Bad People: and How to Be Rid of Them: A Plan B for Human Rights by Geoffrey Robertson

$32.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

Twenty years ago Geoffrey Robertson inspired the global justice movement with his ground-breaking book, Crimes Against Humanity. Since then, the movement has stalled, as nationalism takes hold and populist governments retreat from international courts and refuse to comply with their rulings.But there is an alternative. The Plan B for human rights looks back to national laws to name, blame and shame abusers. It strips them of their right to enter democratic nations, and of ill-gotten funds they seek to deposit in global banks; and it bars them and their families from schools and hospitals in these countries. This book explains the background and potential of these laws, which have been called Magnitsky Laws, after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in a Russian jail after exposing state corruption. Early versions of them have been introduced in the US, Canada and Britain, and they are now being considered in Australia. Geoffrey Robertson argues in this book that the Magnitsky movement offers a potent solution to crimes being committed against humanity, whether in America, Russia, China or Belarus. These abuses are a concern for all human beings, and good people are no longer prepared to tolerate them, in their own country or elsewhere in the world. The Magnitsky laws can show the way forward for the global justice movement in the twenty-first century.   ...Show more

ANTI - WOKE: SELECTED ESSAYS BY BRENDAN O’NEILL by ONEILL BRENDAN

$24.95 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark by Julia Baird

$32.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness - the 'light within' that Julia Baird calls 'phosphorescence' - which will sustain us even through the darkest times. Over the last decade, we have become bett er at knowing what brings us contentment, well-being and joy. We know, for example, that there are a few core truths to science of happiness. We know that being kind and altruistic makes us happy, that turning off devices, talking to people, forging relationships, living with meaning and delving into the concerns of others offer our best chance at achieving happiness. But how do we retain happiness? It often slips out of our hands as quickly as we find it. So, when we are exposed to, or learn, good things, how do we continue to burn with them? And more than that, when our world goes dark, when we're overwhelmed by illness or heartbreak, loss or pain, how do we survive, stay alive or even bloom? In the muck and grit of a daily existence full of disappointments and a disturbing lack of control over many of the things that matter most - finite relationships, fragile health, fraying economies, a planet in peril - how do we find, nurture and carry our own inner, living light - a light to ward off the darkness? Absorbing, achingly beautiful, inspiring and deeply moving, Julia Baird has written exactly the book we need for these times. ...Show more

A Banquet of Consequences, Revised: Have We Consumed Our Own Future? by Satyajit Das

$34.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

Essential reading for anyone concerned about the dire future of the global economy, the deepening environmental crisis the alarming deterioration of our social fabric, A Banquet of Consequences incisively explains the problems confronting us, how we're making those problems worse, and what the real solu tions are. For ordinary individuals, the goal of a steady job, a home of one's own, a comfortable retirement and a good life for our children is receding. In this brilliantly clear-eyed account, updated to include 150 pages of new insights and analysis, Satyajit Das links past, present and future to show that it's not just unrealistic expectations, but the poor performance of those governing us that are to blame. The strategies and policies deployed to promote economic growth after the Great Recession have failed, not least because such growth cannot continue indefinitely. The solution - structural change - is electorally unpopular and therefore ignored. A Banquet of Consequences explains why the ultimate adjustment, whether stretched out over time or in the form of another sudden crash, will be life-changing. An internationally respected commentator on financial markets, credited with predicting the Global Financial Crisis and featured in the 2010 Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, Satyajit Das is our finest writer about money and the global economy. Informed, impassioned, lively and witty, A Banquet of Consequences is the only book you need to understand what the future will bring. ...Show more

With the Falling of the Dusk by Stan Grant

$34.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

A deeply powerful, poetic and compelling book on the challenges facing our world, from one of Australia's most experienced journalists and international commentators, Stan Grant. History is turning. In only a few short decades, we have come a long way from Francis Fukuyama's declaration of the 'end of history' and the triumph of liberal democracy in 1989. Now, with the inexorable rise of China, the ascendancy of authoritarianism and the retreat of democracy, the world stands at a moment of crisis. This is a time of momentous upheaval and enormous geopolitical shifts, compounded by the global pandemic, economic collapse and growing inequality, Islamist and far right terror, and a resurgent white supremacy. The world is in lockdown and the showdown with China is accelerating - and while the West has been at the forefront of history for 200 years, it must now adapt to a world it no longer dominates. At this moment, we stand on a precipice - what will become of us? Stan Grant is one of our foremost observers and chroniclers of the world in crisis. Weaving his personal experiences of reporting from the front lines of the world's flashpoints, together with his deep understanding of politics, history and philosophy, he explores what is driving the world to crisis and how it might be averted. He fears the worst, but begins to chart the way forward. There is bitterness, anger and history here, but there is also the capacity for negotiation, forgiveness and hope. A powerful and incisive analysis of the state of our world, and our place within it. ...Show more

The Truth About China: Propaganda, patriotism and the search for answers by Bill Birtles

$32.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

A thrilling and provocative account of the unfolding tension between China and the west using characters and sources and stories from his time there, but between the lines he hopes to illuminate the dark portents of repercussions yet to come.

