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Famous eyewitness account of the conflict at Eureka in 1854, with a new introduction by Tom Keneally.Italian revolutionary Raffaello Carboni reached the Ballarat goldfields in 1853 looking for adventure and wealth. Instead, he found growing unrest among the miners, who were straining against harsh and oppressive government regulations.This unrest came to a head at dawn on 3 December 1854, at the now legendary Eureka Stockade. Here, 120 angry miners revolted against police and soldiers, leaving thirty-five men dead. The courage, resistance to authority and support for democratic freedom displayed by the miners has shaped ideas of Australian nationhood ever since.Raffaello Carboni, an active participant, relates the story behind the myth. His eyewitness account, first published in 1855, vividly and accurately evokes the excitement, drama and horror of the Eureka Stockade, and its aftermath.This new edition of a classic work, supplemented with an introduction by Tom Keneally, is published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Eureka uprising.

From Wall Street to the supreme court, how the world's largest banks control the money markets and crush competitionIn the 1980s and 90s, amid an explosion in international money flows, a handful of people saw a new financial future and staked claims in it, triggering a battle to control the world's money markets. With phenomenal profits at stake, the conflict would go all the way to the United States Supreme Court, in a case that involved not just the largest Wall Street banks but also the tech behemoths of Silicon Valley. The extraordinary story of Alice Corporation, a company created to reimagine financial markets, brings together an unlikely cast of characters: renowned author Kate Jennings, international banking insider Ian Shepherd, Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, German-born World War II historian Sigrid MacRae, J.P. Morgan deputy chair Roberto Mendoza - and his dog, Stanley. In the tradition of Michael Lewis's Flash Boys and The Big Short, Alice is a story of ground-breaking insights, legal intrigue and improbable friendships. Pinpointing the likely causes of the next financial crisis, Alice reveals the fight to build a safer, fairer financial future.

A Senate committee investigation of Australias Northern Territory Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995, the first legislation in the world which allowed doctors to actively assist patients to die, found that for the vast majority of Indigenous Territorians, the idea that a physician or anyone else should help end a dying, suffering persons life was so foreign that in some instances it proved almost impossible to translate. This book explores how such a death became a thinkable even desirable way to die for so many others in Western cultures. Though euthanasia, meaning good death, derives from ancient Greece, for the Greeks this was a matter of Fate, or a gift the gods bestowed on the virtuous or simply lucky. Caring for the dying was not part of the doctors remit. For the Victorians, a good death meant one blessed by God and widespread belief in a divine design and the value of suffering created resistance to new forms of pain relief.

After the dubious justice of the Treaty of Versailles and the turmoil of the interwar years, the League of Nations is mainly remembered as a body that failed to create mechanisms that might have forestalled the horrors of Nazism, fascism, and the Second World War. It has understandably been overshadowed by the United Nations, that larger, more globally representative body which grew from the League, and which was founded on more unequivocally noble principles in the aftermath of a clear-cut victory of good over evil. But as James Cotton relates in this illuminating account, a surprising number of Australians lent their talents and enthusiasm to this internationalist project, and Australian interests were prominently represented. This deeply researched and carefully realised story will recast understandings of both the League itself and the place within it of prominent interwar Australian internationalists.

Stuart Macintyre was an eminent figure within the world of Australian history scholarship for 45 years. This collection of essays and responses revisits and extends this extraordinary life of achievement and engagement. Leading scholars write here of Macintyre's contribution to understanding radicalism and communism, postwar reconstruction, education and civics, universities, liberalism, historiography and the history wars. They also tell us about collegiality and friendship. The practice of history writing and telling has long been central to the narrative of the nation in Australia. The Work of History connects us to that past. It raises the question of what comes next, and re-values Macintyre's contribution, serving both as a snapshot of the state of the historian's art, and an introduction to those who come more recently to this highly contested field.

"The stories Islanders once told, sang and danced continue to tell us about our past and are vital elements of my telling of this history. Across the Torres Strait, myths, stories, ceremony, places and objects were principla keepers of Islander history. By the early twentieth century, the large turtle shell masks that connected Islanders to their seas, to the living and the deceased, that held the stories of their making and their uses in ceremony were all but gone ... Using Islanders' myths and stories and the turtle shell masks themselves, I reanimate the masks with their Islander histories of meaning and purpose." -- Back cover.

