Peter Thompson

The sentient computer virus causes more trouble for the twenty planets that make up the human elite. It embarks on a method using an intelligent bug queen that sends her worker and soldier bugs to take over a planet that is lightly populated after a long war of attrition. Once again, the earthman Jonathan Peel is sent to this planet by Myfous along with a small band of soldiers to find out what is happening. He finds that new queens are pregnant with super bug soldiers, modified by Pit, that are to be an invasion force to attack all human planets. Can Jonathan and his team stop this?

In the last months of 1944, a group of elite Australian and British commandos was selected for the biggest Allied behind-the-scenes operation of the Pacific War. Their mission: to devastate the enemy's shipping by destroying the Japanese ships at anchor in Singapore Harbour.

Why do things look blurry underwater? Why do people drive too fast in fog? How do you high-pass filter a cup of tea? What have mixer taps to do with colour vision? Basic Vision: An Introduction to Visual Perception demystifies the processes through which we see the world. Written by three authors with over 80 years of research and undergraduate teaching experience between them, it leads the reader step-by-step through the intricacies of visual processing, with full-colour illustrations on nearly every page. The writing style captures the excitement of recent research in neuroscience that has transformed our understanding of visual processing, but delivers it with a humour that keeps the reader enthused, rather than bemused. The book takes us through the various elements that come together as our perception of the world around us: the perception of size, colour, motion, and three-dimensional space. It illustrates the intricacy of the visual system, discussing its development during infancy, and revealing how the brain can get it wrong, either as a result of brain damage, through which the network of processes become compromised, or through illusion, where the brain compensates for mixed messages by seeing what it thinks should be there, rather than conveying the reality. The book also demonstrates the importance of contemporary techniques and methodology, and neuroscience-based techniques in particular, in driving forward our understanding of the visual system. Online Resources The online resources to accompany Basic Vision feature: For registered adopters: Figures from the book available to download, to facilitate lecture preparation. Test bank of multiple choice questions - a readily available tool for either formative or summative assessment. A Journal Club, with questions to lead students through key research articles that relate to topics covered in the book. For students: Annotated web links, giving students ready access to these additional learning resources.

'Morrison was the first Australian to break into Fleet Street's elite corps of foreign correspondents. Everyone who followed owes him an enormous debt. He set the benchmark: courage, truthfulness and the need to be there, face to face. His amazing life, splendidly and succinctly told, is an inspiration. If Morrison has been largely forgotten, this book will change that forever.' - Phillip Knightley, author of The First Casualty, a history of war correspondentsThis is the compelling story of 'Chinese Morrison', who bestrode continents, helped bring down a dynasty and chronicled his times so brilliantly that he not only wrote history but changed it as well. In 1882, at the age of 19, George Ernest Morrison's strong sense of courage and devotion to reporting the truth led him to expose the Australian Kanaka slave trade. It marked the beginning of what was to be an illustrious career. In the decades that followed, Morrison achieved international fame for his work as a correspondent for the London Times in the decadent and dangerous Chinese capital of Peking, not least when he helped to organise the defence of the legations during the 55-day siege of the Boxer Uprising. Then, as adviser to the fledgling Chinese Government, he was a pivotal figure in the fall of the last Emperor and the birth of the Chinese Republic.Peter Thompson and Robert Macklin have written a powerful and gripping biography of an Australian journalist and adventurer who paused only to tell his stories and to plan his next foray among the great events and leading figures of his day.

The true story of the 'the greatest defeat and largest capitulation' in British military history. The Fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 is a military disaster of enduring fascination. For the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the island, Peter Thompson tells the explosive story of the Malayan campaign, the siege of Singapore, the ignominious surrender to a much smaller Japanese force, and the Japanese occupation through the eyes of those who were there - the soldiers of all nationalities and members of Singapore's beleaguered population. An enthralling and perceptive account, which never loses sight of the human cost of the tragedy - Yorkshire Evening Post. An insightful and dramatic analysis - The Good Book Guide

This is a gripping true life drama, based on research from horseracing experts and eyewitnesses to the infamous events. The Melbourne Cup is Australia's most famous horserace, and Phar Lap its most celebrated winner. This is the full story of the fascinating events surrounding the now infamous Melbourne Cup Race of 1930. When Phar Lap, a celebrated racehorse, generated unprecedented excitement among the public, the bookies were filled with dread - victory for the favourite would cost them plenty. He'd have to be stopped, whatever the cost. In an incident worthy of a gangster movie, gunmen tried to shoot the horse on a quiet suburban street. With his life in danger, the champion was spirited away, only returning as the race was about to start. Nothing - it appeared - could stop Phar Lap now...

