Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay

$29.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

What Can I Do? The Truth About Climate Change and How to Fix It by Jane Fonda

$34.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

This is the last possible moment in history when changing course can mean saving lives and species on an unimaginable scale. It's too late for moderation. In the fall of 2019, frustrated with the obvious inaction of politicians and inspired by Greta Thunberg, Naomi Klein, and student climate strikers, J ane Fonda moved to Washington, DC to lead weekly climate change demonstrations on Capitol Hill. On October 11, she launched Fire Drill Fridays (FDF), and has since led thousands of people in non-violent civil disobedience, risking arrest to protest for action. In her new book, Fonda weaves her deeply personal journey as an activist alongside interviews with leading climate scientists, and discussions of specific issues, such as water, migration, and human rights, to emphasise what is at stake. Most significantly, Fonda provides concrete solutions, and things the average person can do to combat the climate crisis in their community. No stranger to protest, Fonda's life has been famously shaped by activism. And now, on the eve of the next US presidential election, she is once again galvanizing the public to take to the streets. Many of us understand that our climate is in a crisis, and realise that a moral responsibility rests on our shoulders. 2019 saw atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases hit the highest level ever recorded in human history, and our window of opportunity to avoid disaster is quickly closing. As Annie Leonard, Executive Director of Greenpeace US and Fonda's partner in developing FDF, has declared, "Change is inevitable; by design, or by disaster." Together, we can commandeer change for the positive – but it will require collective actions taken by social movements on an unprecedented scale. The problems we face now require every one of us to join the fight. The fight for not only our immediate future, but for the future of generations to come. ...Show more

Pharma - Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America by Gerald Posner

$60.00 AUD

Category: Business and Economics

BEST BOOKS OF MARCH - APPLE BOOKS TOP TEN PICKS FOR MARCH BOOKS - CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR BEST TRUE CRIME PICKS IN MARCH - CRIMEREADS MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2020 - LITHUB   Award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Gerald Posner traces the heroes and villains of the tril lion-dollar-a-year pharmaceutical industry and uncovers how those once entrusted with improving life have often betrayed that ideal to corruption and reckless profiteering--with deadly consequences.   Pharmaceutical breakthroughs such as anti-biotics and vaccines rank among some of the greatest advancements in human history. Yet exorbitant prices for life-saving drugs, safety recalls affecting tens of millions of Americans, and soaring rates of addiction and overdose on pre-scription opioids have caused many to lose faith in drug companies. Now, Americans are demanding a national reckoning with a monolithic industry.   Pharma introduces brilliant scientists, in-corruptible government regulators, and brave whistleblowers facing off against company exec-utives often blinded by greed. A business that profits from treating ills can create far deadlier problems than it cures. Addictive products are part of the industry's DNA, from the days when corner drugstores sold morphine, heroin, and cocaine, to the past two decades of dangerously overprescribed opioids.   Pharma also uncovers the real story of the Sacklers, the family that became one of America's wealthiest from the success of OxyContin, their blockbuster narcotic painkiller at the center of the opioid crisis. Relying on thousands of pages of government and corporate archives, dozens of hours of interviews with insiders, and previously classified FBI files, Posner exposes the secrets of the Sacklers' rise to power--revelations that have long been buried under a byzantine web of interlocking companies with ever-changing names and hidden owners. The unexpected twists and turns of the Sackler family saga are told against the startling chronicle of a powerful industry that sits at the intersection of public health and profits. Pharma reveals how and why American drug com-panies have put earnings ahead of patients. ...Show more

One Punch by Barry Dickins

$29.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

In One Punch Barry Dickins reflects on the many types of violence that can now affect everyday life. In his heartfelt exploration of the subject, Barry talks to many of the people whom this violence impacts, including the parents of children who have been killed, professionals in the justice system , and children who live in communities where violence is rife. He looks at how the world has changed in his lifetime and discusses where we are going as a society. ...Show more