"For those who look, and think deeply, new connections emerge. Peter Doherty, one of the world's foremost authorities on immunology, recipient of the Nobel Prize for medicine, and an active and respected commentator on public health, reflects in this book on empire, war and tennis. Doherty identifies the origins of modern tennis within its imperial context, relating seemingly unlikely connections between the sport, its players and national militaries. He traces the fate of tennis-and its players-as a nascent force for internationalism and cultural tolerance within the context of World War II. And he personalises this account through an unsentimental but revealing depiction of his tennis-loving Queenslander uncles, at war and in captivity in the Pacific. As Doherty shows, tennis and war have threaded their way through the lives of many people since the nineteenth century, in a way intriguingly unique to this sport. This is part of Peter's story. And, as we come to realise, it is also part of the story of our world."--

The first serious work on public transport planning ever published in AustraliaWhy is public transport so poor in Australian cities? Why can't it be more like the fast, convenient systems in Europe?Unlike Europeans, most urban Australians live on far-flung suburban blocks rather than in high-density apartments. Most urban travel is to widespread suburban locations rather than to the city centre. It is often argued that fast, efficient public transport is impossible in our 'dispersed' cities.In A Very Public Solution, Paul Mees compares Melbourne's public transport system with the highly successful system in Toronto; a 'dispersed' city very like Melbourne with its suburban sprawl, and sheds new light on a century-old debate.This debate is particularly important now, as 'economic rationalists' move to privatise public transport in Australian cities. We can have European-style public transport, Mees argues, if our different forms of public transport stop competing with each other and start competing with the car.A Very Public Solution is the first serious work on public transport planning ever published in Australia. It is essential reading for everyone concerned with urban sustainability and our growing traffic problems.

'Curtin was a complex character. Warm and sympathetic, but cold and aloof; a comrade but a loner; a rebel and anti-conscriptionist but Prime Minister. Moody; irritable; uncertain; changeable; vacillating; temperamental; opportunist; sentimental; courageous; all are true of Curtin.' Lloyd Ross sums up the character of the wartime Labor Prime Minister who fought Churchill to bring back Australian troops from Europe to defend our nation. An intense and passionate orator, Curtin inspired respect in cynical Australians by his unassuming dignity, straightforwardness and refusal of any personal privilege.

In an ethnically stratified work force, Japanese, South Sea Islander, Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal divers brought up from the sea floor the shell that produced mother-of-pearl, and sometimes pearls. Many men died at this dangerous work.This was an industry that could have given the indigenous peoples of Torres Strait an occupation that preserved their identity and independence. Yet in spite of a co-operative lugger scheme that operated fairly successfully in the early twentieth century, a real independence was not achieved. And a resource that could have been conserved by small-scale indigenous harvesting was depleted time and again by the colonial practices of resource-raiding and mass extraction.Regina Ganter charts the progress of pearl-shelling from its heyday through its several crises resulting from overfishing to its present cautious management. The book is greatly enhanced by the oral testimony of divers and boat-owners.

