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Winner of the 2013 ACT Book of the Year Award. Cross-dressing colonists, effeminate bushrangers and women-shortage woes – here is the first ever history of sex in Australia, from Botany Bay to the present-day In this highly readable social history, Frank Bongiorno uses striking examples to chart the changing sex lives of Australians. He shows how an overwhelmingly male penal colony gave rise to a rough and ready culture: the scarcity of women made for strange bedfellows, and the female minority was both powerful and vulnerable. Then came the Victorian era, in which fears of sodomy helped bring an end to the transportation of convicts. The twentieth century saw the rise of the sex expert. T...
Winner of the ACT Book of the Year Award Shortlisted for the Ernest Scott Prize and CHASS Australia Prize It was the era of Hawke and Keating, Kylie and INXS, the America's Cup and the Bicentenary. It was perhaps the most controversial decade in Australian history, with high-flying entrepreneurs booming and busting, torrid debates over land rights and immigration, the advent of AIDS, a harsh recession and the rise of the New Right. It was a time when Australians fought for social change - on union picket lines, at rallies for women's rights and against nuclear weapons, and as part of a new environmental movement. And then there were the events that left many scratching their heads- Joh for Canberra . . . the Australia Card . . . Cliff Young. In The Eighties, Frank Bongiorno brings all this and more to life. He sheds new light on 'both the ordinary and extraordinary things that happened to Australia and Australians during this liveliest of decades'. 'The definitive account of an inspired, infuriating decade' - George Megalogenis 'A very impressive achievement' - The Monthly 'Meaty and entertaining' - The Australian
Acclaimed historians Nick Dyrenfurth and Frank Bongiorno tell the story of the Australian Labor Party’s rich history of more than 130 years and examine its central role in modern Australia. The Australian Labor Party is one of the oldest labour parties in the world and the first to form a government. From the prime ministerships of Watson and Fisher to the tragedies of Hughes and Scullin, through the 1940s legends Curtin and Chifley to governments of Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd and Gillard, A Little History of the Australian Labor Party recounts times of triumph and failure, as well as resilience. This updated edition examines Labor’s recent performance in state and territory politics ...
A bold and provocative book about Australia's national identity and a plea to keep Australia's famed open-mindedness, Cater tracks the seismic changes in Australian culture and outlook since Donald Horne published THE LUCKY COUNTRY in 1964. 'A great book.' Rupert Murdoch A bold and provocative book about Australia's national identity and how it is threatened by the rise of a ruling class. Nick Cater, senior editor at the Australian, tracks the seismic changes in Australian culture and outlook since Donald Horne wrote the Lucky Country in 1964. His belief is that countries don't get lucky; people do. the secret of Australia's good fortune is not found in its geography or history. the key to i...
An essential guide to the intractable public debates about the virtues and vices of economic globalization, cutting through the complexity to reveal the fault lines that divide us and the points of agreement that might bring us together. Globalization has lifted millions out of poverty. Globalization is a weapon the rich use to exploit the poor. Globalization builds bridges across national boundaries. Globalization fuels the populism and great-power competition that is tearing the world apart. When it comes to the politics of free trade and open borders, the camps are dug in, producing a kaleidoscope of claims and counterclaims, unlikely alliances, and unexpected foes. But what exactly are w...
Mission traces a life of politics, ideas and inspiring words. Whether he is recalling his boyhood in Hope Vale, Queensland, making the case for Indigenous recognition, or evoking a reconciled, multicultural Australia, Noel Pearson confirms he is one of Australia’s most powerful and influential thinkers – and an extraordinary writer. Mission selects the best of Pearson’s work to date. There are indelible portraits of political leaders seen close up – Keating, Rudd, Whitlam, Turnbull and more. There is Pearson’s brilliant exploration of a Voice to Parliament, which led eventually to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. And there are acute analyses – of passive welfare; of the fate of the Labor Party; of identity politics, good and bad; and of education and the role of a great teacher. The volume also contains a remarkable new extended title essay, in which Pearson reflects on his life and work so far. Mission is honest, provocative and utterly original. Noel Pearson is a lawyer, activist and founder of the Cape York Institute. He is author of Up From the Mission, Our Right to Take Responsibility, Mission, two Quarterly Essays and many essays, articles and speeches.
Longlisted for the 2022 Indie Book Awards. Longlisted for the Australian Political Book of the Year Award. Chosen as a ‘Book of the Year’ in The Australian, The Australian Financial Review and The Australian Book Review. In a quiet Sydney street in 1937, a seven year-old immigrant boy drowned in a ditch that had filled with rain after being left unfenced by council workers. How the law should deal with the trauma of the family’s loss was one of the most complex and controversial cases to reach Australia’s High Court, where it seized the imagination of its youngest and cleverest member. These days, ‘Doc’ Evatt is remembered mainly as the hapless and divisive opposition leader duri...
1947. In a damp, run-down farmhouse on the island of Jura, George Orwell is embarking on his greatest work: Nineteen Eighty-Four. Forty-four years old and suffering from the tuberculosis that will eventually take his life, this book is his legacy – the culmination of a career spent fighting to preserve the freedoms which the wars and upheavals of the twentieth century have threatened. Completing the book is an urgent task – a race against death. Dennis Glover explores the creation of Orwell's final work, which for millions of readers worldwide defined the twentieth century. Simultaneously a captivating drama, a unique literary excavation and an unflinching portrait of a beloved writer, The Last Man in Europe will change the way you understand Nineteen Eighty-Fourand George Orwell himself.
No matter how practised we are at history, it always humbles us. No matter how often we visit the past, it always surprises us. Winner of the Ernest Scott Prize and Shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-fiction 'A rare feat of imagination and generosity.' – Mark McKenna With every sentence they write, historians must walk the tightrope between discipline and imagination, empathy and evidence. In this landmark work, eminent historian and award-winning author Tom Griffiths shares his passion for the fascinating, complex craft of history – or, as he calls it, the art of time travel. In fourteen portraits, Griffiths illuminates how historians such as Inga Clendinnen, Judit...
'At both ends of the world, I have found confusion and profound disagreement about how to read the story of the past, about who should write or speak it, and what parts of it should be written or spoken about at all.' Amnesia Road is a compelling literary examination of historic violence in rural areas of Australia and Spain. It is also an unashamed celebration of the beautiful landscapes where this violence has been carried out. Travelling and writing across two locations – the seldom-visited mulga plains of south-west Queensland and the backroads of rural Andalusia – award-winning Australian Hispanist Luke Stegemann uncovers neglected history and its many neglected victims, and asks wh...