New Zealand Books

This book is a history of Australian advertising from 1900 to 2000. It covers the rise (and fall) of different media and discusses how the industry itself adapted and reinvented itself to keep pace with change. Along the way, we meet some of the colourful characters involved in Australian advertising, explore some of the tensions between fact and hyperbole, and revisit some of the successful campaigns of the past. The role of regulation is also covered.

Advertising is one industry where it is absolutely true that the only constant is change. This book combines an easy to read account of the history of Australian advertising with some of the delightful (and not so delightful) examples of advertisements that many Australians will be familiar with. Who can forget the Grim Reaper (AIDS awareness) advertisements of the 1980s? Or Paul Hogan's cigarette advertisements (`Let `er rip, Boris!') back when such advertisements were legal?

I read the book for interest, and for the memories, and thoroughly enjoyed it. For those looking at either Australian culture, media or advertising more generally this book provides a treasure trove of factual information.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

In the usual way of the Cambridge Encyclopedias, this is a well-produced and useful guide. Being encyclopedic, it covers all the usual range of bases - the physical nature - climate, soils, water, vegetation etc, history, including a section on Aboriginal heritage, the nature of government, the economy, society, science and technology and culture and the arts. The contributors are an eminent group of mainly boffins from various universities. Unlike some older, and similar comprehensive surveys of Australia, this volume does include a section on Aboriginal-European relations, from first contact to the early 1990s and the Mabo judgement affecting land rights. There is a small section on child removal, a major issue in Australia since the inquiry into this. Generously illustrated in full colour. A worthy general, single volume addition to the home or school reference library.

Perhaps the only persons interested in this book are alums of UWA or those who worked there. The campus is the main university for Western Australia and the book describes how it flourished in the suburb of Nedlands, by Matilda Bay and the Swan River.

Much of the book's details will frankly be uninteresting to a reader who was never at UWA. During this time period, the campus expanded modestly. Its original core buildings were still well kept up. The biggest expansion was in the new Engineering and Maths buildings and the main library.

From an academic viewpoint, the biggest change was the establishment of the Computer Science department and the Crystallography Centre. Both in the same building, by the way. The CS department was needed, as the ongoing rush of Moore's Law gave rise to a need for programmers. While the Crystallography Centre became a world class research group under Ted Maslen, with a very productive output of research papers.

This was one of a three-book series. It was nice to watch the characters work through a shared painful past and find happiness together.

Kate Walsh, curator of the Migration Musuem in Adelaide, South Australia, has assembled a remarkable photgraphic record of Australian migration history over the last hundred years. Over five hundred photographs are accompanied by very informative narratives which convey the rich and varied history of migration to this land where four in ten persons today are either born overseas or from foreign born parents.

The highlights of an often chequered history of Australian immigration are vividly brought home by some very personal stories drawn from family albums, community organizations,and library archives. A group of Italian settlers from the Aeolian islands pose for the first annual picnic for Melbourne frutierrs in 1906. In another photo, six young Australians of German ancestry are photographed in a detention camp in Germany where they were held during the First World War together with British prsioners. There is the snapshot of one Australian solider from Darwin's Chinese commnity who was shot several times in New Guinea by fellow Australian soldiers during World War Two who mistook him for a Japanese. A photo from the 1960s shows the generational differences between adult members of a Spanish commnity in Whyalla singing and dancing to flamenco music and the younger Spanish girls who were kept in pants and never owned a flamenco dress. Photos of Malays and of Greeks show the diverse specialist skills which were attracted into Australia's pearling industry. The chronicle of the 1970s and 1980s reveal the changing composition of immigrants, with Asian and African faces increasingly showing up in the photos.

This book is a remarkable and informative piece of historical research judiciously combined with a rich portfolio of images of a nation which has become vastly transformed in a hundred years.

Here is an excellent documentation of the continuing stories regarding the plight and fight of Australian indigenous peoples that have seen the light of publication since the 1970s. This, like so many, highlights the resilience, flexibilty and pragmatism of a band of Martu desert dwellers who have adapted to survive the settler society. Their stories historic importance is relative to the development of the atomic testings in their homelands immediately after the Second World War. Readers might well extend their understanding by referring to Yami Lester's account which was published by IAD Press nearly a decade ago. The book is attractively presented with ample photographs, which amongst other things, demonstrates that the material well-being of the surviving Martu has changed little since the 1950s. Melbourne museum's Philip Batty has curated a poignant exhibition, currently touring Australia, which also touches on some of this book's themes.

for me, but with my gf's help, this should be a really great resource for planning our trip.

This book, along with the others in the series, provide the reader with useful information in a quick, accessable and well illustrated form. These books fit readily into a knapsac and can be easily carried in the field.

Australia and New Zealand are lands populated by emigrants and this book reflects this. I was pleasantly surprised to see many Dutch names in this. There are a few Maori and Polynesian names but fewer than I would have liked. Ditto for Aboriginal Australian names. However the author does justify this using tradition. However some very common names have been missed out eg the Tongan "Anaseini" which is a translation of Anna Jane, "Lupe" which is in referring to another language but which is the Tongan equivalent of Ruth. The historical background of each name is given well. I do like the alternative versions including translations of names which this book gives, which I think is one of its strengths.

The Indonesian Confrontation against Malaysia represents a challenging case study for scholars, historians and political scientists because it takes place at a time when the conduct of international relations was influenced by ideas and interests which may seem alien today. It is hard, for instance, to separate Sukarno's genuine fears of neocolonial encirclement from his desire to exaggerate external threats in order to justify his "Crush Malaysia" campaign, and to separate the internal dynamics of a regional conflict from the broader antagonisms of the Cold War. This book fills in an important gap in the literature by chronicling the conflict from the standpoint of the Western countries, who are the "Nekolim" so feared by Sukarno. It offers important historical lessons about the potential and limits of overlapping multilateral security arrangements (Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement, ANZUS agreements, Commonwealth, SEATO etc) in guaranteeing peace and security. The extensive network of alliances could act as a deterrent to aggressors, yet once deterrence fails (which it has and very well might again), the next development is always one of two evils: conflicts become escalated and involve many players, or someone must renege on a security obligation. The U.S., for instance, had distanced itself from its SEATO and ANZUS commitments for fear of being embroiled in the Konfrontasi crisis. This book describes diplomatic developments between the Western countries in useful detail. J.A.C. Mackie's "Konfrontasi" is still the best book on the subject from the M'sian and Indonesian angle. Djiwandono's "Konfrontasi Revisited" offers a view from the other side of the fence i.e. relations between Indonesia and the Soviet Union (as well as China).