Memory Code by Lynne Kelly

$32.99 AUD

Category: Indigenous

In the past, the elders had encyclopaedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across the landscape, and the stars in the sky too. Yet most of us struggle to memorise more than a short poem. Using traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines as the key, Lynne Kelly has identified the powe rful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world. She has discovered that this ancient memory technique is the secret behind the great stone monuments like Stonehenge, which have for so long puzzled archaeologists. The stone circles across Britain and northern Europe, the elaborate stone houses of New Mexico, the huge animal shapes at Nasca in Peru, and the statues of Easter Island all serve as the most effective memory system ever invented by humans. They allowed people in non-literate cultures to memorise the vast amounts of practical information they needed to survive. In her fascinating book The Memory Code, Lynne Kelly shows us how we can use this ancient technique to train our memories today ...Show more

Blood and Oil: Mohammed Bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power by Bradley Hope; Justin Scheck

$32.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

Thirty-five-year-old Mohammed bin Salman's sudden rise stunned the world. Political and business leaders such as former Prime Minister Tony Blair and WME Chairman Ari Emmanuel flew out to meet with the Crown Prince and came away convinced that his desire to reform the kingdom was sincere. He spoke passi onately about bringing women into the workforce and toning down Saudi Arabia's restrictive Islamic law. He lifted the ban on women driving and explored investments in Silicon Valley. But 'MBS' began to betray an erratic interior beneath the polish laid on by scores of consultants and public relations experts like McKinsey & Company. The allegations of excess and about the brutality of his regime began to slip out. Then there was the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While stamping out dissent in the Saudi royal family by holding three hundred members in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel for months, he continued to exhibit his extreme wealth, including the purchase of a $70 million chateau in Europe and one of the world's most expensive yachts. It seemed that he did not understand nor care about how the outside world would react to his flexing of autocratic muscle. Blood and Oil is a gripping work of investigative journalism about the precipitous ascent of one of the world's most decisive and dangerous new leaders, and the simultaneous fraying Western-Saudi relations. Caught in his net are well-known U.S. bankers, Hollywood figures, and politicians, all eager to help a charming Crown Prince with extraordinary powers, hunger for lucre, a tight relationship with President Trump's son in law Jared Kushner, and an apparent willingness to break anything -and anyone - that gets in the way of his vision. If his bid fails, Saudi Arabia has the potential to become an unstable failed state and magnet for Islamic extremists. And if his bid to transform his country succeeds, even in part, it will have consequences around the world. ...Show more

Rage by Bob Woodward

$49.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

Bob Woodward's new book, Rage, is an unprecedented and intimate tour de force of original reporting on the Trump presidency. Rage goes behind the scenes like never before, with stunning new details about early national security decisions and operations and Trump's moves as he faces a global pandemic, e conomic disaster and racial unrest. Woodward, the #1 internationally bestselling author of 13 #1 bestsellers, including Fear: Trump in the White House, shows Trump up close in his entirety before the 2020 presidential election. President Trump has said publicly that Woodward has interviewed him. What is not known is that Trump provided Woodward a window into his mind through a series of exclusive interviews. At key decision points, Rage shows how Trump's responses to the crises of 2020 were rooted in the instincts, habits and style he developed during his first three years as president. Rage draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand witnesses, as well as participants' notes, emails, diaries, calendars and confidential documents. Woodward obtained 25 personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that have not been public before. Kim describes the bond between the two leaders as out of a "fantasy film," as the two leaders engage in an extraordinary diplomatic minuet. Rage will be the foundational account of the Trump presidency, its turmoil, contradictions and risks. It is an essential document for any voter seeking an accurate inside view of the Trump years - volatile and vivid.   ...Show more