The Believer: Encounters with Love, Death and Faith by Sarah Krasnostein

$34.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

This book is about ghosts and gods and flying saucers and certainty in the absence of knowledge. From award-winning author Sarah Krasnostein comes an exploration of the power of belief. Weaving together the stories of six extraordinary ordinary people, The Believer looks at the stories we tell ourselve s to deal with the distance between the world as it is, and the world as we’d like it to be. How they can stunt us – or save us. Some of the people you will meet believe in things most people don’t. Ghosts. UFOs. Heaven and the Devil. The literal creation of the universe in six days. Others believe in things most people would like to. Dying with autonomy. Facing one’s own transgressions with an open heart. In this intensely personal and gorgeously written new book Krasnostein talks with her characteristic compassion and empathy to these believers – and finds out what happens when their beliefs crash into her own. ...Show more

Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World (PB) by Simon Winchester

$34.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

From the bestselling author Simon Winchester, a human history of land around the world: who mapped it, owned it, stole it, cared for it, fought for it and gave it back. The ownership of land has always been complicated, opaque, and more than a little anarchic when viewed from the outside. In this book, Simon Winchester explores the the stewardship of land, the ways it is delineated and changes hands, the great disputes, and the questions of restoration – particularly in the light of climate change and colonialist reparation. A global study, this is an exquisite exploration of what the ownership of land might really mean – not in dry-as-dust legal terms, but for the people who live on it. ...Show more

Brave New Humans: The Dirty Reality of Donor Conception by Sarah Dingle

$34.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

An astonishing real-life whodunnit and investigative exposé, Brave New Humans reveals the uncomfortable realities of assisted reproduction and its very human fallout. Journalist Sarah Dingle was 27 when she learnt that her identity was a lie. Over dinner one night, her mother casually mentioned Sarah h ad been conceived using a sperm donor. The man who’d raised Sarah wasn’t her father; in fact, she had no idea who her father was. Or who she really was. As the shock receded, Sarah put her professional skills to work and began to investigate her own existence. Thus began a ten-year journey to understand who she was – digging through hospital records, chasing leads and taking a DNA test – that finally led her to her biological origins. What she discovered along the way was shocking: hospital records routinely destroyed, trading of eggs and sperm, women dead, donors exploited, and hundreds of thousands of donor-conceived people globally who will never know who they are. But there’s one thing this industry hasn’t banked on: the children of the baby business taking on their makers. In a profoundly personal way, Brave New Humans shines a light on the global fertility business today – a booming and largely unregulated industry that takes a startlingly lax approach to huge ethical concerns, not least our fundamental human need to know who we are, and where we come from. Exploring the blurry frontier of fertility and its very human fallout.   ...Show more

The Momentous, Uneventful Day: A Requiem for the Office by Gideon Haigh

$24.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

Has COVID-19 ushered in the end of the office? Or is it the office's final triumph? For decades, futurologists have prophesied a boundaryless working world, freed from the cramped confines of the office. During the COVID-19 crisis, employees around the globe got a taste of it. Confined by lockdown to t heir homes, they met, mingled, collaborated, and created electronically. At length, they returned to something approaching normality. Or had they glimpsed the normal to come? In The Momentous, Uneventful Day, Gideon Haigh reflects on what COVID-19 revealed about our ambivalent relationship to office work and office life, how we ended up with the offices we have, how they have reflected our best and worst instincts, and how these might be affected by a world in a time of contagion. Like the factory in the nineteenth century, the office was the characteristic building form of the twentieth, reshaping our cities, redirecting our lives. We all have a stake in how it will change in the twenty-first. Enlivened by copious citations from literature, film, memoir, and corporate history, and interspersed with relevant images, The Momentous, Uneventful Day is the ideal companion for a lively current debate about the post-pandemic office. ...Show more

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates

$39.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions.   Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about cli mate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Gates says, "we can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change." His interest in climate change is a natural outgrowth of the efforts by his foundation to reduce poverty and disease. Climate change, according to Gates, will have the biggest impact on the people who have done the least to cause it. As a technologist, he has seen first-hand how innovation can change the world. By investing in research, inventing new technologies, and by deploying them quickly at large scale, Gates believes climate change can be addressed in meaningful ways. According to Gates, "to prevent the worst effects of climate change, we have to get to net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases. This problem is urgent, and the debate is complex, but I believe we can come together to invent new carbon-zero technologies, deploy the ones we have, and ultimately avoid a climate catastrophe." ...Show more

Greetings from Trumpland by Daniel, Zoe/Whalan, Roscoe

$34.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

Donald Trump, the mercurial US President, has had the world on a string since he declared he would run for office. He's presided over arguably the most volatile White House in history, with a revolving door for senior staff and advisors and haphazard decision making that's turned years of entrenched US policy on its head. Zoe Daniel, and producer Roscoe Whalan, were in the thick of history in the making, following the 2016 election campaign through the states that turned the election and talking to the 'forgotten people' who threw caution to the wind and elected Donald Trump. What was it that drove their decision making, what did they want to achieve and are they still loyal to Trump four years later? Via travels through America and beyond and interviews with real people and leaders over 5 years this book explores the changed boundaries and expectations in a world of unprecedented political partisanship and populism. Is Donald Trump a cause or an effect in a world of narcissism, reality TV, information manipulation and overt greed? We enter the 2020s in a state of global crisis on several fronts. From shaking up global institutions to Trump led foreign policy, to language and actions around race and gender, to the use of inflammatory rhetoric and the mobilisation of division, to the invention of fake news this book explores how Donald Trump has changed the world. ...Show more