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Words & Ideas > Essays

Large 9780224097017

Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald

$35.00 AUD

Available Stock:
18

Category: Essays

Animals don't exist to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves. From the internationally acclaimed author of H is for Hawk comes Vesper Flights, a transcendent collection of essays about the human relationship to th e natural world. In Vesper Flights Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved pieces, along with new essays on topics and stories ranging from nostalgia and science fiction to the true account of a refugee's flight to the UK. Her pieces ranges from accounts of swan upping on the Thames to watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary to seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk's poplar forests. She writes about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds' nests, what we do when we watch wildlife and why. This is a book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make the world around us, by one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers. ...Show more

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Large 9781760642761

Quarterly Essay 79: The End of Certainty: Scott Morrison and Pandemic Politics by Katharine Murphy

$25.00 AUD

Available Stock:
11

Category: Essays

What has the coronavirus pandemic revealed about Scott Morrison, and where is he taking Australia? Epidemics are mirrors. What has COVID-19 revealed about Australia, and about Scott Morrison and his government? In this gripping essay, Katharine Murphy goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the res ponse to the crisis. Drawing on interviews with Morrison, Brendan Murphy, Josh Frydenberg, Sally McManus and other players, she traces how the key health and economic decisions were taken. Her account is twinned with a portrait of the prime minister. She explores his blend of pragmatism and faith, and shows how a leader characterised by secrecy and fierce certainty learnt to compromise and reach out – with notable exceptions. Now, as the nation turns inwards and unemployment rises, our faith in government is about to be tested anew. What does “We’re all in this together” truly mean? Will Morrison snap back to Liberal hardman, or will he redefine centre-right politics in this country? “Morrison’s a partisan, blue team to the core, but his political philosophy is hard to pin down, because it is predominantly trouble-shooting. By instinct, Morrison is a power player and a populist, not a philosopher; a repairer of walls, not a writer of manifestos … [his] conservatism is extreme pragmatism in defence of what he regards as the core of the nation.” —Katharine Murphy, The End of Certainty ...Show more

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Large 9780008429973

Mantel Pieces by Hilary Mantel

$40.00 AUD

Available Stock:
10

Category: Essays

In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Books, she wrote to the editor, Karl Miller, ‘I have no critical training whatsoever, so I am forced to be more brisk and breezy than scholarly.’ This collection of twenty reviews, essays and pieces of memoir from the next three dec ades, tells the story of what happened next. Her subjects range far and wide: Robespierre and Danton, the Hite report, Saudi Arabia where she lived for four years in the 1980s, the Bulger case, John Osborne, the Virgin Mary as well as the pop icon Madonna, a brilliant examination of Helen Duncan, Britain’s last witch. There are essays about Jane Boleyn, Charles Brandon, Christopher Marlowe and Margaret Pole, which display the astonishing insight into the Tudor mind we are familiar with from the bestselling Wolf Hall Trilogy. Her famous lecture, ‘Royal Bodies’, which caused a media frenzy, explores the place of royal women in society and our imagination. Here too are some of her LRB diaries, including her first meeting with her stepfather and a confrontation with a circus strongman. Constantly illuminating, always penetrating and often very funny, interleaved with letters and other ephemera gathered from the archive, Mantel Pieces is an irresistible selection from one of our greatest living writers. ...Show more

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Large 9780008469658

What If We Stopped Pretending? by Jonathan Franzen

$13.00 AUD

Available Stock:
8

Category: Essays

The climate crisis is here. Our chance to stop it has come and gone, but this doesn't have to mean the world is ending. 'Today, the scientific evidence verges on irrefutable. If you're younger than sixty, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth--massive crop fa ilures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you're under thirty, you're all but guaranteed to witness it. If you care about the planet, and about the people and animals who live on it, there are two ways to think about this. You can keep on hoping that catastrophe is preventable, and feel ever more frustrated or enraged by the world's inaction. Or you can accept that disaster is coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope.' This is Jonathan Franzen's controversial New Yorker essay, published as a single volume that discusses a planet on the cusp of and what and how individuals can respond to that. ...Show more

