The Heart of the World
The Heart of the World — Antarctica
By Coral Tulloch
Published by ABC Books
ISBN 0 7333 0912 7
This is supposed to be a book for children, and Coral Tulloch is well-known as an author and illustrator of children’s books. However, in this book — written after a round-trip voyage on the Aurora Australis and published by ABC Books as part of their admirable library of books for younger readers — she fulfills a role that means the reader’s number of years is immaterial.
For here is a wonderful introduction to Antarctica — a compendium of Antarctic exeriences that Coral, and others she quotes in its pages, helps bring the ice-bound continent to life — and age has nothing to do with it. Should you be so lucky as to be going into the deepest south on a tourist ship or maybe a tourist flight, or if you just want to know more about the world’s largest continent, then this is a book for you.
Continued …
Steps to the scaffold
Steps to the Scaffold
The untold story of Tasmania’s black bushrangers
By Robert Cox
Published by Cornhill Publishing
ISBN 0 9751977 0 3
A gripping tale, sometimes harrowing, but for most us, a surprising story of Tasmania’s early years of colonisation. Robert Cox tells the story of how some Aborigines tried to resist the alientation of their land, mainly within the period from the mid-1820s to the early 1830s.
When European settlers first arrived, Aborigines may have viewed them with some mystification but were not aggressive. However, when those same white interlopers took over their richest hunting grounds and traditional pathways, the local tribes became more unsettled. White man’s guns, at first viewed as insurmountable weapons, proved to be something that local tribespeople could capture and use themselves.
It is interesting reading the accounts of colonisation as written by early white historians how little of this has been taken into account. For example, Truganini (also know as Trucanini) is quoted in early histories as being “rescued” by white fishermen from two Aborigine men — a neat reversal of the facts and neglecting to mention that the former hacked off the hands of those men, one to whom Truganini was due to be married, when they tried to climb into the boat that held her so that they drowned in the waters off Bruny Island.
Cox is meticulous in his accounting of events in a clear and unbiased fashion, although his Conclusion leaves little doubt about his personal view. You can make up your own mind about the justice, or injustice, meted out to those concerned. This is not a “black armband view” of history, but an attempt to redress the balance. PH
Read extracts here from the book by Robert Cox.
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