Looking Into The Abyss by Barry Jones

$34.99 AUD

Category: Politics

This collection of insightful articles from Barry Jones follows in the footsteps of the acclaimed Knowledge Courage Leadership (2016) and includes reflections on the big political and social issues and concerns locally, nationally and internationally. Understand more about key issues including religious beliefs in a multicultural society, Northern Territory euthanasia, Gough Whitlam and the Social Democratic Imagination, the Melbourne Refugees Study Program, Republic as metaphor, Redefining politics in an age of toxicity and moral vacuum, the existential threat to democracy and what we must do to preserve it, and much more. Looking Into The Abyss is a riveting and compelling read, written in Barrys easy flowing and fact-based style. Barry is writing better than ever! ...Show more

Venom: Vendettas, betrayals and the price of power by David Crowe

$34.99 AUD

Category: Politics

A cracking account of the rivalries and hatreds that split the Liberal Party, brought down Malcolm Turnbull and propelled Scott Morrison to power. They plotted. They schemed. They unleashed chaos. Australia lost two prime ministers in three years in a period of political bloodshed that took the nation' s government to the brink of collapse - until an extraordinary election changed everything. Venom is the secret history of the brutal power play to lead the government. It sheds new light on the fall of Tony Abbott, the rise of Malcolm Turnbull and the electrifying leadership spill that brought parliament to a halt in August 2018. In a day-by-day account, it reveals the strategy Scott Morrison used to defeat his opponents and claim ultimate authority. David Crowe reported these events for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age as they unfolded. Using more than one hundred interviews with the participants, he tells an epic story of revenge, hatred and the ruthless pursuit of power. And he asks whether the future holds any peace when the past is so full of poison. PRAISE 'David Crowe is both wise guide and sage interpreter in this gripping journey through the angry years of Australian politics' Chris Uhlmann 'David Crowe writes with precision and clarity - dissecting the characters, deep rivalries and ideological wars that churned through three Liberal Prime Ministers' Patricia Karvelas 'A compelling read about a time of Liberal madness' Michelle Grattan ...Show more

Xi Jinping: The Backlash by Richard McGregor

$12.99 AUD

Category: Politics

Xi Jinping has transformed China at home and abroad with a speed and aggression that few foresaw when he came to power in 2012. Finally, he is meeting resistance, both at home among disgruntled officials and disillusioned technocrats, and abroad from an emerging coalition of Western nations that seem de termined to resist China's geopolitical and high-tech expansion. With the United States and China at loggerheads, Richard McGregor outlines how the world came to be split in two. ...Show more

Backlash Australia's Conflict of Values Over Live Exports by Bidda Jones and Julian Davies

$22.00 AUD

Category: Politics

An in-depth investigation of the live export trade and an analysis of the intense public drama of 2011. The backstory of this powerful industry and the campaign to bring it to an end are revealed, including aspects of the inner political story that have not been told until now. Bidda Jones, head of scie nce and strategy at RSPCA Australia, and writer Julian Davies have worked in close collaboration to bring to life these extraordinary events, including the continuing backlash against the 2011 suspension. ...Show more

On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal by Naomi Klein

$29.99 AUD

Category: Politics

The fight for a green world is the fight of our lives. And with On Fire, Naomi Klein gives us the ammunition to do it. In frank, personal terms, she shows us how the only way forward out of a polluted world of our own making is only through policy reform - a concrete set of actions to combat the mountin g threat of total environmental catastrophe. What's needed, she argues, is something with radical verve and guaranteed protections- in other words, a New Deal. On Fire finds Klein at her most canny and prophetic, and the stakes of our imperiled global situation higher than ever before. In wide-ranging essays reporting from varying stages of ecological crisis - from prescient clarion calls from years ago to our panicked present - Klein wakes us up from our environmental sleepwalk and sets us on a course of potent, necessary action. ...Show more

Factfulness (Illustrated) by Hans Rosling; Ola Rosling; Anna Rosling Rönnlund

$55.00 AUD

Category: Politics

The international best-selling phenomenon loved by BARACK OBAMA and BILL GATES in a new and updated illustrated edition 'A hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases.' BARACK OBAMA 'One of the most important books I've ever read - an indisp ensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.' BILL GATES *#1 Sunday Times bestseller * instant New York Times bestseller * Observer 'best brainy book of the decade' * #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller * Irish Times bestseller * Audio bestseller * Guardian bestseller * FACTFULNESS: the stress-reducing habit of only having opinions for which there are strong supporting facts. Things aren't as bad as we think. Fact. When asked simple questions about global trends - why the world's population is increasing; how many young women go to school; how many of us live in poverty - we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, legendary statisticians Hans, Anna and Ola Rosling offer a radical new explanation of why this happens, and reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. But when we let the bad news take on outsize proportions instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world. ...Show more

How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century by Frank Dikötter

$29.99 AUD

Category: Politics

From the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of Mao's Great Famine, a sweeping and timely study of twentieth-century dictators and the development of the modern cult of personality. No dictator can rule through fear and violence alone. Naked power can be grabbed and held temporarily, but it never suffi ces in the long term. In the twentieth century, as new technologies allowed leaders to place their image and voice directly into their citizens' homes, a new phenomenon appeared where dictators exploited the cult of personality to achieve the illusion of popular approval without ever having to resort to elections. In How to Be a Dictator, Frank Dik tter examines the cults and propaganda surrounding twentieth-century dictators, from Hitler and Stalin to Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung. These men were the founders of modern dictatorships, and they learned from each other and from history to build their regimes and maintain their public images. Their dictatorships, in turn, have influenced leaders in the twenty-first century, including Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Using a breadth of archival research and his characteristic in-depth analysis, Dik tter offers a stunning portrait of dictatorship, a guide to the cult of personality, and a map for exposing the lies dictators tell to build and maintain their regimes. ...Show more