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Large temp img

Buried Not Dead by Fiona McGregor

$26.95 AUD

Available Stock:
8

Category: Essays

Novelist Fiona McGregor's new book, Buried Not Dead, is a collection of essays on art, literature and performance, sexuality, activism and the life of the city. It features performance artists, writers, dancers, tattooists and DJs, some of them famous, like Marina Abramović and Mike Parr, while others, like Latai Taumoepeau, Lanny K and Kathleen Mary Fallon, are important figures but less well known. In her portraits of these performers and artists and the scenes they inhabit, McGregor creates an intimate and expansive archive of a kind rarely recorded in our histories.Fiona McGregor has a deep and enduring involvement in the worlds she represents. She came of age as an artist during an outpouring of performative queer creativity, in a community that celebrated subversion, dissent and uninhibited partygoing, and in her writing she observes the shift from that moment to new forms of cultural repression. McGregor is a participant in her essays as well as a witness — she sees through an artist's eyes and records what she perceives with a novelist's insight. In excavating the lives of others, she reveals her own, and shows the possibilities that exist beneath the surface of our culture.'Compromise-averse, dangerous, this book is also a precious archive of radical art-making witnessed firsthand.' — Maria Tumarkin'MacGregor has a fine eye for the moment, in a text or performance, when the marvellous happens. Cutting across the boring divides between high art and low dives, Buried Not Dead is alive to what's alive.' — McKenzie Wark'In a world that bludgeons you into numbness Buried Not Dead will startle you back to life. McGregor's book is a shriek of rage and a cry of pleasure, and sometimes it is hard to tell one from the other.' — Krissy Kneen'A lively and unpretentious book, Buried Not Dead is reminiscent of the work of Kathy Acker and Eileen Myles — a collection that does not indulge in misplaced nostalgia, instead recontextualising the past in hopes of a shared future.' Cher Tan, Books+Publishing ...Show more

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Large 9781760642792

Watsonia: A Writing Life by Don Watson

$50.00 AUD

Available Stock:
7

Category: Essays

No other writer has journeyed further into the soul of Australia and returned to tell the tale... Watsonia collects the fruits of a writing life. It covers everything from Australian bush humour to America gone berserk; from Don Bradman to Oscar Wilde; from Animal Farmto the Australian parliament. Wher ever Watson turns his incisive gaze, the results are as illuminating as they are enjoyable. Artfully arranged, Watsonia showcases the many sides of Don Watson- historian, speechwriter, commentator, humourist, nature writer and biographer. It also features several previously unpublished lectures and a wide-ranging introduction by the author. This comprehensive anthology - replete with wit, wisdom and diverse pleasures - is essential reading. ...Show more

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Large 9780241470022

Azadi - Freedom. Fascism. Fiction by Arundhati Roy

$15.00 AUD

Available Stock:
5

Category: Essays

FROM THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF MY SEDITIOUS HEART AND THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS, A NEW AND PRESSING DISPATCH FROM THE HEART OF THE CROWD AND THE SOLITUDE OF A WRITER'S DESK The chant of 'Azadi!' - Urdu for 'Freedom!' - is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what Kashmiris see a s the Indian Occupation. Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism. Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom - a chasm or a bridge? - the streets fell silent. Not only in India, but all over the world. The Coronavirus brought with it another, more terrible understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could. In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism. The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times. The pandemic, she says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another world. ...Show more

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Large 9781922464156

The Case for Courage by Kevin Rudd

$19.95 AUD

Available Stock:
5

Category: Essays | Series: In the National Interest Ser.

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, but distracting, to point to the usual list of reasons, from the declining ca libre of the political class to the growing polarisation of politics. But we can't understand the current predicament of our democracy without recognising the central role of Murdoch's national media monopoly. In Queensland, where national elections are determined, he owns thirteen of the state's fourteen newspapers. All his papers are loss-making and retained for political influence only; nationally, they act as a Liberal Party protection racket, providing zero accountability on Coalition corruption and incompetence. Together with the Liberal Party, the Murdoch media cultivates a climate of national anxiety, fear and anger through relentless campaigns on deficit, debt and the threat to Australia from ever-changing but always nefarious foreign interests. Their goal is an anxious Australia, reinforced by the latest campaign applications of political neuroscience, permanently predisposing the electorate towards the reassurance of having conservatives in power.For these reasons, there is no longer a level playing field in Australian politics. We won't see another progressive government in Canberra until we deal with this cancer in our democracy. Three more things must change for Labor to be returned to office. Labor must significantly broaden its political base; demolish the entire rationale for the conservative political project now that the Liberal Party has abandoned its position on debt, deficit and government intervention in the economy; and put forward a clear plan dealing with the challenges ahead: recurring pandemics; demographic decline; technological disruption undermining economic competitiveness and employment; the rise of China; and the continued economic and environmental devastations of climate change. All four tasks are essential. All four will require great political courage to bring about fundamental change. And now is the time for women and men of courage to act.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

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Large 9781922464279

Challenging Politics by Scott Ryan

$19.95 AUD

Available Stock:
5

Category: Essays | Series: In the National Interest Ser.

