Geoffrey Blainey stands as a preeminent Australian historian, celebrated for his rare grace and masterful storytelling. A courageous public intellectual, he challenged conventional understandings of European settlement, Aboriginal land rights, and Asian immigration. Blainey possessed a remarkable ability to interpret technological change through lucid narratives that appealed to both specialist and general audiences alike. His work significantly shaped public debate and scholarship, leaving an indelible mark on Australian history and intellectual discourse.
In Volume II of The Story of Australia's People, Geoffrey Blainey continues his account of the history of this country from the early Gold Rush to the present day, completing the story of our nation and its people. When Europeans crossed the world to plant a new society in an unknown land, traditional life for Australia's first inhabitants changed forever. For the new arrivals, Australia was a land that rewarded, tricked, tantalised and often defeated. From the Gold Rush to Land Rights and the Digital Age, Blainey brings to life the key events of more recent times that have shaped us into the nation and people we are today. Compelling, groundbreaking and brilliantly readable, The Story of Australia's People Volume II is the second instalment of an ambitious two-part work, and the culmination of the lifework of Australia's most prolific and wide-ranging historian.
In his late-eighties, Geoffrey Blainey reflects on his formative years growing up in rural Victoria as the son of a Methodist minister. His childhood experiences, from climbing rooftops to gaze at the Great Dividing Range to his early fascination with history and current affairs during WWII, shaped his lifelong passion for learning. A scholarship to Wesley College and later studies at the University of Melbourne further developed his historical insights. This memoir not only chronicles his personal journey but also offers a rich social history of Australia.
Triumph of the Nomads, Geoffrey Blainey's thirteenth book, is a startling reassessment of the Aborigines in early Australia. Rather than being prisoners in a hostile continent, the Aborigines were a successful race —triumphant in their discovery of the land, triumphant in their adaptation to it, and in their mastery of its contrasting climates, seasons and resources. Triumph of the Nomads was co-winner of the Barbara Ramsden Award for Literature, 1976, and was highly commended by the National Book Council in 1976. "Triumph of the Nomads...presents a case for the Aborigines that the traditionally-minded will find as startling as some critics declared the thesis of The Tyranny of Distance to be." --AGE "unflaggingly interesting, persuasively argued and beautifully written" --AUSTRALIAN "He succeeds, as he did before with The Tyranny of Distance in producing an original, interesting book, by asking the bread-and-butter economic questions." --BULLETIN SUN AUSTRALIA
In the bestselling Black Kettle and Full Moon, master storyteller Geoffrey Blainey takes us on another absorbing journey – a guided tour of a vanished Australia. Covering the years from the first gold rush to World War I. Blainey paints a fascinating picture of how our forebears lived – in the outback, in towns and cities, at sea and on land. He looks at all aspects of daily life, from billycans to brass bands, from ice-making to etiquette, from pipes to pubs. The engaging text is further brought alive by an evocative selection of contemporary illustrations by artists such as Julian Ashton. This is Geoffrey Blainey doing what he does best bringing to life for the modern reader the sighs and sounds and smells of another time.
Tells the story of the world's people. It begins before human beings moved out of Africa to explore and settle the other continents. It is a story of the inhabited world being pulled apart, and of it coming together again in centuries. It recreates human experience in varied forms, describing human life at both its grandest and domestic levels.
Christianity has played a central role in world history, for better or worse,
but beyond the life of Jesus many people know little of this story. Geoffrey
Blainey takes the reader on a journey from the very beginnings of Christianity
through to the present day.
Compelling, groundbreaking and brilliantly readable, The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia is the first instalment of an ambitious two-part work, and the culmination of the lifework of Australia's most prolific and wide-ranging historian. The vast continent of Australia was settled in two main streams, far apart in time and origin. The first came ashore some 50,000 years ago when the islands of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea were one. The second began to arrive from Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. Each had to come to terms with the land they found, and each had to make sense of the other. The long Aboriginal occupation of Australia witnessed spectacular changes. The rising of the seas isolated the continent and preserved a nomadic way of life, while agriculture was revolutionising other parts of the world. Over millennia, the Aboriginal people mastered the land's climates, seasons and resources. Traditional Aboriginal life came under threat the moment Europeans crossed the world to plant a new society in an unknown land. That land in turn rewarded, tricked, tantalised and often defeated the new arrivals. The meeting of the two cultures is one of the most difficult and complex meetings in recorded history. In this book Professor Geoffrey Blainey returns first to the subject of his celebrated works on Australian history, Triumph of the Nomads (1975) and A Land Half Won (1980), retelling the story of our history up until 1850 in light of the latest research. He has changed his view about vital aspects of the Indigenous and early British history of this land, and looked at other aspects for the first time. Compelling, groundbreaking and brilliantly readable, The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia is the first instalment of an ambitious two-part work, and the culmination of the lifework of Australia's most prolific and wide-ranging historian
'Uma breve história do século XX' traz uma descrição vibrante e apaixonada dos cem anos mais fascinantes da história. As duas maiores guerras, a ascensão e queda dos regimes comunistas, o maior colapso econômico já vivido, o declínio das monarquias e dos grandes impérios da Europa - tudo isso com emoção e intensidade. Nessa fantástica viagem, cada fato é exibido com exatidão e sagacidade. E cada triunfo é revelado com dinamismo e entusiasmo, como em um emocionante filme sobre o nosso passado.
Tyto dějiny sledují historii lidstva během posledních čtyř miliónů let. Člověka představují těsně předtím, než první lidé vyšli z Afriky objevovat a osidlovat další světadíly, a loučí se s ním v polovině 20. století. Staletí a tisíciletí existence lidstva se tu odvíjejí jako mistrovsky vyprávěný a napínavý příběh. Úctyhodná šíře znalostí, velký vypravěčský talent a hluboká lidská moudrost dovolují autorovi, aby oživil minulost a sepsal dějiny, v nichž nechybí rozhodující okamžiky, které určovaly další směr vývoje.
Stručný přehled australských dějin, ve kterém je hlavní pozornost věnována dějinám přistěhovalců a okrajová též dějinám původních obyvatel.
Monografie. Hospodářské a politické dějiny kontinentu, kde se prolínají kulturní okruhy - západní (přistěhovalci), východní (vyspělé asijské civilizace) - s kulturou původních obyvatel. Závěrečná kapitola o Češích v Austrálii.
Kniha o dějinách kontinentu, který je u nás znám spíše pro pozoruhodnosti přírodovědné. Autorem je přední australský historik, jenž čtivým a srozumitelným způsobem zachycuje osudy teritoria obydleného původně pouze domorodým obyvatelstvem, k němuž se postupně připojila pestrá směsice obyvatel z celého světa. Text je doplněn kapitolou o prvních českých cestovatelích v Austrálii i o osudech krajanů.
