Showing results by narrator "Peter Byrne" in All Categories

Drawing on hundreds of accounts by soldiers, politicians, aid workers, entertainers and the Vietnamese people, Paul Ham reconstructs for the first time the full history of our longest military campaign. From the commitment to engage, through the fight over conscription and the rise of the anti - war movement, to the tactics and horror of the battlefi eld, Ham exhumes the truth about this politicians' war - which sealed the fate of 50,000 Australian servicemen and women.

It was a war without mercy, fought back and forth along 90 miles of river crossings, steep inclines and precipitous descents, with both sides wracked by hunger and disease, and terrified of falling into enemy hands. Defeat was unthinkable: the Australian soldier was fighting for his homeland against an unyielding aggressor; the Japanese ordered to fight to the death in a bid to conquer ‘Greater East Asia’.

This is the story of three terrible famines. The first is an Gorta Mór, the great hunger of Ireland, which began in 1846. The second is the deadly famine that struck Bengal in 1943. The third is the Ethiopian famine, which first sprung up in lethal form in the 1970s under Emperor Haile Selassie and then reappeared under the brutal dictator Mengistu in the 1980s.

Lachlan Macquarie is credited with shaping Australia's destiny, transforming a harsh, foreboding penal colony into an agricultural powerhouse and ultimately a prosperous society. He also helped shape Australia's national character. An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and businesspeople.

In this national bestseller Robert Mane attacks the right-wing campaign against the Bringing them home report that revealed how thousands of Aborigines had been taken from their parents. What was the role of Paddy McGuinness as editor of Quadrant? How reliable was the evidence that led newspaper columnists from Piers Akerman in the Sydney Daily Telegraph to Andrew Bolt in the Melbourne Herald Sun to deny the gravity of the injustice done?

For the soldiers and officers of Australia's Special Air Service (SAS) Regimentâ¿¿ this is not just their professional mottoâ¿¿ but a creed that shapes their lives. The SAS is among the world's most respected special forces unitsâ¿¿ a crack team of men from the Australian Defence Force who can be relied upon to handle the most difficultâ¿¿ strategically sensitive and dangerous of military tasks.

In the third Quarterly Essay of 2001, Guy Rundle comes to grips with John Howard, the prime minister who, on the eve of an election, seems to have turned round his political fortunes by spurning refugees and writing blank cheques for America's War on Terror. This is a brilliant account of John Howard's dominant ideas, his concerted "dreaming" with its emphasis on unity and national identity that reveals him to be the most reactionary PM we have ever had.

For many years, thousands of people have walked past an unassuming black timber fishing boat bobbing in the water down at the wharves of Sydney's Darling Harbour. But appearances can be deceptive. This humble little trawler played a key role in one of World War II's most audacious and successful commando raids. In September 1943, fourteen young Z special operatives sailed the small fishing boat from Australia to Japanese-occupied Singapore. Battling deadly tides, fierce storms, hostile ships and detection from the air, this little ship and its crew made it to the heart of the enemy stronghold.

What happens to the elite, close-knit soldiers of Australia's Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment after they leave the Who Dares Wins world of special forces? For some, there are highly paid jobs in the world's war zones and trouble spots protecting global corporations from terrorism, sabotage and violence. Others become powerful government advisers, many join foreign armies to train their special forces and expand the global brotherhood.

Lost for 13 months in the wilds of Afghanistan, this is the dramatic, heart-warming and truly amazing story of Sarbi, the Army's most famous explosives detection dog - the miracle dog of Tarin Kot. Powerful, dramatic, heartwarming, this is the true story of Sarbi, the scruffy black Labrador-cross trained by the Australian Army as an explosives detection dog for the most dangerous combat mission imaginable. Thirteen months after Australia's most famous canine warrior went missing in action in 2008, she was found by an American Special Forces officer patrolling a village....

In 1947, two years after witnessing the death of a young Jewish woman in Poland, Charlie Berlin has rejoined the police force a different man. Sent to investigate a spate of robberies in rural Victoria, he soon discovers that World War II has changed even the most ordinary of places and people.

For months during 1943 there was no night in Hellfire Pass. By the light of flares, carbide lamps and bamboo fires, men near-naked and skeletal cut a passage through stone to make way for a railway. Among these men were some of the 22,000 Australian soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. In camps across Asia and the Pacific, they struggled, died, and survived with a little help from their mates.

Over thirty five thousand Australian soldiers and airmen are still listed as Missing In Action from the wars of the 20th Century. Telling the moving story of the determination and skill of the searchers who apply old-fashioned detective work and cutting-edge science to solve the mysteries of the missing and bring peace of mind and solace to their families and to all those who serve, Where Soldiers Lie follows these investigators and scientists on their mission to locate and identify unrecovered war casualties and to unlock their secrets.

Balladeer, bushman, soldier, foreign correspondent - the remarkable life of Australia's greatest storyteller. A. B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson is rightly recognised as Australia’s greatest storyteller and most celebrated poet, the boy from the bush who became the voice of a generation. He gave us our unofficial national anthem, ‘Waltzing Matilda’, and treasured ballads such as ‘The Man from Snowy River’ and ‘Clancy of the Overflow’, vivid creations that helped to define our national identity.

Balladeer, bushman, soldier, foreign correspondent - the remarkable life of Australia's greatest storyteller. A. B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson is rightly recognised as Australia’s greatest storyteller and most celebrated poet, the boy from the bush who became the voice of a generation. He gave us our unofficial national anthem, ‘Waltzing Matilda’, and treasured ballads such as ‘The Man from Snowy River’ and ‘Clancy of the Overflow’, vivid creations that helped to define our national identity.

Philomena ‘Phil’ Byrnes and her husband Peter ran the Byrnes Private Investigation company in Seattle, Washington; until Peter was murdered at his desk late one night. While keeping the company alive, Phil has been slowly gathering information to try and figure out who killed him. One night she, her business associate Buzzy and their close friend Seattle Police Detective Coleman, go up to Phil's cabin in the San Juan Islands to comb through the information and finally bring the killer to justice.

Rex tells the story of a kid who struggled at school, but who found the drive and motivation to carve out a hugely successful career as an Aussie Rules footballer and then as a major media figure. Along the way Rex talks about his years in the police force, his National Service, the ups and downs of his business and professional life, the dramatic legal case against his former manager, his loving family, and, of course, lots and lots of football and fishing.

How did Terry Daniher save a famous Melbourne stately home's priceless chandelier from crashing to the floor? What happened when Lou Richards gave big Simon Madden a massage? Is Billy Brownless any good at making milkshakes? And what did James Hird want with the Fish at 3am, one hour after surgery? Paul Salmon - the Big Fish - reveals all in More Fish Tales.

John Howard has the loudest voice in Australia. He has cowed his critics, muffled the press, intimidated the ABC, gagged scientists, silenced NGOs, censored the arts, prosecuted leakers, criminalised protest and curtailed parliamentary scrutiny. Though touted as a contest of values, this has been a party-political assault on Australia's liberal culture. In the name of "balance", the Liberal Party has muscled its way into the intellectual life of the country. And this has happened because we let it happen.

When Mal Brough and John Howard announced the Northern Territory intervention in mid-2007, they proclaimed a child abuse emergency. In this riveting piece of reportage and analysis, Paul Toohey unpicks the rhetoric of emergency and tracks progress. One year on, have children been saved? Will Labor continue with the intervention? What are the reasons for the social crisis and how might things be different? Toohey argues that the real issue is not sexual abuse, but rather a more general neglect of children.