John 'JC' Coutis is an exceptional person. Born with a severe disability that rendered him a double amputee, John defied medical opinion by refusing to die. Today he gets around on a skateboard and travels the world inspiring tens of thousands of adoring fans to block out the negatives and be the best that they can be. In 1994 John was the Australian Disabled Table Tennis champion, just missing selection for the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Team. He was also the first person with a major disability to play indoor cricket in Australia, and has played grade cricket for the famous Bankstown Club, home of Australian cricket legends the Waugh brothers. When John was a guest speaker at the 1997 World Masters of Business Seminar he shared the day with some of the world's foremost international speakers such as Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Lee Iacocca, Stephen Covey and Brian Tracey. John was the only speaker to receive a standing ovation from the 12,000 strong audience. John has spoken to over a million people throughout corporate and community Australia and several million people overseas including on tours of Hawaii, USA, Mauritius, South Africa, New Zealand, England, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Taiwan and Inner Mongolia. He's also spoken in more than 170 cities throughout China where audiences often number between 15,000 and 35,000 people. Corporate Australia draws on John regularly. For many corporations, creating a culture of creativity and positivity is an ongoing challenge. Assisting them to be leaders in their field and the community is one of John's key interests. Australia Post, Telstra, Channel 9, Westpac, NSW Rural Fire Service, McGrath Partners, Roche Group and AHG Automotive Group are just some of his corporate clients. John Coutis has inspired and motivated some of Australia's greatest sporting icons like Samantha Riley, Susie O'Neill, the Australian Cricket team, Balmain and Parramatta Rugby League teams, the Collingwood Magpies and the NSW State of Origin League team, to name just a very few. John was invited into the Sydney 2000 Olympic Team Village to support the Australian team and in 2001 the Australian Wallabies called on John to boost their attitudes for the final match of the series against the British Irish Lions, winning the deciding Test to secure the series for the first time in history between these two teams. Rod McQueen, John Eales and George Gregan publicly acknowledged John for getting the Wallabies over the line. In 1999 John was invited to be part of the Australia Day Ambassador Program and has been invited back every year since. This program has been represented by some of the greatest Australians of our time. The invitation into the program is recognition of John's place in the Australian community and the impact he has made and continues to make on each individual that crosses his path. John also plays a significant role in Australian schools and youth leadership programs and is a hit with children of all ages. He has been invited into more than 4,000 schools throughout Australia and around the world. John and his family have featured on a number of Australian and overseas radio programs and television shows including Sports Tonight, Sports World, Wide World of Sports, A Current Affair, The Today Show and many other national and local news broadcasts. While John Coutis considers himself most privileged to be able to impart his gifts and dynamic life experience to others, in turn he is widely acknowledged as one of the most inspirational speakers of his generation. His invaluable messages encompass respect for diversity, anti-bullying, inclusion, resilience, goal setting, tolerance, motivation, self-determination and courage. John Coutis talks about: Dealing with disability Overcoming challenges & getting the best out of life Anti-Bullying Treating People The Way You Wish To Be Treated Resilience, Goal Setting

Conscription debates, recruiting, fund-raising, homecoming, and design of the war memorial - as experienced across North Eastern Victoria.In the cities and in the countryside of Australia, the Great War of 1914 - 1918 marched to somewhat different tempos. John McQuilton evokes the wartime experience of all rural Australians by capturing the moods of the country towns and hamlets of North Eastern Victoria.Every aspect of the war - recruiting, fund-raising and, eventually, homecoming and the design of the war memorial - was marked by a mixture of small-minded local politics, heroism and sacrifice, and grief. Individuals, whether journalists, town councillors or leading local citizens, shaped the recurring battles on the home front.The conscription debates were particularly vicious, as the countryside exhausted its pool of volunteers long before the cities. In small communities the 'shirker' could not hide; everyone knew which families had sent men to the front, and who had genuine reasons for staying home. This intimacy worked in favour of the many German Australians: country people knew them as trusted neighbours, but in the cities they were reviled as enemy aliens.Rural Australia and the Great War is unique among writing on the First World War in creating a richly detailed picture of wartime in a particular part of country Australia. For country and city readers alike, this is fascinating social history.

Jan Critchett presents a series of moving Aboriginal biographies from the Western District of Victoria. She draws both on the oral tradition of local Koori elders and on official records.'I'm your half-brother and I'm here to stay. This is my home.' With these words Wilmot Abraham sought refuge with his white relations.Wilmot was the best-known Aboriginal in the Warrnambool district of Victoria, a man who maintained the old way of life long after his people were dispossessed. Local farmers spoke of him as 'the last of his tribe'. Few were aware that his father had been a white lad working as a boundary rider on the Western District frontier; and only the Aboriginal community knew that Wilmot had barely escaped with his life from the violent seizure of his mother's people's country.In Untold Stories, Jan Critchett presents a series of moving Aboriginal biographies from the Western District of Victoria, drawing both on the oral tradition of local Koori Elders and on official records. Wilmot's is one of the many untold stories that appear here for the first time.Untold Stories opens our eyes to a number of remarkable individuals who managed to make a life for themselves in the interstices of the society that had dispossessed them. Their long-running battle to maintain their culture and their connection to country, in the face of a regime that seemed bent on denying their humanity, is both humbling and inspiring.

