Books
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Displaying results 1 to 10 of 691.
Honiara »
Village-City of Solomon Islands
Authored by: Clive Moore
Publication date: May 2022
Nahona`ara—means ‘facing the `ara’, the place where the southeast winds meet the land just west of Point Cruz. Nahona`ara became Honiara, the capital city of Solomon Islands with a population of 160,000, the only significant urban centre in a nation of 721,000 people.
Honiara: Village-City of Solomon Islands views Honiara in several ways: first as Tandai traditional land; then as coconut plantations between the 1880s and 1930s; within the British protectorate (1893–1978) and its Guadalcanal District; in the 1942–45 war years, which created the first urban settlement; in the directly post-war period until 1952 as the new capital of the protectorate, replacing Tulagi; and then as the headquarters of the Western Pacific High Commission (WPHC) between 1953 and 1974. Finally, in 1978, Honiara became the capital of the independent nation of Solomon Islands and the headquarters of Guadalcanal Province.
The book argues that over decades there have been four and sometimes five changing and intersecting Honiara ‘worlds’ operating at one time, each of different social, economic and political significance. The importance of each group—British, Solomon Islanders, other Pacific Islanders, Asians, and more recently the 2003–17 presence of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI)—has changed over time.
Contradiction »
Edited by: Linda Jaivin, Esther Sunkyung Klein, Sharon Strange
Publication date: May 2022
In the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the many facets of crisis—the theme of last year’s China Story Yearbook—fractured into pictures of contradiction throughout Chinese society and the Chinese sphere of influence.
Contradiction: the ancient Chinese word for the concept holds within it the image of an unstoppable spear meeting an impenetrable shield. It describes a wide range of phenomena that English might express with words like conflict, clash, paradox, incongruity, disagreement, rebuttal, opposition, and negation. This year’s Yearbook presents stories of action and reaction, of motion and resistance.
The theme of contradiction plays out in different ways across the different realms of society, culture, environment, labour, politics, and international relations. Great powers do not necessarily succeed in dominating smaller ones. The seemingly irresistible forces of authoritarianism, patriarchy, and technological control come up against energised and surprisingly resilient means of resistance or cooptation. Efforts by various authorities to establish monolithic narrative control over the past and present meet a powerful insistence on telling the story from an opposite angle. The China Story Yearbook: Contradiction offers an accessible take on this complex and contradictory moment in the history of China and of the world.
Persons of Interest »
An Intimate Account of Cecily and John Burton
Authored by: Pamela Burton, Meredith Edwards
Publication date: April 2022
A world in upheaval; two lives lived under stress … This story is set in the social and political landscape of pre– and post–World War II. It tells two vastly different tales of Cecily and John’s lives in Australia and overseas, as nations clashed, and governments and international organisations tried to remake the world.
Cecily Nixon knew that marrying John Burton would be bad for her. But she loved him and, impressed with this handsome, sullen young man and his belief that he could change the world for the better, saw her role in life as to serve the world through John.
Cecily’s story is a deeply personal and psychological one of love, duty and betrayal that explores the complexities of relationships. In a world that overwhelmed her, Cecily searched for ‘wholeness’ and delved deep into her psyche to find herself and emerge from John’s shadow.
John has been known as an influential and controversial young head of Australia’s Department of External Affairs – and as a would-be politician. It is less known that he was also an innovative farmer, bookseller, entrepreneur, arts patron and writer. He received international acclaim for his later work in conflict analysis and resolution.
These combined stories of courage and achievement unfold amid political intrigue and psychological trauma. ASIO surveillance, love triangles, loyalty, infidelity and tragedy all play their part in the Burtons’ lives.
‘A remarkable memoir of a remarkable couple, exploring the fraught dynamic between the personal and political facets of their lives, the perspective lying at the core of modern feminism. Pamela Burton’s own insights are those of their youngest child, on whom the disruptions of the 1960s and 1970s had a heavy impact, but also that of her maturity, bringing her sharp forensic skills to the project. Assisted by Meredith Edwards, her eldest sister, Burton has given us an unflinchingly honest and utterly gripping record of our lives and times.’
— Sara Dowse, author of West Block and Sapphires
Youth in Fiji and Solomon Islands »
Livelihoods, Leadership and Civic Engagement
Authored by: Aidan Craney
Publication date: April 2022
Fiji, Solomon Islands and the wider Pacific region are experiencing a ‘youth bulge’. As such, the livelihoods pathways of youth in these countries will be a key determinant of their social, political and economic futures. This book looks at the cultural expectations of Fijian and Solomon Islander youth, as well as the socio-political positioning of youth activists. It investigates how formal and informal structures – such as education, employment and civil society – affect the ability of youth to achieve their potential and actively engage in their societies. Through this investigation, a recurrent theme develops of the structural minimisation of youth in these countries: they are ‘to be seen but not heard’. But Pacific youth are more than citizens in waiting; they are already important members of their communities, with varying degrees of engagement in critical civil society. More than simply leaders of tomorrow, they are partners for today. Youth in Fiji and Solomon Islands documents and details some of the ways that young people in Fiji and Solomon Islands are forging their way as leaders not just of youth, but of their communities. Whilst the majority of youth are engaging in society in acceptable, social ascribed ways, and the majority of adults resist youth participation as a technique to maintain the social status quo, a small but influential cohort of both youth and adults are creating spaces for today’s young people to help to shape the developmental futures of the Great Ocean States of the Pacific.
