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Much is speculative - as Karskens explains, there is too little evidence to be otherwise - but where other authors have retreated because of the fear that they would be seen to be speaking I for i Aboriginal people, Karskens has taken up the challenge. People of the River: Lost Worlds of Early Australia: By Grace Karskens. Karskens refuses to accept the assumption so widely made that Indigenous and settler cultures were incompatible and so displacement of Indigenous life was rapid and complete. [Extracted from the article]

Dino Hodge recently produced an interesting study of how Dunstan's personal beliefs and sexuality influenced his political life, but it was much more limited in scope than Woollacott's contribution. (xii-xiii) Dunstan's biographer, Angela Woollacott, set herself the task of rekindling the brightness of the light, and she succeeds admirably in this comprehensive biography of one of South Australia's - and the Australian Labor Party's - most progressive figures. Don Dunstan: The Visionary Politician Who Changed Australia: By Angela Woollacott. [Extracted from the article]

I Shooting the Picture i is an outcome of an Australian Research Council-funded Linkage research project conducted by the Walkley Foundation, the National Library of Australia and a group of scholars led by Fay Anderson and Sally Young. In addition to further visual analysis of images, the understanding of the unique communication power of press photography would be further enhanced by a more detailed exploration of the manner in which images sit on the printed page. Shooting the Picture: Press Photography in Australia: By Fay Anderson and Sally Young with Nikki Henningham. [Extracted from the article]

Honouring a Nation: A History of Australia's Honours System: By Karen Fox. For this reader, the most interesting and insightful chapters were six, where Fox outlines the Whitlam government's campaign for an Australian honours system, and seven, which explores the fierce debates over the nature of the system from 1975 to 1990. Fox is more nuanced in her reading of the saga and places it in the longer context of Australia's messy use of honours to find an identity in a post-imperial world. [Extracted from the article]

As Fitzpatrick notes, most of the Russians who came to Australia after the war did so "accidentally" (151). In this book, her first book-length foray into Australian migration history, Fitzpatrick unravels the mystery of why migrants to Australia had to become adept at masking their identities, not only from Australians but from each other. White Russians, Red Peril: A Cold War History of Migration to Australia: By Sheila Fitzpatrick. [Extracted from the article]

A timeframe of glacial and nonglacial intervals in the Carboniferous and Permian systems of eastern Australia was published by Fielding et al. (2008a). In this scheme, eight discrete intervals (four in the Carboniferous: C1-C4, and four in the Permian: P1-P4) in which indicators of glacial activity and cold climate were preserved alternated with intervals in which no such evidence is preserved. The timeframe has been widely used both to better understand the time-space distribution of glacial events in eastern Australia and as a basis for comparison with late Palaeozoic glacial events in other regions of the world. In the period since publication of that paper, a large inventory of new, radiogenic isotope ages has become available for the late Palaeozoic strata in eastern Australia, and the time ranges of the global stages of the Carboniferous and Permian have also been adjusted in the light of new age data. Accordingly, this paper presents a reappraisal of the Fielding et al. (2008a) timeframe, based on the much-improved chronostratigraphic database. Of the Carboniferous glaciations, only C1 has changed significantly, expanding in time range downward. Of the Permian glaciations, P1 and P2 remain as in the previous evaluation, whereas P3 and P4 become significantly younger in absolute time. Indeed, the close of P4, supported by a large number of high-precision ages, is now estimated to have occurred at 254.5 Ma, only 2.6 m.y. before the end-Permian biotic crisis and extinction event. Carbon isotopic records from Permian marine strata reveal that alternating glacial and nonglacial conditions in eastern Australia corresponded to changes in the global carbon cycle. Palaeoweathering proxies show that the intensity of chemical weathering during the late Palaeozoic in eastern Australia changed in response to climate swings, with nonglacial intervals likely becoming warmer and more humid through the course of the Permian. There are broad coincidences between the timing of glaciations in eastern Australia and those recorded elsewhere on Gondwana, but sufficient differences to support the conclusion that glaciations were not synchronized across the ancient landmass. The eastern Australian record persists in being the best-constrained in time anywhere in the world. • Time-space framework for late Palaeozoic glaciation in eastern Australia is revised. • C1 to C4 and P1 to P4 glaciations are retained. • P3 and P4 glaciations are younger than previously thought. • Close of P4 is at 254.5 Ma, only 2.6 m.y. before the end-Permian biotic crisis. • Despite some commonality, glaciations across Gondwana were not fully synchronized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of another chapter, Marcus Loane, also wrestled with international questions at the time of his country's dropping of its white-Australia policy. Billy Graham, whose highly successful mission to Australia in 1959 opens the book, came again to preach his arresting version of the Gospel in 1968-9. Chilton shows, however, that the evangelist used methods that were not particularly American, admitted the weaknesses of his country and afterwards deployed his experience of Australia in missions back in the United States. [Extracted from the article]

This book is ostensibly about urban archaeology in two major Australian cities, examined through the lens of work conducted at four site complexes: Hyde Park Barracks, First Government House, and the Rocks, in Sydney, and the Commonwealth Block (also known as Little Lon), in Melbourne. Because of this, I have found it difficult to review this book properly, I almost abandoned the attempt a couple of times, and my recommendation to other prospective book reviewers is, if all the publisher will provide is a PDF, say no. First the no - for those with more than a passing knowledge of Hyde Park Barracks, First Government House, the Commonwealth Block and the Rocks, a fair bit of familiar territory is covered. [Extracted from the article]