How to Win an Election by Wallace, Chris

$29.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

   The 2019 Australian election produced a surprise result showing, not for the first time, that every election is there for the taking – including the next one. Here are the ten steps to winning an election. We have a democracy that performs relatively well, but many Australian electi ons are very close. So-called ‘unloseable’ elections are lost, reminding us that every election is a real contest. In this indispensable book drawing from years of close-up observation and analysis, historian and political journalist Chris Wallace draws out the ten essential steps to winning an election.The learner’s error, she argues, is to grasp onto a couple of factors – so-called ‘conventional wisdom’ - without considering a full suite of winning factors and tracing the connections between them. Wallace notes that even when a couple of factors are significant in an election scenario, small improvements elsewhere can make the difference between winning and losing if performance and professionalism are maximised across the board.How to Win an Election is not a book designed to change your political opinion. It is a crucial resource for future political campaigns to ensure credibility, competence and accountability. Most of all, it is for party supporters and voters who can cast their vote knowing it has been backed by the best possible efforts to create change.'Elections in Australia are often decided by remarkably tight margins – a few thousand votes shift in some key seats and you get a different outcome. The campaigns parties run are complex and yet need to coalesce around strong, simple core messages. From the inside they are high-wire acts, often winner-take-all-bets. Chris Wallace brings original thinking and clarity to understanding the dynamics of elections and offers practical suggestions on how to win — including some that could probably only have come from an astute outsider.' — Geoff Walsh, ALP National Secretary (2000–2003), former adviser to Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating and Premiers Steve Bracks and John Brumby, veteran of nine Australian election campaigns and journalist ...Show more

Who Cares Wins by Lily Cole

$35.00 AUD

Category: Business and Economics

Optimism demands action. Optimism is an active choice. Optimism is not naïve and it is not impossible. We are living in an age of turmoil, destruction and uncertainty. Global warming has reached terrifying heights of severity, human expansion has caused the extinction of countless species, and Neol iberalism has led to a destructive divide in wealth and a polarisation of mainstream politics. But, there is a constructive way to meet this challenge, there is a reason to keep on fighting and there are plenty of reasons for optimism. Lily Cole has met with some of the millions of people around the world who are working on solutions to our biggest challenges and committed to creating a more sustainable and peaceful future for humanity. Exploring issues from fast fashion to fast food and renewable energy to gender equality, and featuring interviews with Stella McCartney, Sir David Attenborough, Elon Musk and Extinction Rebellion co-founder Professor Gail Bradbrook, Who Cares Wins is a beacon of hope in dark times. This book is a rousing call to action that will leave you feeling hopeful that we can make a difference. We are the ancestors of our future: a generation who will either be celebrated for their activism or blamed for its apathy. It is for us to choose optimism, to make a change and to show what is possible. ...Show more

Twilight of Democracy by ANNE APPLEBAUM

$35.00 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

Anne Applebaum is a leading historian of communism and a penetrating investigator of contemporary politics. Here she sets her sights on the big question, one with which she herself has been deeply engaged in both Europe and America: how did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document, written w ith urgency, intelligence and understanding, is her answer - Timothy Snyder Friendships torn. Ideals betrayed. Alliances broken. In this, her most personal book, a great historian explains why so many of those who won the battles for democracy or have spent their lives proclaiming its values are now succumbing to liars, thugs and crooks. Analysis, reportage and memoir, Twilight of Democracy fearlessly tells the shameful story of a political generation gone bad -David Frum In the years just before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, people from across the political spectrum in Europe and America celebrated a great achievement, felt a common purpose and, very often, forged personal friendships. Yet over the following decades the euphoria evaporated, the common purpose and centre ground gradually disappeared, extremism rose once more and eventually - as this book compellingly relates - the relationships soured too. Anne Applebaum traces this history in an unfamiliar way, looking at the trajectories of individuals caught up in the public events of the last three decades. When politics becomes polarized, which side do you back? If you are a journalist, an intellectual, a civic leader, how do you deal with the re-emergence of authoritarian or nationalist ideas in your country? When your leaders appropriate history, or pedal conspiracies, or eviscerate the media and the judiciary, do you go along with it? Twilight of Democracy is an essay that combines the personal and the political in an original way and brings a fresh understanding to the dynamics of public life in Europe and America, both now and in the recent past. ...Show more

American Carnage - On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump by Tim Alberta