Australia has enjoyed an unprecedented period of prosperity in recent decades, yet despite this there has been a widely reported loss of faith in politics and institutions. With the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia faces its most significant economic and social challenges in decades. How is politics placed to deal with these challenges and what is the capacity of our key institutions to do so? What are the lessons and warnings from history?In Challenging Politics, longtime politician Scott Ryan argues that the way we determine issues, the way we practice politics, and what we expect from politicians and government, is in flux. To some, the virtue of compromise has become the sin of sellout. The louder voices of fringe and single-issue movements attract attention, money and commitment, and apply litmus tests to those who seek to govern. This makes it more difficult for our institutions, and therefore our politics, to function effectively. The long-talked-about collapse of the centre isn't solely about extreme ideas. It is also about how our expectations of politics and our institutions have changed.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

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Large 9781760642105

The March on Autocracy; Australia's Fateful Choices; Australian Foreign Affairs 11 by Jonathan Pearlman

$23.00 AUD

Available Stock:
5

Category: Essays

The March of Autocracy examines the rise of authoritarian and illiberal leaders, whose growing assertiveness is reshaping the Western-led world order. It explores the challenge for Australia as it enters a new era, in which China's international sway increases and democracies compete with their rivals f or global influence. ? Professor of politics at the University of Sydney John Keane on despotism and the new Cold War between the United States and China. ? Director of the Lowy Institute's International Security Program Sam Roggeveen on the American contest against authoritarianism and how it is shaping US foreign policy. ? Chinese culture and politics expert Linda Jaivin on what diplomatic and political levers Australia has at its disposal in dealing with China. ? Research fellow at the Lowy Institute Natasha Kassam and senior lecturer in international politics at the Australian National University Darren Lim on how authoritarianism has risen in China and elsewhere in the wake of COVID-19 and a global shift in power. ? Director of Foreign Policy and Defence at the United States Studies Centre Ashley Townshend on how and why Australia should lead an international initiative to counter disinformation. Australian Foreign Affairs is published three times a year and seeks to explore - and encourage - debate on Australia's place in the world and global outlook. ...Show more

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Large 9780733645235

On Charlatans by Chris Bowen

$17.00 AUD

Available Stock:
5

Category: On Series | Series: On Ser.

Chris Bowen, who was to be the next Treasurer has had plenty of time to think about what went wrong and why charlatans are winning in the game of politics. Why do we continue to vote for politicians who say, 'I don't hold a hose, mate,' or advocate we drink bleach to fight COVID? Or shut down pubs at 10 pm because you can't catch COVID after 10pm? Is an authentic politics possible after Morrison, Trump and Boris? ...Show more

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Large 9781922464125

Power & Consent by Rachel Doyle

$19.95 AUD

Available Stock:
5

Category: Essays | Series: In the National Interest Ser.

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 reliance on the calibre of the fine legal minds appo inted to the High Court had blinded us to the reality that sexual harassment is as common in the legal profession as it is in corporate Australia and in all other industries. In particular, in the legal profession, a hierarchical structure and a culture of silence had served to perpetuate feelings of embarrassment, fear and shame on the part of victims.In Power & Consent, Rachel Doyle, a practising Senior Counsel for over a decade, argues that we need to understand the power relationships at the heart of the modern workplace. Sexual harassment is rarely a 'one off'. Perpetrators continue their harassment because they are not called to account for their actions. Silence and complicity allow recidivists to go unpunished and normalise the phenomenon of 'getting away with it'. Perpetrators must be taught what consent means.This book demands a new response to complaints of sexual harassment; one which recognises the power of strength in numbers, the probative value of multiple complaints, and the restorative power of grievances shared. It also calls for the imposition of new obligations: it asks bystanders to become participants and to take collective responsibility for supporting victims and stopping perpetrators.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

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