QBD the Bookshop has been working closely with the Royal Historical Societies of Brisbane and Melbourne to bring you 3 spectacular photographic collections featuring the history and beauty of these two great cities.
Remembering Melbourne, an imaginative collaboration by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and QBD, and based on the voluntary efforts of over 100 people, has established a new benchmark in recording the early history of one of the world’s most liveable cities.
It is a unique book, for it reveals in over 700 photographs the face of fourteen of Melbourne’s finest streets, and also its lanes and little streets, its parks and gardens, and of course the Yarra. Besides this, it presents key buildings and streetscapes of twenty of Melbourne’s iconic suburbs.
Each street and suburb is introduced by a short essay written by an expert, catching the essence of that precinct. These authoritative introductions, written by over 30 history practitioners working pro bono, provide a context for the magnificent photographs to follow. There are also introductory chapters on Aboriginal Melbourne, on how the city was shaped, on the city and suburbs as a whole, and on how Melbourne and suburbs were captured by the camera, which was born at the same time as the city.
Lost Brisbane and surrounding areas 1860 to 1960 is a joint publication of The Royal Historical Society of Queensland and QBD The Bookshop. It is a spectacular collection of more than 500 photographs from the Society's Photographic Collection that traces the development and changes in the city and its environs over a period of 100 years.
This book is not only about buildings and places that no longer exist. It highlights the changes in landscapes, streetscapes, work places, transport, and recreational pursuits. Brisbane's hilly terrain made it a challenge for transport systems to develop but gave the residents wonderful views. The camera unleashed a great opportunity to record the life of the city and panoramas from key vantage points show how the landscape has changed.
The companion volume to the bestselling Lost Brisbane, this book traces the changes in the city and its environs in a later period from the 1940s to the 1990s and is a spectacular collection of more than 450 photographs from the Society’s Photographic Collection as well as from other significant collections including that of the Brisbane City Council.
Lost Brisbane 2 is not only about buildings and places that no longer exist. It highlights the changes in landscapes, streetscapes, infrastructure, work places, transport, and recreational pursuits. Photographs bring the story to life; the appearance of air raid shelters during World War II, the city decorated for Royal Visits, City Hall as the heart of the city, the introduction of traffic lights, the busy Roma Street markets, the loss of wharves and trams, street protests the cafés, theatres, hotels, and high-rise phenomena. The 1982 Commonwealth Games, the emergence of a South Bank cultural precinct, and the international spectacle of Expo 88 saw Brisbane truly come of age.
This book is a significant and authoritative work of social history and is more than a nostalgic lament for a lost past. It is a celebration that gives the reader a clear appreciation of how we’ve come to the present.
