Peter FitzSimons Ordre des livres (chronologique)

The iconic Australian exploration story is vividly brought to life by Peter FitzSimons. On 20 August 1860, the Victorian Exploring Expedition, led by Robert O'Hara Burke and surveyor William Wills, set off with great fanfare, aiming to be the first Europeans to cross the harsh Australian continent. Equipped with 20 tons of gear, six wagons, 23 horses, and 26 camels, the expedition faced immediate challenges, including internal disputes and sackings. They battled the extremes of the Australian landscape—deserts, boggy mangrove swamps, searing heat, and flooding rains. Food shortages plagued the team, and despite the offers of assistance from local Indigenous people, they largely rejected help. In a desperate move, Burke, Wills, Charley Gray, and John King left the main party at Coopers Creek to rush for the Gulf in December 1860. Unfortunately, mismanagement and bad luck caused them to miss a crucial rendezvous by mere hours, leaving them stranded with minimal supplies. Ultimately, only King survived to recount the harrowing tale. Despite their tragic end, Burke and Wills symbolize perseverance and bravery against overwhelming odds, and their legacy endures in Australian history, making their story both immediate and compelling.

Love him or loathe him, Ned Kelly has been at the heart of Australian culture and identity since he and his gang were tracked down in bushland by the Victorian police and came out fighting, dressed in bulletproof iron armour made from farmers' ploughs. Historians still disagree over virtually every aspect of the eldest Kelly boy's brushes with the law. Did he or did he not shoot Constable Fitzpatrick at their family home? Was he a lawless thug or a noble Robin Hood, a remorseless killer or a crusader against oppression and discrimination? Was he even a political revolutionary, an Australian republican channelling the spirit of Eureka? Peter FitzSimons, bestselling chronicler of many of the great defining moments and people of this nation's history, is the perfect person to tell this most iconic of all Australian stories. From Kelly's early days in Beveridge, Victoria, in the mid-1800s, to the Felons' Apprehension Act, which made it possible for anyone to shoot the Kelly gang, to Ned's appearance in his now-famous armour, prompting the shocked and bewildered police to exclaim ‘He is the devil!' and ‘He is the bunyip!', FitzSimons brings the history of Ned Kelly and his gang exuberantly to life, weighing in on all of the myths, legends and controversies generated by this compelling and divisive Irish-Australian rebel.

Bedrog, schipbreuk, moord, slavernij en moed komen samen in het waargebeurde verhaal van de ondergang van het VOC-schip Batavia in 1629. Dit meeslepende en bloedstollende verhaal vertelt over de grootste koopvaardij van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, die bijna 400 jaar geleden vertrok en nooit meer terugkeerde. Op 29 oktober 1628 verlaat de Batavia, de trots van de Republiek, Texel voor haar eerste reis naar Nederlands-Indië. Het schip, groter en sneller dan zijn voorgangers, is beladen met kostbaarheden, waaronder kisten met zilveren muntgeld en goud ter waarde van 260.000 gulden, luxe goederen, zilverwerk voor keizer Janghir, handelswaar en een kistje met waardevolle juwelen. Al snel ontstaan er spanningen onder de bemanning, die op het punt van muiterij staan wanneer het schip midden in de nacht op een rif voor de kust van Australië loopt en begint te zinken. Paniek breekt uit onder de passagiers. Bij zonsopkomst wordt de ernst van de situatie duidelijk: de Batavia verkeert in een hopeloze situatie, met een straffe wind en hoge golven. De evacuatie naar een nabijgelegen eiland begint, maar de muiters besluiten iedereen die hen in de weg staat te vermoorden. Van de 341 opvarenden bereiken uiteindelijk slechts 68 Java.

The number one bestselling biography of our greatest war heroine - over 84,000 copies sold in its first two formats. In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person. As a naive, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazis. What began as a courier job here and there became a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers, perfectly camouflaged by Nancy's high-society life in Marseille. Her network was soon so successful - and so notorious - that she was forced to flee France to escape the Gestapo, who had dubbed her the white mouse for her knack of slipping through its traps. But Nancy was a passionate enemy of the Nazis and refused to stay away. Supplying weapons and training members of a powerful underground fighting force, organising Allied parachute drops, cycling four hundred kilometres across a mountain range to find a new transmitting radio - nothing seemed too difficult in her fight against the Nazis.Peter FitzSimons reveals Nancy Wake's compelling story, a tale of an ordinary woman doing extraordinary things.

"This is an account of the battle of Tobruk in 1941 in which Australian troops fought against the Afrika Korps in North Africa."--Provided by publisher.