Australia War

In this gripping essay, Hugh White explores Australia’s fateful choice to back America to the hilt and oppose China. What led both sides of politics to align with America so absolutely? Is this a case of sleepwalking to war? What tests might a new government face? White assesses America’s credibility and commitment, by examining AUKUS, the Quad, Trump and Biden. He discusses what the Ukraine conflict tells us about the future. And he argues that the US can neither contain China nor win a war over Taiwan. So where does this leave our future security and prosperity in Asia?

A fascinating look at a neglected Allied front in the Southern hemisphere, Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia, 1942 follows its successful predecessors as a captivating historical document of a pivotal era in history.

The Korean War was a 20th Century conflict that has never ended. South Korea, a powerhouse economy and dynamic democracy sits uneasily alongside North Korea, the world’s most secretive, belligerent, unpredictable and repressive totalitarian state. Today, tensions simmer and occasionally flare into outright violence on a peninsula dense with arms, munitions and nuclear warheads. Cameron Forbes, acclaimed author of Hellfire, tells the story of the war and Australia’s involvement in it in a riveting narrative.

There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway. At dawn of June 4, 1942, a rampaging Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. By sunset, their vaunted carrier force (the Kido Butai) had been sunk and their grip on the Pacific had been loosened forever. In this absolutely riveting account of a key moment in the history of World War II, one of America's leading naval historians, Craig L. Symonds, paints an unforgettable portrait of ingenuity, courage, and sacrifice.

Taking us from the suburbs of Western Sydney and Australia's military army bases, to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, this is a remarkable audiobook that reveals the as-yet untold story of the battle for Mosul and the secret involvement of Australians on both sides of the war - both our commandos and Australian ISIS fighters. Mosul details the rise of ISIS influence in Australia, the Iran and Australia allegiance to fight Daesh and shows what led up to the battle and the ramifications that are still being felt at home - by our soldiers and the victims of that war.

The true story of Deng Adut - Sudanese child soldier, refugee, man of hope Deng Adut's family were farmers in South Sudan when a brutal civil war altered his life forever. At six years old, his mother was told she had to give him up to fight. At the age most Australian children are starting...

Lost for 13 months in the wilds of Afghanistan, this is the dramatic, heart-warming and truly amazing story of Sarbi, the Army's most famous explosives detection dog - the miracle dog of Tarin Kot. Powerful, dramatic, heartwarming, this is the true story of Sarbi, the scruffy black Labrador-cross trained by the Australian Army as an explosives detection dog for the most dangerous combat mission imaginable. Thirteen months after Australia's most famous canine warrior went missing in action in 2008, she was found by an American Special Forces officer patrolling a village....

Five women come together at a New Year's Eve's party after decades apart, in this thrilling story of desire, revenge and courage, based on a brave group of Australian and British WWII servicewomen Burma, 1945. Bea, Plum, Bubbles, Joy and Lucy: five young women in search of adventure, attached to the Fourteenth Army, fighting a forgotten war in the jungle. Assigned to run a mobile canteen, navigating treacherous roads and dodging hostile gunfire, they become embroiled in life-threatening battles of their own. Battles that will haunt the women for the rest of their lives.

From the bestselling author of Kokoda and Gallipoli comes the epic story of Australia's deadliest Vietnam War battle. 4.31 pm: Enemy [on] left flank. Could be serious. 5.01 pm: Enemy ... penetrating both flanks and to north and south. 5.02: Running short of ammo. Require drop through trees. It...

On 31st October 1917, as the day's light faded, the Australian Light Horse charged against their enemy. Eight hundred men and horses galloped four miles across open country, towards the artillery, rifles and machine guns of the Turks occupying the seemingly unassailable town of Beersheba. What...

Why does humanity cling to warfare when it destroys the land and people the armies try to claim? Claverton Castle, 1940. Eagles and Spitfires fly in the skies of England as Lady Deanna, the aristocratic granddaughter of the Duke of Claverton, spends her days shovelling manure and her evenings in...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 WALKLEY BOOK AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 ABIA GENERAL NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE 2024 DANGER AWARD FOR TRUE CRIME 'There is no doubt the truth would have been concealed and our concerns...

Three decades...Five Riftwars...One magnificent saga: Magician's End is the final book in New York Times bestselling author Raymond E. Feist's science fiction epic Riftwar Cycle. Thirty years ago, Feist's first novel, Magician, introduced us to an orphan boy named Pug, who rises from slavery to...

In the harsh Libyan desert in the middle of the second world war, Private Jim Moody, a signaller with the First Australian Machine Gun Battalion, found a starving puppy on a sand dune. Moody called the dog Horrie. Much more than a mascot, Horrie's exceptional hearing picked up the whine of enemy aircraft two minutes before his human counterparts and repeatedly saved the lives of the thousand-strong contingent.

Powerfully written by Australia's leading military historian, Saving Port Moresby commemorates the 80th Anniversary of the Battles in New Guinea. Japanese Major General Horii Tomitarō, commanding the South Seas Force, was tasked, after taking Kokoda Plateau in late July, with entering the Owen Stanley Range to capture Port Morseby. After the battles for Deniki and Isurava, his troops were pushing south through the mountains. The Australians under Brigadier Arnold Potts, however, were not in route, but were involved in a determined fighting withdraw.

The extraordinary story of the heroic doctor whose courage and leadership were a lifeline for thousands of Australian prisoners-of-war on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway of World War II - brilliantly told by Australia's favourite storyteller, Peter FitzSimons In September 1939, young Australian...

It's 1911, and 21-year-old Evelyn Northey desperately wants to become a doctor. Her medico father forbids it, withholding the inheritance that would allow her to go to university. At the outbreak of World War I, Evelyn disobeys her father: she enlists as an army nurse bound for Egypt to care for the wounded from the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

On September 15, 1944, the United States invaded the tiny Pacific island of Peleliu, located at the Southern end of the Palau Islands. Boasting a large airfield from which the Americans could mount bomber campaigns, Peleliu was a strategically essential part of Gen. MacArthur's long-awaited liberation of the Philippines. With the famed 1st Marine Division making the amphibious assault, Pacific High Command was confident that victory would be theirs in just a few days. They were drastically wrong.

Simultaneous release of the thrilling new volume of true stories from airmen of the Second World War, from the author of Flak (also available in audio by Bolinda). Michael Veitch's life-long obsession with the aircraft of the Second World War led him to conclude that every single person who flew, or flew in them, has at least one extraordinary story to tell. With most of these veterans in their 80's, he knew that it was a matter of urgency to find them now, before their personal stories disappear forever.

On 21 July 1942, a large Japanese reconnaissance mission landed along the north-eastern coastline of Papua. It would soon turn into an all-out attempt to capture Port Morseby. This is the powerful story of the three weeks of battle by a small Australian militia force, the 39th Battalion, supported by the 1st Papua Infantry Battalion and the Royal Papuan Constabulary, to keep the Japanese at bay. Outnumbered by at least three to one, they fought courageously to hold the Kokoda Plateau - the gateway to the Owen Stanleys.