The almost simultaneous abolition of the slave trade and the cessation of convict transportation to the colony of New South Wales'now eastern mainland Australia'started a quest by the squatter pastoralists for alternative sources of cheap labor for their vast sheep runs. Over a period of five years, beginning from 1848, around three thousand Chinese men and boys from Fujian Province were recruited under conditions little different from the slave trade. In Among Australia's Pioneers, author Margaret Slocomb focuses on the experiences of approximately two hundred of these Chinese laborers between 1848 and 1853. Her research examines their working conditions during the five-year indenture period and also traces the lives of several of the men who, at the end of their contract, chose to remain in those districts, which, by then, had become familiar to them. Perhaps they regarded themselves as pioneer immigrants. Slocomb recounts the experiences of these men on the dangerous northern frontier of European settlement. While some succumbed to the despair and loneliness of a shepherd's life, others survived their indenture and went on to play an important role in the emerging society of the new colony of Queensland. They may certainly be counted among the nation's pioneers.

Ilija Sutalo has given us a detailed and fascinating insight into Croatian settlers from the 1800s to the present, the likes of which has never before been attempted. Yet Croatians have been here for 150 years, and, by the 1930s, were well organised and conscious of their heritage. A people without whom Australia could not have developed and grown.

Chap.4; Natives on Mainland off Whitsunday Passage cannibalism prevalent; Chap.5; Contact with natives at Escape Cliffs (Woolna) & Darwin (Larrakiah); Chap.7; Nilunga, King of Larrakiahs, womens camp life; intertribal conflict with Woolna tribe; types of weapons, corroborees; Chap.17; Attack by Woolna natives; Chap.20; Murders at Barrow Creek, Daly Waters & Port Essington; Chap.21; Murder of Mr Travers by natives at Limmen Bight River; Chap.22; Daly River murders (Woggite tribe); Chap.23; Jesuit mission at Rapid Creek (about 7 miles from Palmerston); Chap.24; Daly River Mission; relations between Malays & Aborigines (Wessel Island); Chap.26; Cave paintings in Limmin River area; Chap.27; Need for definite native policy.

Whenever the history of ecological thought has been written the contributions of Australian thinkers have been omitted. Yet Australia as a continent of extreme, rare and complex environments has produced a startling group of ecological pioneers. Across a wide range of human endeavour, Australian thinkers and innovators - whether they have thought of themselves as environmentalists or not - have made some truly original contributions to ecological thought. Ecological Pioneers traces the emergence of ecological understandings in Australia. By constructing a social history with chapters focusing on different fields in the arts, sciences, politics and public life, the authors bring to life the work of significant individuals. Some of the ecological pioneers featured include Joseph Banks, Russell Drysdale, Judith Wright, Myles Dunphy, Philip Crosbie Morrison, Vincent Serventy, Francis Ratcliffe, the Gurindji and Yolngu peoples, Bill Mollison, Jack Mundey, Val Plumwood, Michael Leunig, and many more.