Using Nietzsche's categories of monumentalist, antiquarian and critical history, the author examines the historical and theoretical contexts of the collapse of the GDR in 1989 and looks at the positive and negative legacies of the GDR for the PDS (the successor party to the East German Communists). He contends that the Stalinization of the GDR itself was the product not just of the Cold War but of a longer inter-systemic struggle between the competing primacies of politics and economics and that the end of the GDR has to be seen as a consequence of the global collapse of the social imperative under the pressure of the re-emergence of the market-state since the mid-1970s. The PDS is therefore stuck in dilemma in which any attempt to "arrive in the Federal Republic" (Brie) is criticized as a readiness to accept the dominance of the market over society whereas any attempt to prioritize social imperatives over the market is attacked as a form of unreconstructed Stalinism. The book offers some suggestions as to how to escape from this dilemma by returning to the critical rather than monumentalist and antiquarian traditions of the workers’ movement.

Using Nietzsche's categories of monumentalist, antiquarian and critical history, the author examines the historical and theoretical contexts of the collapse of the GDR in 1989 and looks at the positive and negative legacies of the GDR for the PDS (the successor party to the East German Communists). He contends that the Stalinization of the GDR itself was the product not just of the Cold War but of a longer inter-systemic struggle between the competing primacies of politics and economics and that the end of the GDR has to be seen as a consequence of the global collapse of the social imperative under the pressure of the re-emergence of the market-state since the mid-1970s. The PDS is therefore stuck in dilemma in which any attempt to "arrive in the Federal Republic" (Brie) is criticized as a readiness to accept the dominance of the market over society whereas any attempt to prioritize social imperatives over the market is attacked as a form of unreconstructed Stalinism. The book offers some suggestions as to how to escape from this dilemma by returning to the critical rather than monumentalist and antiquarian traditions of the workers’ movement.

This is the story of Sarah Ferguson's rise and fall as a Duchess and separation from Prince Andrew and the royal family. Shocking and revelatory it chronicles how she failed as a royal icon and was too headstrong and spontaneous to be constrained by duty. It reveals Prince Andrew's "close" friendship with 40 year old American Liz Nacon which precipitated the split, Sarah's relationship with Steve Wyatt and John Bryan and how the Queen, shocked at these amorous goings-on and jealous acrimony, wanted to send Fergie to an asylum.

'Twas Honest old Noah first planted the Vine And mended his morals by drinking its Wine. -from a drinking song by Benjamin Franklin There were, Peter Thompson notes, some one hundred and fifty synonyms for inebriation in common use in colonial Philadelphia and, on the eve of the Revolution, just as many licensed drinking establishments. Clearly, eighteenth-century Philadelphians were drawn to the tavern. In addition to the obvious lure of the liquor, taverns offered overnight accommodations, meals, and stabling for visitors. They also served as places to gossip, gamble, find work, make trades, and gather news. In Rum Punch and Revolution, Thompson shows how the public houses provided a setting in which Philadelphians from all walks of life revealed their characters and ideas as nowhere else. He takes the reader into the cramped confines of the colonial bar room, describing the friendships, misunderstandings and conflicts which were generated among the city's drinkers and investigates the profitability of running a tavern in a city which, until independence, set maximum prices on the cost of drinks and services in its public houses. Taverngoing, Thompson writes, fostered a sense of citizenship that influenced political debate in colonial Philadelphia and became an issue in the city's revolution. Opinionated and profoundly undeferential, taverngoers did more than drink; they forced their political leaders to consider whether and how public opinion could be represented in the counsels of a newly independent nation.