This is a fresh and unique first-person account of the convict experience-a new and invaluable primary source.Joseph Mason, an English agricultural labourer, was convicted and transported for taking part in mass protests against the introduction of threshing machines, which were threatening to destroy the livelihood of English rural workers. Joseph was unusual among labourers in being a fluent writer and a voracious reader. His manuscript, only recently discovered, is published here for the first time. In it, he vividly describes life on the frontier, his encounters with Aboriginal people, and the flora and fauna of the bush. He tells of the living and working conditions of assigned convicts, and early horticultural and farming practices. The description of his explorations along the Nepean River captures the dramatic landscape of the gorge so accurately that it could serve as a guide for the modern bushwalker. This is a fresh and unique first-person account of the convict experience-a new and invaluable addition to the primary sources of Australian colonial history.

Biography of John McEwen, leader of the Federal Country Party from 1958 to 1971 and a complex man.John McEwen, thirty-seven years a politician, twenty-three days a Prime Minister and always a farmer, was an extraordinary mix of a man. His staff revered him and his adversaries feared him. There was no one, friend or foe, who did not respect him. Orphaned at seven and raised in poverty, this self-educated soldier-settler overcame difficult beginnings to dominate the Australian political arena for twenty years. The success of the Liberal-Country Party coalition throughout the fifties and sixties is largely attributed to McEwen's strength and influence. Towering and formidable in both stature and personality, Black Jack's turbulent political career was never without controversy. His succession to the Prime Ministership in 1967, after the disappearance of Holt, followed one of the most notorious episodes of Australian political history when McEwen refused to serve under McMahon. Black Jack's commitment to developing Australian trade won him international respect and his influence on Australian economic and trade policy is enduring.

The office: it's the history of all of us.For many of us, it's where we spend more time and expend greater effort than anywhere else. Yet how many of us have stopped to think about why?In The Office: A Hardworking History, Gideon Haigh traces from origins among merchants and monks to the gleaming glass towers of New York and the space age sweatshops of Silicon Valley, finding an extraordinary legacy of invention and ingenuity, shaped by the telephone, the typewriter, the elevator, the email, the copier, the cubicle, the personal computer, the personal digital assistant.Amid the formality, restraint and order of office life, too, he discovers a world teeming with dramas great and small, of boredom, betrayal, distraction, discrimination, leisure and lust, meeting along the way such archetypes as the Whitehall mandarin, the Wall Street banker, the Dickensian clerk, the Japanese salaryman, the French bureaucrat and the Soviet official.In doing so, Haigh taps a rich lode of art and cinema, fiction and folklore, visiting the workplaces imagined by Hawthorne and Heller, Kafka and Kurosawa, Balzac and Wilder, and visualised from Mary Tyler Moore to Mad Men, from Network to 9 to 5 plus, of course, The Office. Far from simply being a place we visit to earn a living, the office emerges as a way of seeing the entire world.

In this first major survey of Australian con artists, the history of offers that are too good to be true--and the people who succeeded in making many believe otherwise--is explored. This entertaining and shocking account delves into the world of scammers such as Fairlie Arrow, Mario Condello, Helen Demidenko, Peter Foster, Brenton Jarrett, Lola Montez, and Christopher Skase. From faking deaths and forging paintings to impersonating aristocracy and changing paper into banknotes, the tricks of the highly talented are explained as the con artists' sordid pasts are combined in one gripping read.

Far from being the work of a madman, Anders Breivik's murderous rampage in Norway was the action of an extreme narcissist. As the dead lay around him, he held up a finger asking for a Band-Aid. Written with the pace of a psychological thriller, The Life of I is a compelling account of the rise of narcissism in individuals and society. Manne examines the Lance Armstrong doping scandal and the alarming rise of sexual assaults in sport and the military, as well as the vengeful killings of Elliot Rodger in California. She looks at narcissism in the pursuit of fame and our obsession with 'making it'. She goes beyond the usual suspects of social media and celebrity culture to the deeper root of the issue: how a new narcissistic character-type is being fuelled by a cult of the self and the pursuit of wealth in a hypercompetitive consumer society. The Life of I also offers insights from the latest work in psychology, looking at how narcissism develops. But Manne also shows that there is an alternative: how to transcend narcissism, to be fully alive to the presence of others; how to create a world where love and care are no longer turned inward."

