Minister, the colourful Billy Hughes, whom Wo...

The world of construction is intrinsically linked with that of finance, from the procurement and tendering stage of projects right through to valuation of buildings. In addition to this, things like administrations, liquidations, mergers, take-overs, buy-outs and floatations affect construction firms as they do all other companies.This book is a rare explanation of common construction management activities from a financial point of view. While the practical side of the industry is ...

This collection of essays is based upon the assumption that the British Empire was held together not merely by ties of trade and defence, but by a shared sense of British identity that linked British communities around the globe. Focusing on the themes of migration, identity and the media, this book is an exploration of these and other interconnected themes that help define the British World of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

First published in 1985. Revolution has been often defined, often abused as a descriptive term for elements of the political process. This book analyses the concept of revolution, and discusses ways in which this concept has changed from Aristotle to the late twentieth-century. The historical circumstances which have shaped the idea and caused it to change are outlined. Special attention is given to the Marxist tradition and to modernisation theory. The case studies comprise the Soviet Uni...

Each of Foster's books has generated vigorous discussion, but in THE IRISH STORY he breaks fresh ground even by his own standards. Driven by his sense of the seriousness of history and a fascination with those who distort it, THE IRISH STORY examines how key facets of Ireland's past have been tampered with to serve a multiplicity of purposes.THE IRISH STORY is endlessly varied, surprising and funny. It is also a rallying cry for those anxious that contemporary Ireland may be in dan...

SPECTATOR, NEW STATESMAN, SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY and THE HERALD BOOKS OF THE YEARThe Scots are one of the world's greatest nations of emigrants. For centuries, untold numbers of men, women and children have sought their fortunes in every conceivable walk of life and in every imaginable climate across the British Empire, the United States and elsewhere, from finance to industry, philosophy to politics.To the Ends of the Earth puts this extraordinary epi...

Kiberd - one of Ireland's leading critics and a central figure in the FIELD DAY group with Brian Friel, Seamus Deane and the actor Stephen Rea - argues that the Irish Literary Revival of the 1890-1922 period embodied a spirit and a revolutionary, generous vision of Irishness that is still relevant to post-colonial Ireland. This is the perspective from which he views Irish culture. His history of Irish writing covers Yeats, Lady Gregory, Synge, O'Casey, Joyce, Beckett, Flann O'Brien, Elizab...

The United Kingdom; Great Britain; the British Isles; the Home Nations: such a wealth of different names implies uncertainty and contention - and an ability to invent and adjust. In a year that sees a Scottish referendum on independence, Linda Colley analyses some of the forces that have unified Britain in the past.She examines the mythology of Britishness, and how far - and why - it has faded. She discusses the Acts of Union with Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and their limitations,...

From the iconic poems of Bonjo Paterson to todays international bestsellers by Peter Carey and Bryce Courtenay, Australian literature has reflected the changes in Australias national development until today it stands proudly on the world stage. At the same time, indigenous writing has come into its own, with authors such as Oodgeroo Noonuccol giving a powerful voice to the Aboriginal experience. AUSTRALIAS WRITERS AND POETS looks at the men and women who have created this rich literary tra...

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew's Very Short Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Britain is a sharp but subtle account of remarkable economic and social change and an even more remarkable political stability. Britain in 1789 was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, multilingual, and almost half Celtic. By 1914, when it faced its greatest test since the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely ...

Written by a team of eminent historians, these essays explore how ten twentieth-century intellectuals and social reformers sought to adapt such familiar Victorian values as `civilisation', `domesticity', `conscience' and `improvement' to modern conditions of democracy, feminism and mass culture. Covering such figures as J.M. Keynes, E.M. Forster and Lord Reith of the BBC, these interdisciplinary studies scrutinize the children of the Victorians at a time when their private assumptions and ...