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Between 1825 and 1831 close to 200 Britons and 1000 Aborigines died violently in Tasmania's Black War. It was by far the most intense frontier conflict in Australia's history, yet many Australians know little about it. The Black War takes a unique approach to this historic event, looking chiefly at the experiences and attitudes of those who took part in the conflict. By contrasting the perspectives of colonists and Aborigines, Nicholas Clements takes...

"The perfect companion to Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History, Pepper illuminates the rich history of pepper for a popular audience. Vivid and entertaining, it describes the part pepper played in bringing the Europeans, and later the Americans, to Asia and details the fascinating encounters they had there. As Mark Pendergrast, author of Uncommon Grounds, said, 'After reading Marjorie Shaffer's Pepper, you'll reconsider the significance of that...

The war that was fought between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 was a major event in the history of both countries: it cost Mexico half of its national territory, opened western North America to U.S. expansion, and brought to the surface a host of tensions that led to devastating civil wars in both countries. Among generations of Latin Americans, it helped to cement the image of the United States as an arrogant, aggressive, and imperialist...

Australia has often been said to possess a "larrikin streak," from the Stiffy and Mo cartoons and the true-blue Crocodile Hunter to the characters in the silent film The Sentimental Bloke. When it first emerged around 1870, larrikin was a term of abuse, used to describe teenage, working-class hell-raisers who populated dance halls and cheap theaters, and this account journeys through the street-based youth subculture known as larrikinism between 1870...

This social and historical exploration traces the history of sugarcane from its home in New Guinea to Shakespeare's England. Fascinating sugar lore and anecdotes are included, such as how Queen Elizabeth I became so partial to hippocras (mulled wine), sugared almonds, and pastilles that her teeth turned completely black. Explored are the political and sociological impacts of sugar on the world and the tremendous riches available to the unscrupulous...

Marie Antoinette has always stood as an icon of supreme style, but surprisingly none of her biographers have paid sustained attention to her clothes. Here, 18th-century specialist Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains through lively, illuminating new research the political controversies that her clothing provoked. Weber surveys Marie Antoinette's "Revolution in Dress," covering each phase of...

Before the rise of monotheism, the early Hebrews were pagan and God had a wife, the Mother Goddess. The Bible tells the story of their divorce. Goddess worship promoted equality for women, social justice, spiritual connection to nature and the cycles of life, cannabis, sexual freedom, celebrated transgenders, and practiced abortions. When the Goddess was thrown out of the Hebrew temple by the monotheists, so too were all of these deeply ancient traditions....

Forced by her guardian to tempt secrets from his enemies and seduce allegiance from his friends, Lady Justina Wincott, who will do anything to protect her son, refuses to sully the reputation of Sir Synclair, who wants to make her his wife.

In 1967, Australians voted overwhelmingly in favor of removing from the Constitution two references that discriminated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Though these seemed like small amendments, they were an impetus for real change: from terra nullius to land rights, and from assimilation to self-determination. Nearly 50 years later, there is a groundswell of support for our Indigenous heritage to be formally recognized in the...

"The riveting nonfiction account of the scientific competition to light the world with electricity."-- Provided by publisher.