$36.99 AUD

Category: American Politics

New York Times' Top Books of 2019 Politico Magazine's chief political correspondent provides a rollicking insider's look at the making of the modern Republican Party--how a decade of cultural upheaval, populist outrage, and ideological warfare made the GOP vulnerable to a hostile takeover from the unlik eliest of insurgents: Donald J. Trump. The 2016 election was a watershed for the United States. But, as Tim Alberta explains in American Carnage, to understand Trump's victory is to view him not as the creator of this era of polarization and bruising partisanship, but rather as its most manifest consequence. American Carnage is the story of a president's rise based on a country's evolution and a party's collapse. As George W. Bush left office with record-low approval ratings and Barack Obama led a Democratic takeover of Washington, Republicans faced a moment of reckoning: They had no vision, no generation of new leaders, and no energy in the party's base. Yet Obama's forceful pursuit of his progressive agenda, coupled with the nation's rapidly changing cultural and demographic landscape, lit a fire under the right, returning Republicans to power and inviting a bloody struggle for the party's identity in the post-Bush era. The factions that emerged--one led by absolutists like Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz, the other led by pragmatists like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell--engaged in a series of devastating internecine clashes and attempted coups for control. With the GOP's internal fissures rendering it legislatively impotent, and that impotence fueling a growing resentment toward the political class and its institutions, the stage was set for an outsider to crash the party. When Trump descended a gilded escalator to announce his run in the summer of 2015, the candidate had met the moment. Only by viewing Trump as the culmination of a decade-long civil war inside the Republican Party--and of the parallel sense of cultural, socioeconomic, and technological disruption during that period--can we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of America's current turmoil. How did a party obsessed with the national debt vote for trillion-dollar deficits and record-setting spending increases? How did the party of compassionate conservatism become the party of Muslim bans and walls? How did the party of family values elect a thrice-divorced philanderer? And, most important, how long can such a party survive?  Loaded with exclusive reporting and based off hundreds of interviews--including with key players such as President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint, and Reince Priebus, and many others--American Carnage takes us behind the scenes of this tumultuous period as we've never seen it before and establishes Tim Alberta as the premier chronicler of this political era. ...Show more

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

$22.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "From The New Yorker's beloved cultural critic comes a bold, unflinching collection of essays about self-deception, examining everything from scammer culture to reality television."--Esquire   "A whip-smart, challenging book."--Zadie Smith * "Jia Tolentino coul d be the Joan Didion of our time."--Vulture FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND HARVARD CRIMSON AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * Time * Chicago Tribune * The Washington Post * NPR * Variety * Esquire * Vox * Elle * Glamour * GQ * Good Housekeeping * Paste * Town & Country * BookPage * Kirkus Reviews * BookRiot * Shelf Awareness Jia Tolentino is a peerless voice of her generation, tackling the conflicts, contradictions, and sea changes that define us and our time. Now, in this dazzling collection of nine entirely original essays, written with a rare combination of give and sharpness, wit and fearlessness, she delves into the forces that warp our vision, demonstrating an unparalleled stylistic potency and critical dexterity. Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly through a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Tolentino writes about a cultural prism: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the advent of scamming as the definitive millennial ethos; the literary heroine's journey from brave to blank to bitter; the punitive dream of optimization, which insists that everything, including our bodies, should become more efficient and beautiful until we die. Gleaming with Tolentino's sense of humor and capacity to elucidate the impossibly complex in an instant, and marked by her desire to treat the reader with profound honesty, Trick Mirror is an instant classic of the worst decade yet. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY "Jia Tolentino is the best young essayist at work in the United States, one I've consistently admired and learned from, and I was exhilarated to get a whole lot of her at once in Trick Mirror. In these nine essays, she rethinks troubling ingredients of modern life, from the internet to mind-altering drugs to wedding culture. All through the book, single sentences flash like lightning to show something familiar in a startling way, but she also builds extended arguments with her usual, unusual blend of lyricism and skepticism. In the end, we have a picture of America that was as missing as it was needed."--Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me ...Show more