A Decade of Drift (In the National Interest) by Martin Parkinson

$19.95 AUD

Category: Politics and Society | Series: In the National Interest Ser.

The erosion of public trust in government has been a characteristic of liberal democracies in recent years. How much have the twists and turns in climate change policy over the past decade contributed to this in Australia? As a senior public servant during six prime ministerships, Martin Parkinson had a front-row seat from which to watch the inability of successive governments to tackle climate change. From an emissions trading scheme through to a National Energy Guarantee, this is a story of science and expertise ignored, short-termism, wasted opportunities and international disappointment. Climate change demands both a local and a global response, just as do pandemics, mass migration and ocean pollution. The increasingly urgent question is whether governments are up to the challenge or are prepared to bear the consequences of inaction or indifference. The history of climate change policy in Australia is a sorry story which should leave Australians demanding more courage and commitment from their political leaders.In the National Interest is a new series in the Monash University Publishing list that is focused on the challenges Australia confronts. The series informs, influences and inspires public discourse. Showcasing experts both from within Monash and beyond, these short, thought-provoking and accessible books will address the major issues of our times, from public policy to governance and government. ...Show more

Leadership (In the National Interest) by Don Russell

$19.95 AUD

Category: Politics and Society | Series: In the National Interest Ser.

The level of public frustration and disengagement with political leaders has never been higher. At the same time, the problems we need them to deal with, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, a crisis in aged care and accelerating climate change, are immediate and urgent. The system is designed to make our pol iticians accountable, so why are so many of them failing us, and why is there a crisis of confidence in their ability to rise to the challenges we face? Is our system so flawed that we have lost the capacity for progress? Or has our political establishment lost its way, and is it now betraying the people it is meant to serve while undermining its own legitimacy?Based on his experience working closely with a large number of ministers and their private offices, both at the federal and state level, and his time in the United States, Don Russell reflects on politicians, the political process and the role of government, and explains why our political leaders are as they are. Drawing on his experience, including his involvement in the golden age of public policy of the Hawke/Keating years, and his observations on Australia's early success responding to the pandemic, he suggests that there is a pathway that can lead to dramatically better outcomes for the country and more satisfying and longer careers for our politicians. People want their elected officials to be informed, to be capable and creative, to be able to devise solutions that work, and then to be able to explain those solutions and bring the community with them. They want their elected officials to lead.In the National Interest is a new series in the Monash University Publishing list that is focused on the challenges Australia confronts. The series informs, influences and inspires public discourse. Showcasing experts both from within Monash and beyond, these short, thought-provoking and accessible books will address the major issues of our times, from public policy to governance and government. ...Show more

Breathtaking by Rachel Clarke

$32.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

Quit Like a Woman - The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol by Holly Glenn Whitaker

$22.99 AUD

Category: Feminism

'A brilliantly clever, meticulously researched, fearless, snort-out-loud funny read that grabs you and won't let go' Catherine Gray We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at work events, lunches, book clubs and weddings. Yet no one ever questions alcohol's ubiquity. In fact, the only thing ever questions is why people don't drink. It is a qualifier for belonging. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some sort of magic elixir. It is anything but. When Holly Whitaker started to look for a way to recover, the support systems she found for recovery where archaic and patriarchal. Urging drinkers towards a newfound humility is great if you're a man, but if you're a woman and not in a position to renounce privileges you never had, a whole other approach is needed. She embarked on a journey that led not only to her own sobriety, but revealed the insidious role alcohol plays in our society and in the lives of women in particular. What's more, she could not ignore the ways that alcohol companies were targeting women, just as the tobacco industry had successfully done generations before. Honest, witty and trenchant, Quit Like a Woman is at once a ground-breaking look at drinking culture, a call to arms, and a celebration of learning how to claim everything life has to offer. ...Show more

My Place by Sally Morgan

$24.99 AUD

Category: First Nations Voices

My Place begins with Sally Morgan tracing the experiences of her own life, growing up in suburban Perth in the fifties and sixties. Through the memories and images of her childhood and adolescence, vague hints and echoes begin to emerge, hidden knowledge is uncovered, and a fascinating story unfolds - a mystery of identity, complete with clues and suggested solutions. ...Show more

Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems by Nancy Folbre

$32.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

A major new work of feminism on the history and persistence of patriarchal hierarchies from the MacArthur Award-winning economist In this groundbreaking new work, Nancy Folbre builds on a critique and reformulation of Marxian political economy, drawing on a larger body of scientific research, including neoclassical economics, sociology, psychology, and evolutionary biology, to answer the defining question of feminist political economy: why is gender inequality so pervasive? In part, because of the contradictory effects of capitalist development: on the one hand, rapid technological change has improved living standards and increased the scope for individual choice for women; on the other, increased inequality and the weakening of families and communities have reconfigured gender inequalities, leaving caregivers particularly vulnerable. The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems examines why care work is generally unrewarded in a market economy, calling attention to the non-market processes of childbearing, childrearing and the care of other dependents, the inheritance of assets, and the use of force and violence to appropriate both physical and human resources. Exploring intersecting inequalities based on class, gender, age, race/ethnicity, and citizenship, and their implications for political coalitions, it sets a new feminist agenda for the twenty-first century. ...Show more

American Kompromat: How the KGB cultivated Donald Trump and related tales of sex, greed, power, and treachery by Craig Unger

$35.00 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** Kompromat n.--Russian for "compromising information" American Kompromat unravels the Russian-influenced operations that amassed the dirty little secrets of the richest and most powerful men on earth. American Kompromat is based on extended and exclusive inter views with high-level sources in the KGB, CIA, and FBI, as well as lawyers at white-shoe Washington firms, associates of Jeffrey Epstein, and thousands of pages of FBI reports, police investigations, and news articles in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. A narrative offering jaw-dropping context, and set in Upper East Side mansions and private Caribbean islands, gigantic yachts, and private jets, American Kompromat shows that from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, Russian operations transformed the darkest secrets of the most powerful people in the world into potent weapons that served its interests. Among its many revelations, American Kompromat addresses what may be the single most important unanswered question of the entire Trump era — and one that Unger argues is even more important now that Trump is out of office: Was Donald Trump a Russian asset? Just how compromised was he? And how could such an audacious feat have been accomplished? To answer these questions and more, Craig Unger reports, is to understand kompromat— operations that amassed compromising information on the richest and most powerful men on earth, and that leveraged power by appealing to what is, for some, the most prized possession of all: their vanity. This is a story that transcends the end of the Trump administration, illuminating a major underreported aspect of Trump’s corruption that has profoundly damaged American democracy. In addition to exploring Trump''s ties to the KGB, American Kompromat also shows that from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, Russian kompromat operations documented the darkest secrets of the most powerful people in the world and transformed those secrets into potent weapons. It also reveals:    * How Jeffrey Epstein and Trump jostled for influence and financial supremacy for years. A college dropout let go from his prep school teaching job, Epstein became a millionaire in part with the help of Ghislaine Maxwell''s father--media tycoon Robert Maxwell, who allegedly served as a Soviet and Israeli spy and likely gave Epstein a sum estimated between $10 and $20 million before his death in 1991.    * How the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell sex-trafficking operation provided a source and marketplace for sexual kompromat - dirty secrets of the richest and most powerful men in the world. While Epstein had a rule when it came to selecting women, namely, "the younger, the better," he also knew that a multimillionaire -or future leader - caught committing adultery is nothing compared to getting caught on video in the act with a minor.    * How the Epstein-Maxwell ring helped enable young women with possible ties to Russian intelligence to gain access to the highest levels of Silicon Valley and the worlds of artificial intelligence, supercomputers, and the internet. This, at a time when Vladimir Putin has asserted, "Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere [artificial intelligence] will become the ruler of the world."    * How Epstein had ties to Russia through sex-trafficking. Epstein partnered with Jean-Luc Brunel, head of MC2 modeling agency and a major sex trafficker, who, in turn, had worked with Peter Listerman, the celebrated procurer, or "matchmaker" as he prefers, for Russian oligarchs.     * How John Mark Dougan, a former deputy sheriff in Mar-a-Lago''s Palm Beach County, says he acquired 478 videos confiscated from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, fled to Moscow, became only the fourth American to win asylum in Russia, and immediately gained access to Putin''s inner circle, showing the ongoing power that comes from kompromat and how its value is highest before it is "used."   ...Show more

