Society & Social Sciences

An idealist as well as a pragmatist, and someone who believes passionately in equality, democracy and empowerment, Race Mathews has inspired and mentored many.Race was principal private secretary to Gough Whitlam in the lead-up to Whitlam's election as...

*Victorian Community History Awards : History Publication Commendation*Save Our Sons tells for the first time the full story of the Save Our Sons movement of Australian women who banded together to oppose conscription during the Vietnam War.In 1965,...

Whenever anyone tells you that only the big parties or star candidates have a chance of winning a seat in federal parliament, just say 'Cathy McGowan'. Running as a community-backed independent candidate, Cathy won the previously safe Liberal seat of...

Ken Inglis was one of Australia's most creative, wide-ranging and admired historians. During a scholarly career spanning nearly seven decades, his humane, questioning approach - summed up by the recurring query, 'I wonder...' - won him a large...

'My journey to this book is the culmination of a long-held fascination with the history and currency of Australia's domestic interior. Having been born in a remote, desert-bound Queensland town, I have felt its power as a solace; a retreat from the...

What is happening inside theworld's most militarised zone? This book is the result ofthe authors' visit to the Kashmir Valley, the northernmost region of the Indiansubcontinent, in December 2016, but it encapsulates the experiences andunderstanding of...

From the maelstrom of the Depression and World War II, fromCommunist Party membership in the 1930s-1950s, and early attachment to thefeminism and peace, Jean Blackburn emerged as a significant publicintellectual. Her life work was the attachment of...

Whatmakes one nation curious about another nation? Curious enough that the study ofthe other's culture and language becomes a natural commitment or something thatcould be described as a national project? This question lies behind much of thewriting in...

Jakartabased Andreas Harsono is one of the most knowledgeable, experienced,high-profile and courageous of reporters and commentators on contemporaryIndonesian society. Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and ReligiousViolence in Post-Suharto...

Professor Lord Meghnad Desai is a world-renowned commentator on globalisation and de-globalisation. He is currently Chair of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) Advisory Board, which facilitates discussion between key...

What isthe purpose of an intelligence organisation? The short answer is to transformdisparate and ambiguous information into a product that clarifies nationalsecurity decision-making. Ideally, that process ought to be politically neutraland detached from...

In CreativityCrisis Robert Nelson argues that university education is systematicallyuncreative and suggests how this might be changed. Constructive alignment, thecentrepiece of today's university pedagogy, promotes mechanistic thinking andthe anxious...

In a world of fake news and populist politics, elections can seem like theatre. With growing rates of informal votes and a perceived narrowing of differences between the major parties, do Australian elections really matter? Taking ten examples, this book...

In 1969 car crashes killed over 1000 Victorians, making Victoria's roads some of the world's most deadly.By 2016, the fatality rate had been cut by 85% and Victorians are now taking seriously the goal of eliminating death on the roads altogether.This...

Manga Vision examines cultural and communicative aspects of Japanese comics, drawing together scholars from Japan, Australia and Europe working in areas as diverse as cultural studies, linguistics, education, music, art, anthropology, and...

What woman forgets the moment of discovering her first period?  The shock? Fear? Panic? Loathing? Embarrassment? Pride?  Happiness?First Blood examines the ways in which women from countries as diverse as India and Sri Lanka,...

This is the rollicking tale of Australia's first true adventure playground, when children were allowed to use a patch of public land as their own backyard, to play in freely as they wished, not as adults directed them. They chased their dreams and...

Technology is radically transforming society. From social media to artificial intelligence, our world is now governed by algorithms, powerful tools that not only predict human behaviour but affect how we look at each other, and ourselves. At the same...

In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision that overturned Roe v Wade, declaring that the American Constitution did not protect the right to abortion. Several US states immediately banned abortion, while others were quick to...

A new format of an acclaimed history - joint winner of the Northern Territory Chief Minister's History Book Award 2013.In 1883, pastoralists began to drive great herds of cattle into the Northern Territory's Victoria River District. They entered a vast...

In March 2020, schools and childcare centres across Australia were forced to close to control the spread of the recently arrived novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Families and carers suddenly had to adjust to long periods of home-schooling, disparities in...

Courts aren't just there to settle divorces, sentence law-breakers and resolve corporate disputes. A healthy legal system, one that ensures access, transparency and accountability, is fundamental to democracy. When the system works, the courts act as a...

My father, political activist Samuel Mark Goldbloom, was my hero and my nemesis all the days of his life.Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo grew up in thrall to her father, a prominent socialist and covert member of the Communist Party. From an early age, she...