The Memoirs of Zelman Cowen is his lucid, vivid and engaging account of a remarkable career.An outstanding scholar and constitutional lawyer, Sir Zelman Cowen was professor and Dean of Melbourne University's law school by the age of 31. He revolutionised legal education in Australia and became one of the nation's best known 'public intellectuals', addressing issues such as capital punishment and republicanism. Keenly aware of social and technological change, he has stimulated debate on many issues, and has always been a vigorous voice for reason and humane values.These are his absorbing memoirs. They are a personal recollection of an outstanding career, as well as a reflection of twentieth-century history-both Australian and international&mdash: as seen through the eyes of a man at the forefront of Australian public life for more than fifty years.As a vice-chancellor, Sir Zelman weathered times of turbulent student dissent in the university system during the 1970s. He was appointed Governor-General of Australia in 1977, and in this role brought 'a touch of healing' to a nation bitterly divided over the actions of his predecessor, Sir John Kerr. Sir Zelman went on to serve as head of his old Oxford college, Oriel, and as chair of the British Press Council.

Winner of the Frank Broeze Maritime History Prize in 2007 In 1800 François Péron gained a place as an assistant zoologist on Nicolas Baudin's expedition to Australian waters. He rose rapidly through the expedition's ranks and wrote its official account. In doing so, Péron sought to destroy Baudin's posthumous reputation. In 1800 François Péron, an ambitious young medical student not long released from the French revolutionary army, gained a place as an assistant zoologist on Nicolas Baudin's expedition to Australian waters. As his colleagues either deserted or died, he would rise rapidly within the expedition's ranks and even write its official account. In doing so, Péron would seek to destroy Baudin's posthumous reputation. The expedition was famously marked by the vexed relationship between Péron and Baudin, but Péron's work, as a man of science, profoundly enhanced the achievements of the expedition: he seized valuable opportunities to pioneer zoological, oceanographic and ethnographic studies, and as an ecological observer was remarkably prescient. Edward Duyker's meticulously researched biography of Péron takes readers on an engaging and wide-ranging journey-from the heart of pre-revolutionary rural France, to the bitter fighting on the Rhineland front in 1793-94, to the late eighteenth-century Paris medical school, to landfalls in the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, to the little-known shores of Van Diemen's Land and New Holland, and back into the very heart of Napoleon's Empire. This is both a balanced assessment of the difficult relationship between Péron and Baudin, and an analysis of the conduct of science during some of the most turbulent years in French history.

The hidden stories of two port towns reveal colonial societies rife with gossip and dubious reputations.In 1830s Sydney, a visiting aristocrat, Viscount Lascelles, is exposed as a former convict. In Cape Town, during the same decade, veiled accusations of incest and murmurs about a concealed pregnancy surround the family of the Chief Justice, Sir John Wylde. In these British colonies, the divide between the respectable and the disreputable is not as vast as might first appear. Rumour and hearsay muddy the lines between public and private worlds, and ensure that secret transgressions do not remain secret for very long. Scandal in the Colonies explores how colonial societies offered European settlers the opportunity to invent new identities, an opportunity exploited with a vengeance. But as people, goods and correspondence crossed the imperial realm, scandal was never far behind. In this lively and richly researched book Kirsten McKenzie uncovers the hidden stories of two port towns that were rife with gossip and dubious reputations. She argues that scandal influenced imperial policy and became a key element in the emergence of societies divided by class and race. Touching on themes such as masculinity and commercial culture, female sexuality in civil litigation and gossip in political culture, McKenzie offers a fresh and engaging approach to colonial history.

This important work reveals that Australian post-war defence policy was based on plans for joint nuclear weapons development between Australia and the United Kingdom.This very important work is a fundamental rewriting of Australian history from 1943 to 1968. It argues that after World War II, Australian defence policy was premised on Joint nuclear weapons development with the United Kingdom; and that while this endeavour failed, it shaped domestic and foreign policy until the end of the 1950s.Nuclear weapons have traditionally been seen as American and British concerns, and various official histories have held that the development of rockets and atomic weapon testing were essentially British exercises. But author Wayne Reynolds reveals an entirely new perspective on Australia's role in these events.Australia's Bid for the Atomic Bomb examines the implications of this for major social, political and security issues and developments in Austalia's recent history.This work will arouse considerable media interest, and will appeal to anyone interested in Australia's political and military history.

Manning Clark's six-volume series, A History of Australia, is one of the masterpieces of Australian writing. It is also one of the most passionately debated visions of Australian history, in which the struggle to realise an Australian nation is played out on an epic scale.A History of Australia: From Earliest Times to 1838, deals with the pre-white settlement era and the earliest years of European colonisation through to the establishment of an increasingly settled society and the expeditions of the great inland explorers.This is not a general Australian history-it does not attempt to cover all aspects-and it is not a definitive or quantitative analysis. It is a work of art, a living and breathing account of the remaking of a primitive continent, history come alive.