Promises to Keep by Joe Biden

$35.00 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

President-elect Joe Biden tells the story of his extraordinary life and career prior to his emergence as Barack Obama's beloved, influential vice president. 'I remain captivated by the possibilities of politics and public service. In fact, I believe that my chosen profession is a noble calling.' - Joe B iden Joe Biden has both witnessed and participated in a momentous epoch of American history. In Promises to Keep, he reveals what these experiences taught him about himself, his colleagues, and the institutions of government. With his customary honesty and wit, Biden movingly and eloquently recounts growing up in a staunchly Catholic multigenerational household in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware; overcoming personal tragedy, life-threatening illness, and career setbacks; his relationships with presidents, world leaders, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle; and his leadership of powerful Senate committees. Through these and other recollections, Biden shows us how the guiding principles he learned early in life - to work to make people's lives better; to honour family and faith; to value persistence, candour, and honesty - are the foundation on which he has based his life's work as husband, father, and public servant. Promises to Keep is an intimate series of reflections from a politician who surmounted numerous challenges to become one of America's most effective leaders and who refuses to be cynical about politics. It is also a stirring testament to the promise of the United States. ...Show more

Nothing to Envy Life Love and Death in North Korea by Barbara Demick

$24.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

WINNER OF THE 2010 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION What if the world imagined by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-four was real? What if everything around you was black and white except for the red letters on propaganda signs? Where spies like Orwell's Thought Police studied your facial expressions during political rallies to make sure you were sincere in your expressions and your thoughts? If you couldn't turn the dials of your radio away from the government station? In fact, there is such a place: North Korea, the only country not connected to the Internet by choice. Ruled over by a dictator, visible only in carefully controlled images, it's a mysterious, even sinister country. But it's also a place where 22 million people live, work, and dream of a different life. Journalist Barbara Demick spent a decade covering North Korea's strange politics and regulations. Then one day she met a young woman defector, Mi-ran, who told her about growing up there; about the cinema she used to go to when the country still had electricity, and about the teenage romance which blossomed there. Through Mi-ran's story Demick glimpsed another, more human side of North Korea.In Nothing to Envy, Demick re-traces the life of Mi-ran and of five other North Koreans, taking us into the heart of an elusive society. We see her subjects fall in love, nurture ambitions, and struggle with survival and betrayal. Their stories form a haunting portrait of a bizarre society and the cost it exacts on its citizens. ...Show more

Where the Water Ends: Seeking Refuge in Fortress Europe by Zoe Holman

$29.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

Around the world, forced migration doubled in the decade leading up to 2019. Over that time, the borders of the European Union became the world's deadliest frontier. More than 20,000 people have died or disappeared while attempting to gain entry since 2012, the year the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Pr ize. In Where the Water Ends, Zoe Holman traces the story of this frontier from the perspective of migrants, mainly from the Middle East, via Greece, the cradle of European and 'western' civilisation, now itself marginalised within the EU and precariously hosting some 90,000 refugees. This is human history in the best sense. Through Holman's account we see the intricate and complex daily, monthly and yearly challenges of those seeking, within or outside of 'the system', a future for themselves and their loved ones in which they can be safe and thrive. Where the Water Ends urges us to reflect on the lessons of the past, the isolationist spirit of the present, and the promises and failures of the international institutions and conventions we continue to rely on in our hope for a better future. ...Show more

Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity by Scott Galloway

$35.00 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

The New York Times bestselling author of The Four and NYU Business School professor delivers an insightful, urgent analysis of who stands to win and who's at risk to lose in a post-pandemic world. The Covid-19 outbreak has turned bedrooms into offices, pitted young against old and widened the gaps betwe en rich and poor, red and blue, the mask-wearers and the mask-haters. Some businesses, like Amazon and video conference software maker Zoom, woke up to find themselves crushed under an avalanche of consumer demand. Others, like the restaurant, travel, hospitality and live entertainment industries, scrambled to not become instantly obsolete. But the pandemic has not been a change agent so much as an accelerant of trends that were already well underway. In Post Corona, Galloway outlines the contours of both crisis and opportunity that lie ahead. While the powerful tech monopolies will thrive in the disruption other businesses, like higher education, will struggle to maintain a value proposition that no longer makes sense when we can't stand shoulder to shoulder. Combining his signature humour and brash style with razor-sharp business insights, Galloway offers both warning and hope in equal measure. ...Show more

Black Futures by Kimberly Drew; Jenna Wortham

$59.99 AUD

Category: Politics and Society

An archive of collective memory and exuberant testimony; a luminous map to navigate a dark and disorienting present; an infinite geography of possible futures What does it mean to be Black and alive right now? Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work--images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more--to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today. The book presents a succession of startling and beautiful pieces that generate an entrancing rhythm: Readers will go from conversations with activists and academics to memes and Instagram posts, from powerful essays to dazzling paintings and insightful infographics. In answering the question of what it means to be Black and alive, Black Futures opens a prismatic vision of possibility for every reader. ...Show more