This book narrates and analyses the vital role of the trade unions of New South Wales, centred on the Trades and Labor Council, between 1870 and 1891, when they formed the parliamentary Labor Party. The author argues that the Labor movement was an integral social institution and successfully kept capitalism in check for a generation; but, at the beginning of the momentous 1890s, the unions found a triumphant capitalism beginning to lurch out of control. The problem for Labor then was to civilise capitalism, and as its means it established the Labor Party.

Just why Frederick Montague Rothery drew the Atlas o f Banda leer Plains and Tat ala is uncertain. But he has left a record of a huge nineteenth-century Queensland pastoral holding that is charming, possibly unique, and of real interest and value. Each of the maps is an attractive watercolour, its delicate brushwork and fine lettering showing in meticulous detail the area depicted: its soil, vegetation, buildings, fences, and dams.

The Destruction of Aboriginal Society is the first of three volumes, on the general theme 'Aboriginal Policy and Practice', which are concerned with the history of interaction over the whole continent between black and white Australians from the time of settlement up to 1967. It is the first detailed study of its kind. This volume is concerned with the history and tragedy of interaction.

The May 30 Movement of 1925 marked the beginning of a new period in the development of modern China, and demonstrated to both the Chinese and the foreigners the unprecedented level to which nationalist feelings and ideas has risen in China. In the course of the Movement the strengths and weaknesses of both foreign and Chinese forces were revealed. Although the Movement itself seemed to end in something of an anticlimax after the violence and bloodshed that had occurred, in the long run it proved to have been an event of major significance.

Pacific beach communities have long been thought of by the romantics as tropical paradises away from the cares of the everyday world. But were they? From the examination of the political, economic, and social developments o f five small port towns - Honolulu, Papeete, Kororareka, Levuka, and Apia - the picture that emerges falls short of paradise. Jealousies, petty quarrels, political manoeuverings, followed the early settlers to their island havens.

Before the 1840s only a trickle of Cantonese 'coolies and labourers' had come to the Pacific region. But in the great goldrushes of 1848 to 1854 in California, Eastern Australia, New Zealand, and British Columbia the trickle became a flood. When gold began to peter out, the Chinese remained, enjoying a brief period of humanitarian liberalism. But in the 1870s renewed immigration aroused fear of slave labour and racist antipathy towards 'inferior' races.

The main emphasis is on the financial relations between central and local government in the United Kingdom. The opportunity is taken to draw on the large amount of information published in 1976 as a consequence of the first major official inquiry into local finances for some fifty years. Attention is also given to the financial implications of the proposals for devolution of power to new Scottish and Welsh Assemblies.

The problems of the education of officers in the armed services are at present the subject of vigorous debate within official and service circles in Australia. To what extent do officers in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force need to be provided with a full-fledged academic education in order to fulfil their responsibilities in the modern world? How can the demands of an academic education be reconciled with those of the inculcation of soldierly virtues and skills?

From at least the time man first controlled fire he has made use of land and water, plants and animals, and has encroached on the natural balance of his universe. Now increases in population and developments in technology threaten that balance, and there is a special urgency to define the problems of nature conservation and to find solutions to them. This book is a stocktaking of the natural resources of the Pacific region, resources subject to competing demands. To establish their most effective use thus requires evaluation in social and scientific, economic and political terms.