Robert Macklin – författare

A compelling account of Australia''s intelligence organisations and special forces - from the early days of the commandos during World War II through to the SAS of today and the cyber wars of the future. From the co-author of SAS Sniper.Warrior Elite is a unique and compelling account of Australia''s special forces and intelligence operations - ranging from the early special forces of World War II to the establishment and development of the SAS and Commando Regiments as the elite fighters of today, and from the Australian Security Intelligence Service to the Australian Signals Directorate and ASIO. It is an authoritative, gripping and thoroughly up-to-date account of both the history and current state of our special forces and intelligence bodies - and gives a unique glimpse into the warfare of the future. Our future.Robert Macklin has conducted dozens of exclusive interviews and uncovered incredible, daring and sometimes heartbreaking stories of the elite troops that guard our nation and engage in secret operations around the world. He has had significant cooperation from numerous sources within the special forces and the various intelligence agencies.Both thoroughly researched and colourfully written, Warrior Elite will attract the reader of action memoirs as well as those interested in broader military history and espionage.

The fascinating story of the Chinese presence in and influence on this country - our intertwined history from colonial times to today.Chinese ''presence'' in Australia extends from well before the time of Captain Cook - trading with northern Australia long before Europeans came here - right through to the present day, with Chinese activities ranging from being the main customer for our iron ore, to their very extensive intelligence operations here. Robert Macklin, bestselling and critically acclaimed author of HAMILTON HUME and DARK PARADISE, has traced a new history of the two nations. Macklin''s engrossing narrative reaches from pre-colonial times, to John Macarthur''s ''coolie'' shepherds, the only Chinese bushranger, Sam Pu, and the multiple atrocities committed against the Chinese in the gold rush; through to the 20th century, where the two Australians - ''Morrison of Peking'' and William Donald - played a significant role in the downfall of the last Chinese emperor and the creation of the first republic, before World War II and decades of Cold War brinkmanship; to our current economic bonds and Australia''s role in the dangerous geopolitics of the South China Sea. DRAGON AND KANGAROO is an absorbing account of a vastly underestimated part of Australia''s story: this is our shared history, from an immensely important - and entirely new - angle. ''Robert Macklin calls Hamilton Hume "our greatest explorer", and now that I''ve read this enthralling but at times shocking story, I totally agree.'' ***** GOOD READING on Robert Macklin''s HAMILTON HUME

''You almost feel you are taking that trek with the party as Robert Macklin cites the obstacles - torrential river crossings, dense bush, the Snowy Mountains and more. Macklin covers Hume''s public and private life, emphasising his affinity with the country and rapport with the Indigenous people, as well as providing a portrait of the evolving colony.'' SYDNEY MORNING HERALDThe stirring untold story of a true Australian hero who opened up the nation.While English-born soldiers, sailors and surveyors have claimed pride of place among the explorers of the young New South Wales colony, the real pathfinder was a genuine native-born Australian. Hamilton Hume, a man with a profound understanding of the Aboriginal people and an almost mystical relationship with the Australian bush, led settlers from the cramped surrounds of Sydney Town to the vast fertile country that would provide the wealth to found and sustain a new nation.Robert Macklin, author of the critically acclaimed DARK PARADISE, tells the heroic tale of this young Australian man who outdid his English ''betters'' by crossing the Blue Mountains, finding a land route from Sydney to Port Phillip and opening up western New South Wales. His contribution to the development of the colony was immense but downplayed in deference to explorers of British origin. HAMILTON HUME uncovers this brave man''s achievements and paints an intriguing and at times shocking portrait of colonial life, by the author of the bestselling SAS SNIPER.''Robert Macklin calls Hamilton Hume ''our greatest explorer'', and now that I''ve read this enthralling but at times shocking story, I totally agree.'' ***** GOOD READING

In 1858, 14-year-old Narcisse Pelletier sailed from Marseilles in the French trader Saint-Paul. With a cargo of Bordeaux wine, they stopped in Bombay, then Hong Kong, and from there they set sail with more than 300 Chinese prospectors bound for the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo. Around the eastern tip of New Guinea, however, the ship became engulfed in fog, struck reefs and ran aground. Scrambling aboard a longboat, the survivors undertook a perilous voyage, crossing almost 1000 kilometres of the Coral Sea before reaching the shores of the Daintree region in far north Queensland, where, abandoned by his shipmates and left for dead, Narcisse was rescued by the local Aboriginal people. For seventeen years he lived with them, growing to manhood and participating fully in their world - until in 1875 he was discovered by the crew of a pearling lugger and wrenched from his Aboriginal family. Taken back to his ''real'' life in France, he became a lighthouse keeper, married and had another family, all the while dreaming of what he had left behind...Drawing from firsthand interviews with Narcisse after his return to France and other contemporary accounts of exploration and survival, and documenting the spread of European settlement in Queensland and the brutal frontier wars that followed, Robert Macklin weaves an unforgettable tale of a young man caught between two cultures in a time of transformation and upheaval.

''Macklin recounts, with beautiful detail, the following years of Narcisse''s life and his transformation . . . a great read for anyone interested in Australia and its overlooked history''Ronan Breathnach, Irish Examiner ''A truly remarkable account drawing upon a version Pelletier gave when he eventually returned to his native France and also on anthropological studies of the Daintree people.'' Piers Akerman, Daily Telegraph, Sydney ''An unforgettable tale of transformation and upheaval.''Stuart McLean, Daily Telegraph, SydneyA young boy abandoned in an alien landscape thousands of miles from home is adopted by local people and becomes one of them, welcomed into their community, marrying a wife and raising a child. After seventeen years, he is stolen back to his ''real'' life, where he has another family, but dreams constantly of what he has left behind.This is the remarkable true story of a French cabin boy Narcisse Pelletier who, after disembarking from his ship the Saint-Paul with the rest of its crew in search of drinking water, found himself separated from his shipmates and in the end abandoned on the north coast of Queensland, Australia. Narcisse was adopted by an Aboriginal group who welcomed him as one of their own for seventeen years, during which time he had a family of his own. In 1875, though, he was kidnapped by the brig John Bell and was returned eventually to his family in Saint-Gilles, France, where he became a lighthouse keeper. Robert Macklin makes skilful use of Narcisse''s own memoir Chez les sauvages along with new research to tell this extraordinary story.Robert is a Queenslander so knows the terrain and the people of the area in which Narcisse was left behind. Through Noel Pearson''s Cape York Institute, he has arranged to meet descendants of the people who took the French cabin boy in and who know the stories of his time in Australia. Robert has also had access to a great deal of material on the early history of the Cape through the Australian National Library. He has drawn on the significant resources of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in Canberra on Aboriginal culture and history in Queensland and the Cape. In addition, he has made use of Narcisse Pelletier''s own writings, including his account of his time in Australia, as well as several contemporaneous accounts of the Kennedy expedition to the area, including one from a member of the party. The author has made several trips to Cape York and one to Saint-Gilles and Saint-Nazaire in France.