A unique view of Australia and New Zealand over 200 years utilizing the vehicle of bladeware from the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 until the Bicentennial Celebration in 1988. Under the direct governance of the British Empire for 113 of those years prior to Federation in 1901, the far-flung Australian colony and its dominion neighbour endured a myriad of difficulties in providing edged tools for the advancement of the oft-times struggling settlements.The tyrannies of distance associated with transporting all manner of merchandise - plus convicts - in sailing ships from Mother England to the antipodes, some 12,000 miles away, meant suppliers struggled to meet the demands of day to day colonial requirements. Necessity being the mother of invention, innovative artisans embarked upon forge-producing whatever they could from blade-steel shipped from Sheffield, the world's acknowledged steel and cutlery manufacturing centre.Fortuitously, many of the free settlers and convicts were 'Sheffieldians' who set about plying their cutling skills to fill the bladeware void in a burgeoning colony. A combination of colonial-made and imported edge-ware enabled the expanding settlements to steadily progress; hence the English-Australian cutlery connection which prevails to this day. The fluctuations of mercantile fortunes concerning Australian and Zealandian blade manufacturing were influenced by the economic peaks and pits of a fledgling colony and dominion striving to push the parameters. Boom times included the discovery of gold and bust times were precipitated by the collapse of banks and depressions. Financial viability hung like an ominous cloud; survival was ever the order of the day. After 1901, Federation heralded in new ways of doing things and stimulated an urge for self sufficiency and the two world wars generated a huge demand for Australian and New Zealand made bladeware. By the mid 1970's, however, Australian knife manufacturing had faded from existence, but not so in New Zealand. This history book details the rise and fall of all aspects of cutlery culture and manufacture in the British-settled antipodes, Australia and New Zealand, 1788 - 1988.

A panoramic global history of the nineteenth century A monumental history of the nineteenth century, The Transformation of the World offers a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a world in transition. Jürgen Osterhammel, an eminent scholar who has been called the Braudel of the nineteenth century, moves beyond conventional Eurocentric and chronological accounts of the era, presenting instead a truly global history of breathtaking scope and towering erudition. He examines the powerful and complex forces that drove global change during the "long nineteenth century," taking readers from New York to New Delhi, from the Latin American revolutions to the Taiping Rebellion, from the perils and promise of Europe's transatlantic labor markets to the hardships endured by nomadic, tribal peoples across the planet. Osterhammel describes a world increasingly networked by the telegraph, the steamship, and the railways. He explores the changing relationship between human beings and nature, looks at the importance of cities, explains the role slavery and its abolition played in the emergence of new nations, challenges the widely held belief that the nineteenth century witnessed the triumph of the nation-state, and much more. This is the highly anticipated English edition of the spectacularly successful and critically acclaimed German book, which is also being translated into Chinese, Polish, Russian, and French. Indispensable for any historian, The Transformation of the World sheds important new light on this momentous epoch, showing how the nineteenth century paved the way for the global catastrophes of the twentieth century, yet how it also gave rise to pacifism, liberalism, the trade union, and a host of other crucial developments.

A history of the common people and the Industrial Revolution: “A true masterpiece” and one of the Modern Library’s 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the twentieth century (Tribune). During the formative years of the Industrial Revolution, English workers and artisans claimed a place in society that would shape the following centuries. But the capitalist elite did not form the working class—the workers shaped their own creations, developing a shared identity in the process. Despite their lack of power and the indignity forced upon them by the upper classes, the working class emerged as England’s greatest cultural and political force. Crucial to contemporary trends in all aspects of society, at the turn of the nineteenth century, these workers united into the class that we recognize all across the Western world today. E. P. Thompson’s magnum opus, The Making of the English Working Class defined early twentieth-century English social and economic history, leading many to consider him Britain’s greatest postwar historian. Its publication in 1963 was highly controversial in academia, but the work has become a seminal text on the history of the working class. It remains incredibly relevant to the social and economic issues of current times, with the Guardian saying upon the book’s fiftieth anniversary that it “continues to delight and inspire new readers.”

Reproduction of the original.