In The Colonization of Land in Matthew's Gospel, Maziel Barreto Dani proposes that land is constructed as a colonized and subjugated entitl. Traditional scholarship claims that the Gospel of Matthew is detached from spatial-territorial discussions and that geographical land concerns are displaced with Christology. Dani, however, reinterprets multiple implicit and explicit references to land in the Gospel to show continuity, rather than discontinuity, with the Hebrew Bible’s concerns with material land promises. She does so by engaging the Gospel within its broader Roman, Hellenistic, and Jewish contexts where the theme of land possession is pervasive. Central to the Gospel and the imperial contexts from which it emerges are contestations over the land and proclamations to whom the land belongs. Dani argues that while Judea and neighboring lands are under the firm control of Roman imperial power during the first century CE, Matthew’s Gospel envisions Rome’s demise and the control of land being transferred to an alternative empire governed by the sovereign rule of God. Though God liberates the land from Rome’s oppressive grasp and restores land promises to the righteous poor at Jesus’ return, the land fails to escape colonial control. That is, the world, while relinquished from Roman hegemony, is reasserted under God’s power and domination. In arguing that Matthew’s Gospel employs an imperializing agenda involving land reclamation, the Gospel may be a source for validating and justifying the modern colonization of foreign and occupied land under the guise of God’s purposes. The Colonization of Land in Matthew's Gospel challenges colonial ideologies which oppress not only peoples but the lands which they inhabit.

This book provides a thoroughly researched biography of the naval career of Matthew Flinders, with particular emphasis on his importance for the maritime discovery of Australia. Sailing in the wake of the 18th-century voyages of exploration by Captain Cook and others, Flinders was the first naval commander to circumnavigate Australia's coastline. He contributed more to the mapping and naming of places in Australia than virtually any other single person. His voyage to Australia on H.M.S. Investigator expanded the scope of imperial, geographical and scientific knowledge. This biography places Flinders's career within the context of Pacific exploration and the early white settlement of Australia. Flinders's connections with other explorers, his use of patronage, the dissemination of his findings, and his posthumous reputation are also discussed in what is an important new scholarly work in the field.

This book explores the emergence of 'Australasia' as a way of thinking about the culture and geography of this region. Although it is frequently understood to apply only to Australia and New Zealand, the concept has a longer and more complicated history. 'Australasia' emerged in the mid-18th century in both French and British writing as European empires extended their reach into Asia and the Pacific, and initially held strong links to the Asian continent. The book shows that interpretations and understandings of 'Australasia' shifted away from Asia in light of British imperial interests in the 19th century, and the concept was adapted by varying political agendas and cultural visions in order to reach into the Pacific or towards Antarctica. The Making and Remaking of Australasia offers a number of rich case studies which highlight how the idea itself was adapted and moulded by people and texts both in the southern hemisphere and the imperial metropole where a range of competing actors articulated divergent visions of this part of the British Empire. An important contribution to the cultural history of the British Empire, Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Studies, this collection shows how 'Australasia' has had multiple, often contrasting, meanings.

This two-volume work provides the first edited publication of Matthew Flinders’s fair journals from the circumnavigation of Australia in 1801-1803 in HMS Investigator, and of the ’Memoir’ he wrote to accompany his journals and charts. These are among the most important primary texts in Australian maritime history and European voyaging in the Pacific. Flinders was the first explorer to circumnavigate Australia. He was also largely responsible for giving Australia its name. His voyage was supported by the Admiralty, the Navy Board, the East India Company and the patronage of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society. Banks ensured that the Investigator expedition included scientific gentlemen to document Australia’s flora, fauna, geology and landscape features. The botanist Robert Brown, botanical painter Ferdinand Bauer, landscape artist William Westall and the gardener Peter Good were all members of the voyage. After landfall at Cape Leeuwin, Flinders sailed anti-clockwise round the whole continent, returning to Port Jackson when the ship became unseaworthy. After a series of misfortunes, including a shipwreck and a long detention at the Ile de France (now Mauritius), Flinders returned to England in 1810. He devoted the last four years of his life to preparing A Voyage to Terra Australis, published in two volumes, and an atlas. Flinders died on 19 July 1814 at the age of forty. The fair journals edited here comprise a daily log with full nautical information and ’remarks’ on the coastal landscape, the achievements of previous navigators in Australian waters, encounters with Aborigines and Macassan trepangers, naval routines, scientific findings, and Flinders’s surveying and charting. The journals also include instructions for the voyage and some additional correspondence. The ’Memoir’ explains Flinders’ methodology in compiling his journals and charts and the purpose and content of his surveys.