Manning Clark's six-volume series, A History of Australia, is one of the masterpieces of Australian writing. It is also one of the most passionately debated visions of Australian history, in which the struggle to realise an Australian nation is played out on an epic scale.Manning Clark's six-volume history is one of the masterpieces of Australian writing. It is also one of the most passionately debated visions of Australian history, in which the struggle to realise an Australian nation is played out on an epic scale.A History of Australia: 1824-1888, takes the story of Australia through the momentous discovery of gold and the separation of Victoria from New South Wales, to the centenary of the coming of European civilisation to Australia on 26 January 1888. The story is one of destruction as well as construction-the destruction of the Aborigines and the construction of an essentially English bourgeois society and the taming of an alien and seemingly sterile land.This is not a general Australian history-it does not attempt to cover all aspects-and it is not a definitive or quantitative analysis. It is a work of art, a living and breathing account of the remaking of a primitive continent, history come alive.

This was the first systematic study of the historical origins of multiculturalism in Australian politics.This book answers such fundamental questions as: what is multiculturalism; how did it originate; and how did it become a basis for the Australian government's ethnic affairs policy?Researched from primary evidence-much of it made available to the author exclusivelymdash;it is an essential and solid foundation for future research and policy work in this field.Multiculturalism continues to stir emotions and excite passionate public debate. This work presents new, accurate, ideologically neutral, historically based definitions of multiculturalism. It also provides accurate and analytically useful definitions and explanations of assimilationism and integrationism, thus establishing a valuable framework for analysis and debate.

First full account of the third and last great hydrographic survey of the Australian coastline undertaken by the British Hydrographic Office. John Lort Stokes was commissioned by the British Hydrographic Office in 1837 to survey and chart unknown parts of the Australian coastline. He was the last Royal Navy surveyor to hold such a roving commission-as had Matthew Flinders and Phillip Parker King before him. The voyage lasted six years and his ship was H.M.S. Beagle, of Charles Darwin fame. Stokes circumnavigated Australia twice. In the north he discovered the Fitzroy, Albert and Flinders rivers and Port Darwin, and in the south charted that graveyard of sailing ships, Bass Strait. A century later, twelve of his charts were still in use. The occasional breathtaking foolhardiness of this earnest and conscientious man startles the reader, as it must have done his men. On a whim, Stokes twice risked drowning himself and others with him, and he made several daredevil escapes from crocodiles. The stories are gripping, and Marsden Hordern is a gifted and vigorous storyteller. He is ably assisted by the ship's mate, Helpman-a chatty, witty chronicler. Mariners are Warned! is an engrossing biography, written with empathy by a fellow mariner. Winner of the Age Book of the Year; Victorian Premier's Literary Award (A. A. Phillips Award for Australian Studies); Braille Book of the Year; Australian Maritime History Prize. Companion volume to King of the Australian Coast, another prize-winning maritime biography by the same author.

Award-winning biography of one of Australia's greatest men. Completely redesigned and re-set in a handsome new edition.A major Australian university and a great Victorian freeway are named after Sir John Monash, but many people-especially younger generations-know little about him.Monash was one of Australia's greatest men, and probably the greatest of its soldiers. The son of Jewish immigrants from Prussia, he graduated from the University of Melbourne in three faculties-Arts, Law and Engineering. He was a man of wide-ranging intellect, and especially devoted to literature, music, theatre, languages and Jewish scholarship.He achieved fame as a soldier-a citizen-soldier-in World War I. His baptism of fire occurred at Gallipoli, and he was almost the only senior allied general to emerge from the agony of the Western Front with his reputation virtually unspotted.Before the war, Monash pioneered the Australian use of reinforced concrete, then a revolutionary construction material. On his return, he became the first chairman of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, putting his gift for leadership to harnessing Gippsland's huge brown coal deposits. Monash spent his energies lavishly on the public affairs of his native Australia and placed his immense prestige at the service of many great causes.Geoffrey Serle's award-winning and best-selling biography of John Monash is much more than a military study. It offers a revealing portrait of a confident leader and public figure, and of an intensely inward-dwelling and sensitive private person.