When Ellie and six of her friends return home from a camping trip deep in the bush, they find things hideously wrong -- their families gone, houses empty and abandoned, pets and stock dead. Gradually they begin to comprehend that their country has been invaded and everyone in the town has been taken prisoner. As the horrible reality of the situation becomes evident they have to make a life-and-death decision: to run back into the bush and hide, to give themselves up to be with their families, or to stay and try to fight. This reveting, tautly-drawn novel seems at times to be only a step away from today's headlines.

Australia has been invaded. Nothing is as it was. Six teenagers are living out their nightmare in the sanctuary of a hidden valley called Hell. Alone, they make their own rules, protect what is theirs, and struggle for courage and hope in a world changed forever. Seeking supplies, allies, and information, the friends make forays into enemy territory, drawing on nerve and resourcefulness they never even knew they had. As the risks become greater, so too do the sacrifices they must make. Intense, passionate, and compulsive, The Dead of Night continues the frighteningly real story begun in Tomorrow, When the War Began.

Have humans always fought and killed each other, or did they peacefully coexist until organized states developed? Is war an expression of human nature or an artifact of civilization? Questions about the origins and inherent motivations of warfare have long engaged philosophers, ethicists, and anthropologists as they speculate on the nature of human existence. In How War Began, author Keith F. Otterbein draws on primate behavior research, archaeological research, and data gathered from the Human Relations Area Files to argue for two separate origins. He identifies two types of military organization: one that developed two million years ago at the dawn of humankind, wherever groups of hunters met, and a second that developed some five thousand years ago, in four identifiable regions, when the first states arose and proceeded to embark upon military conquests. In careful detail, Otterbein marshals evidence for his case that warfare was possible and likely among early Homo sapiens. He argues from comparison with other primates, from Paleolithic rock art depicting wounded humans, and from rare skeletal remains embedded with weapon points to conclude that warfare existed and reached a peak in big game hunting societies. As the big game disappeared, so did warfare--only to reemerge once agricultural societies achieved a degree of political complexity that allowed the development of professional military organizations. Otterbein concludes his survey with an analysis of how despotism in both ancient and modern states spawns warfare. A definitive resource for anthropologists, social scientists, and historians, How War Began is written for all who areinterested in warfare, whether they be military buffs or those seeking to understand the past and the present of humankind. --Publlisher.

The author of A Killing Frost continues his bestselling series. “Marsden’s style is as surefooted as his independent band of teens.”—School Library Journal Ellie and her friends had been rescued. Airlifted out of their own country to the safe haven of New Zealand, they’d arrived burnt and injured and shocked, with broken bones, and scars inside and out. They did not want to go back. But five months later the war is not over, the nightmares continue, and there are two compelling reasons for them to return: a planned sabotage of the air base in Wirrawee and, most important, the families they left behind. In this episode of the tale begun in Tomorrow, When the War Began and continued in The Dead of Night and A Killing Frost, John Marsden takes us back to Hell, the outpost for a group of teens in a war-ravaged country. “Ellie is a solid narrator whose no-nonsense approach to love, war, and friendship makes her an unusual and impressive female protagonist. A personalized war novel that is apocalyptic yet open-ended enough for another sequel, Darkness benefits from not being limited to fitting into any one genre, but satisfactorily including aspects of several.”—Booklist “Contains as much riveting suspense and cliffhanger chapter endings as the first three.”—The Horn Book

December 7, 1941, is one of those days engraved in the twentieth century memory. It is a landmark day, along with Armistice Day in 1918, the stock market crash in 1929, and the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. This book is about ordinary people on that extraordinary day. To a large extent, this book is by the people who remember that day because they have been permitted to tell their own stories in their own words. The book chooses representative stories from the entire country and concentrates on the stories of two destroyers, the USS Ward and the USS Henley, which were involved in the attack. This book, like all good history, reminds us of the changes that have come since World War II. There has been an overall change in attitudes, especially with the dramatic changes in Europe and the economic dominance of Japan. Much of what we see now relates directly to World War II and the way America and its allies conducted themselves when the war ended. It was the last war which had virtually no gray areas--Germany, Japan, and Italy were the bad guys, and America and its allies were the good guys. It truly was that simple for us before and during World War II. Nothing has been that simple since the fateful day that brought America into the most catastrophic conflict in history.

This is a story of courage, of friendship, of extraordinary adventure in extraordinary times.

Depicts the outbreak of the American Revolution at Lexington in 1775 through stories and illustrations.

The Other Side of Dawn is the long-awaited, riveting, final title in the Tomorrow series about a group of teenagers in war-torn Australia. Since their home was invaded by enemy soldiers and transformed into a war zone, Ellie and her friends have been fighting for their lives. They have learned survival skills out of necessity and taken care of each other through impossibly dark times. Now, with a roar like a train in a tunnel, the war has entered its final days. There’s no more sitting around, no more waiting. There’s only fast decisions, fast action, fast thinking—and no room to get it wrong. As the enemy forces close in on their hideout in Hell, Ellie, Fi, Homer, Lee, and Kevin, and their adopted group of orphaned children, find themselves facing the last chapter of their struggle for freedom. But it may just be the most dangerous yet. And not everyone will survive.

'Compulsively readable' New York Times Somewhere out there Ellie and her friends are hiding. Their country has been invaded. Everyone they know has been captured. Their world has changed overnight. They've got no weapons - except courage. They've got no help - except themselves. They've got nothing - except friendship. How strong could you be, if the world was full of people trying to kill you? Fans of Veronica Roth, Suzanne Collins and Michael Grant - prepare to be hooked by the Tomorrow series.

"Vietnam 1946 is a masterful narrative of the immediate origins of the first Vietnam War. It is, by turns, vivid and shocking; it is always immensely revealing. Tønnesson brings forensic clarity to crucial events about which, even now, some sixty years later, fundamental misapprehensions exist. An outstanding work of scholarship of major international importance."—Martin Thomas, author of Empires of Intelligence "Tønnesson captures brilliantly the 1946 confrontation between two republics: France determined to redeem itself from Axis humiliation by regaining Indochina; Vietnam equally determined to retake independence after eighty years of colonial servitude. Tønnesson also demonstrates, however, that some leaders on each side really wanted a peaceful, mutually beneficial outcome. Descent into full-scale war was not inevitable. This is a carefully researched, clearly written analysis of a vital moment in the 20th century history of both countries. It is also a meditation on the elusive boundary between free will and determinism in human affairs."—David Marr, author of Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945 “Stein Tønnesson's Vietnam 1946 answers the fundamental question about the first of Vietnam's 20th century wars, the one fought against the French: how did it happen? He has written a meticulously researched account which restores their contingency to the events. The first Indochina war, like those that succeeded it, was not inevitable and Tønnesson explains why and how it happened anyway.”—Marilyn Young, author of The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990