In 1946 Aboriginal people walked off pastoral stations in Western Australia's Pilbara region, withdrawing their labour from the economically important wool industry to demand improvements in wages and conditions. Their strike lasted three years. On Red...

Human rights come into question in times of crisis. But should we wait for crises to arise before we discuss these rights? Advancing human rights should be everyone's business, not just that of a select group of public interest lawyers, conspiracy...

What does reconciliation and truth-telling look like, and how do we as a nation find justice for Indigenous people?In this deeply personal work, Inala Cooper shares stories of her family to show the impact of colonisation on the lives of Aboriginal...

Rarely is the public taken deep into the inner sanctum of major news organisations. In this extraordinary book, award-winning journalist John Lyons goes to the heart of how the media reports - or does not report - one of the biggest stories of our time:...

Long-term population directions, in terms of both size and age composition, drive the destiny of all nations. While for decades we have worried about global overpopulation, it is far more likely that the period 19502050 will be an extraordinary...

Over the past thirty years, the internet has transformed virtually every area of human activity, social and economic. The bulk of these changes have been positive, allowing people to work, imagine and connect with each other in new ways. The boost to...

One in five Australian women has been the victim of a sexual assault. For these women, there is less than a 1 per cent chance that their rapist has been arrested, prosecuted and convicted of the crime. These are the bare numerical facts of system failure...

How much do you know about the history of Australia's oldest political party, the Australian Labor Party? You know the big names: Curtin, Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke and Keating. But what about the names behind the big names? The unsung and overlooked True...

The exposs in early 2021 of sexism and sexual violence in Parliament House prompted women (and some men) across the country to take to stages, lecterns and social media to express their rage and demand action. However, while these events highlighted that...

The recent revelations and allegations of sexual harassment and assault in the Australian Parliament have prompted furious responses. Political leaders have attempted to limit the damage by referring to the lack of criminal charges, resisting a...

Why does Australia go through cycles of public policy boldness and timidity? The COVID-19 crisis has shown that the Australian political system has much more tolerance for policy innovation than appeared to be the case on the evidence of the previous...

As the many nations of the Pacific deal with the threat of climate change, including rising sea levels and lessening access to fresh water, they are also suffering from some of the slowest rates of development of any region on earth. Now more than ever,...

In Australia, corruption spends public funds in pursuit of power, rewards favour, and strips support from worthy programs. It silences journalists and those charged with upholding standards of integrity by depriving them of funding. Grift and stacking...

Fatal Contact explores the devastating infectious diseases introduced into the Indigenous populations of Australia after the arrival of the British colonists in 1788. Epidemics of smallpox, tuberculosis, influenza, measles and sexually transmitted...

*Victorian Community History Awards : History Publication Commendation*At the height of the Victorian gold rush, between July 1852 and June 1853, hundreds of government-assisted migrants from Lancashire, England, made their way to Australia and...

The post-digital publishing paradigm offers authors, readers, publishers and scholars the opportunity to engage with the production and circulation of the book (in all its forms) beyond the conventional boundaries and binaries of the pre-digital and...

For some time, Australia's democracy has been slowly sliding into disrepair. The nation's major policy challenges go unaddressed, our economic future is uncertain and political corruption is becoming normalised. It's tempting,...

The scandal involving Dyson Heydon, former justice of the High Court, confirmed that the scourge of sexual harassment in Australian workplaces was also to be found in the chambers of one of the seven most senior judges in the country. An unquestioning...

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...

The essays in this collection explore transcultural events to reveal deeper understandings of the dynamic nature, power and effect of performance as it is created and witnessed across national and cultural boundaries. Focusing on historical and...

Australian archaeology has been involved in a great enterprise over the last sixty years, uncovering the deep past of a desert continent and the history of its first people. This book is a guide to the catchphrases of the discipline. It is a meditation...

1860. An Aboriginal labourer named Jim Crow is led to the scaffold of the Maitland Gaol in colonial New South Wales. Among the onlookers is the Scotsman AS Hamilton, who will take bizarre steps in the aftermath of the execution to exhume this young man's...

Governments everywhere have advocated the use of computers in schools as an essential learning technology. Over the years the view that computers can enhance student learning has gained broad acceptance. When schools promote the use in their classrooms...

This book tells the history of adoption in Australia from its beginnings in the nineteenth century to its decline at the beginning of the twenty-first. The authors find that a market in babies has long existed. In the early years supply outstripped...

This book brings together essays from leading Australian and international historians, in an analysis of the monumental Friendly Mission: the Tasmanian Journals and Papers of George Augustus Robinson 1829-1834, edited by NJB Plomley and republished in...