Collection: Biography

In the smouldering aftermath of the First World War a young Australian pilot and his crew prepare to attempt the inconceivable: a flight, half way around the globe, from England to Australia. The 18,000 kilometre odyssey will take 28 days and test these men and their twin-engine biplane to the li...

Should architecture be used for punishment? How might the spaces we inhabit nurture or damage us? How can we begin to start over after the worst has happened? Criminologist Yvonne Jewkes grapples with these questions every day as the world's leading expert on rehabilitative prison design; she als...

St Lucia, the Brisbane suburb famed for its university campus, emerged despite world wars, Spanish Influenza and Depression. In the 1950s, kangaroos hopped across open paddocks; snakes slithered through scrub and sugar cane fields. The sanitary cart, ice man, milkman and whistle-tooting postman t...

"Based on interviews with more than one hundred people in five countries, The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump draws an unprecedented portrait of the first lady. While her public image is of an aloof woman floating above the political gamesmanship of Washington, behind the scene...

As a captain in the Georgian navy Arthur Phillip's integrity, intelligence and persistence made him perfectly suited to the role that history and circumstance presented to him in 1788, but landing the First Fleet at Botany Bay was only one of many achievements in a captivating life.

For decades, the Kennedy name has been synonymous with wealth, power, and-above all else-integrity. But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the Kennedy men's legacy of physical and psychological abuse of women, part of a tradition of toxic masculinity that spans generations and ...

At Home with Muhammad Ali is an intimate, behind-the-scenes portrait of a legend, a man admired and respected as the greatest sporting icon of our age, written by Ali’s daughter Hana. As Muhammad Ali approached the end of his astonishing boxing career, he strove to embrace a new purpose and role ...

When Germany invaded Wilhelm Brasse's native Poland in 1939, he was asked to swear allegiance to Hitler and join the Wehrmacht. He refused. He was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp as political prisoner number 3444. A trained portrait photographer, he was ordered by the SS to record the in...

Women have been flying planes ever since there have been planes to fly, but, with a few notable exceptions, they have not been visible or well known. Tenacious, determined and sometimes fearless, Kathy Mexted shares the stories of ten extraordinary Australian women compelled to take to the skies....

Bangka Strait, Indonesia, 1942. Allied ships are evacuating thousands in flight from Singapore, the island having fallen to Japanese Imperial forces. Facing terrifying assaults by fighter planes, one ship, the Vyner Brooke, is badly bombed and sinks. Its survivors swim or paddle for hours to the ...