The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture by Senate Select Senate Select Committee On Intelligence; Daniel Jones (Introduction by); Dianne Feinstein (Foreword by)

$32.99 AUD

Category: Politics

"The most extensive review of U.S. intelligence-gathering tactics in generations." --Los Angeles TimesThis is the Executive Summary of the "Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program," a U.S. Senate investigation -- a.k.a., The Torture Report. Based on more than six million pages of classified CIA documents, this report details the establishment of a covert CIA program to secretly detain and interrogate suspected terrorists. Among other matters, the report describes the evolution of the CIA program, the use of the CIA's so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," and how the CIA misrepresented the program to the White House, the Department of Justice, Congress, and the American people. Over five years in the making, it is presented here exactly as redacted and released by the United States government on December 9, 2014, with an introduction by Daniel J. Jones, who led the Senate investigation. --- NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE The Report is a riveting thriller based on actual events. Idealistic staffer Daniel J. Jones (Adam Driver) is tasked by his boss Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening) to lead an investigation of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, which was created in the aftermath of 9/11. Jones' relentless pursuit of the truth leads to explosive findings that uncover the lengths to which the nation's top intelligence agency went to destroy evidence, subvert the law, and hide a brutal secret from the American public. The Report is written and directed by Scott Z. Burns and features outstanding performances by a powerful cast led by Adam Driver, Annette Bening, and Jon Hamm. Sarah Goldberg, Michael C. Hall, Douglas Hodge, Fajer Kaisi, Ted Levine, Jennifer Morrison, Tim Blake Nelson, Linda Powell, Matthew Rhys, T. Ryder Smith, Corey Stoll, and Maura Tierney complete the powerful ensemble that brings this essential story to life. THIS EDITION OF THE SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE REPORT ON TORTURE IS THE OFFICIAL TIE-IN TO THE MOTION PICTURE ...Show more

Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow

$34.99 AUD

Category: Politics

In a dramatic account of violence and espionage, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost. In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to a story only whisp ered about: one of Hollywood's most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family. All the while, Farrow and his producer faced a degree of resistance that could not be explained - until now. And a trail of clues revealed corruption and cover-ups from Hollywood, to Washington, and beyond. This is the untold story of the exotic tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability and silence victims of abuse - and it's the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement. Both a spy thriller and a meticulous work of investigative journalism, CATCH AND KILL breaks devastating new stories about the rampant abuse of power - and sheds far-reaching light on investigations that shook the culture. ...Show more

Talking up a Legacy: Australian Prime Ministers and the Speeches We Remember Them By by Tom Clark

$26.99 AUD

Category: Politics

Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS by Azadeh Moaveni

$32.99 AUD

Category: Politics

An intimate, deeply reported account of the women who made a shocking decision- to leave their comfortable lives behind and join the Islamic State. In early 2014, the Islamic State clinched its control of Raqqa in Syria. Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, urged Muslims around the world to come join the cali phate. Having witnessed the brutal oppression of the Assad regime in Syria, and moved to fight for justice, thousands of men and women heeded his call. At the heart of this story is a cast of unforgettable young women who responded. Emma, from Germany; Sharmeena from Bethnal Green, London; Nour from Tunis- these were women - some still in high school - from urban families, some with university degrees and bookshelves filled with novels by Jane Austen and Dan Brown; many with cosmopolitan dreams of travel and adventure. But instead of finding a land of justice and piety, they found themselves trapped within the most brutal terrorist regime of the twenty-first century, a world of chaos and upheaval and violence. What is the line between victim and collaborator? How do we judge these women who both suffered and inflicted intense pain? What role is there for Muslim women in the West? In what is bound to be a modern classic of narrative non-fiction, Moaveni takes us into the school hallways of London, kitchen tables in Germany, the coffee shops in Tunis, the caliphate's OB/GYN and its 'Guest House for Young Widows' - where wives of the fallen waited to be remarried - to demonstrate that the problem called terrorism is a far more complex, political, and deeply relatable one than we generally admit. ...Show more

Plots and Prayers: Malcolm Turnbull’s Demise and Scott Morrison’s Ascension by Niki Savva

$35.00 AUD

Category: Politics

'How good is this book! So much intrigue. So many revelations. Such a brilliant read.’Laurie OakesIn an enthralling sequel to her bestselling The Road to Ruin, Niki Savva reveals the inside story of a bungled coup that overthrew the Liberal prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and installed a surpris e successor, Scott Morrison, who went on to take the party to a miraculous electoral victory.On 21 August 2018, 35 Liberal MPs cast their vote against Malcolm Turnbull, effectively signalling the end of his leadership. Three days later, the deed was done, and Scott Morrison was anointed prime minister.Tony Abbott’s relentless campaign of destabilisation, helped along by his acolytes in the parliament and by his powerful media mates, the betrayals of colleagues, and the rise of the religious right — climaxing in Peter Dutton's challenge — all played a part in Turnbull’s downfall.But so did Turnbull’s own poor political judgement. He was a good prime minister and a terrible politician. The good bits of Malcolm were not enough to make up for the bad Malcolm.Nevertheless, the sheer brutality of his removal left many Liberals aghast. MPs were traumatised or humiliated by eight days of madness. Men and women cried from sheer anguish. They went through hell, and feared when it was over that they would not make it back — and nor would the Liberal Party. As it turned out, redemption came with Morrison’s unexpected single-handed 2019 election victory.Turnbull’s road ended in ruins, as it was always bound to and as he always knew it would, as he predicted to Niki Savva less than three years before it happened.But when his end was imminent, he could not bear to let go. And when it was over, he was defiant, fragile — and, yes — vengeful.This is the inside story of what happened — and what happened next. ...Show more