Mobilising the Masses »
Populist Conservative Movements in Australia and New Zealand During the Great Depression
Authored by: Matthew Cunningham
Publication date: April 2022
The radical right has gained considerable ground in the twenty-first century. From Brexit to Bolsonaro and Tea Partiers to Trump, many of these diverse manifestations of right-wing populism share a desire to co‑opt or supplant the mainstream parties that have traditionally held sway over the centre right. It is now more important than ever to understand similar moments in Australian and New Zealand history.
This book concerns one such moment—the Great Depression—and the explosion of large, populist conservative groups that accompanied the crisis. These ‘citizens’ movements’, as they described themselves, sprang into being virtually overnight and amassed a combined membership in the hundreds of thousands. They staunchly opposed party politicians and political parties for their supposed inaction and infighting. Whether left or right, it did not matter. They wanted to use their vast numbers to pressure their governments into enacting proposals they believed were in the national interest: a smaller, more streamlined government where Members of Parliament were free to act according to their conscience rather than their party allegiance. At the same time, the movements prescribed antidotes for their nations’ economic ill‑health that were often radical and occasionally anti-democratic.
At the height of their power, they threatened to disrupt or outright replace the centre right political parties of the time—particularly in Australia. At a time when fascism and right-wing authoritarianism were on the march internationally, the future shape of conservative politics was at stake.
Papua New Guinea: Government, Economy and Society »
Edited by: Stephen Howes, Lekshmi N. Pillai
Publication date: March 2022
Papua New Guinea (PNG), a nation of now almost nine million people, continues to evolve and adapt. While there is no shortage of recent data and research on PNG, the two most recent social science volumes on the country were both written more than a decade ago. Since then, much has changed and much has been learnt. What has been missing is a volume that brings together the most recent research and reports on the most recent data. Papua New Guinea: Government, Economy and Society fills that gap.
Written by experts at the University of Papua New Guinea and The Australian National University among others, this book provides up-to-date surveys of critical policy issues for PNG across a range of fields, from elections and politics, decentralisation, and crime and corruption, to PNG’s economic trajectory and household living standards, to uneven development, communication and the media. The volume’s authors provide an overview of the data collected and research undertaken in these various fields in an engaging and accessible way.
Edited by Professor Stephen Howes and Professor Lekshmi N. Pillai, Papua New Guinea: Government, Economy and Society is a must-read for students, policymakers and anyone interested in understanding this complex and fascinating country.
Archaeological Perspectives on Conflict and Warfare in Australia and the Pacific »
Edited by: Geoffrey Clark, Mirani Litster
Publication date: March 2022
When James Boswell famously lamented the irrationality of war in 1777, he noted the universality of conflict across history and across space – even reaching what he described as the gentle and benign southern ocean nations. This volume discusses archaeological evidence of conflict from those southern oceans, from Palau and Guam, to Australia, Vanuatu and Tonga, the Marquesas, Easter Island and New Zealand. The evidence for conflict and warfare encompasses defensive earthworks on Palau, fortifications on Tonga, and intricate pa sites in New Zealand. It reports evidence of reciprocal sacrifice to appease deities in several island nations, and skirmishes and smaller scale conflicts, including in Easter Island. This volume traces aspects of colonial-era conflict in Australia and frontier battles in Vanuatu, and discusses depictions of World War II materiel in the rock art of Arnhem Land. Among the causes and motives discussed in these papers are pressure on resources, the ebb and flow of significant climate events, and the significant association of conflict with culture contact. The volume, necessarily selective, eclectic and wide-ranging, includes an incisive introduction that situates the evidence persuasively in the broader scholarship addressing the history of human warfare.
Voluntary Assisted Dying »
Law? Health? Justice?
Edited by: Daniel J Fleming, David J Carter
Publication date: February 2022
Since the introduction of voluntary assisted dying in 2019, a ‘new moment’ in the governance of life and death has opened up within the Australian context. This new moment demands new questions be asked regarding the regime and its effects in this new era for law, health care and justice.
This collection brings together critical perspectives on voluntary assisted dying itself, and on various practices adjacent to it, including questions of state power, population ageing, the differential treatment of human and non-human animals at the time of death, the management of health care processes through silent ‘workarounds’, and the financialisation of death.
This book provides an overview of the first Australian regime, and then introduces these diverse critical views, broadening our engagement with euthanasia and voluntary assisted dying beyond the limited, but important, debates about law reform and its particular enactment in Australia.
Macrocriminology and Freedom »
Authored by: John Braithwaite
Publication date: February 2022
How can power over others be transformed to ‘power with’? It is possible to transform many institutions to build societies with less predation and more freedom. These stretch from families and institutions of gender to the United Nations. Some societies, times and places have crime rates a hundred times higher than others. Some police forces kill at a hundred times the rate of others. Some criminal corporations kill thousands more than others. Micro variables fail to explain these patterns. Prevention principles for that challenge are macrocriminological.
Freedom is conceived in a republican way as non-domination. Tempering domination prevents crime; crime prevention reduces domination. Many believe a high crime rate is a price of freedom. Not Braithwaite. His principles of crime control are to build freedom, temper power, lift people from poverty and reduce all forms of domination. Freedom requires a more just normative order. It requires cascading of peace by social movements for non-violence and non-domination. Periods of war, domination and anomie cascade with long lags to elevated crime, violence, inter-generational self-violence and ecocide. Cybercrime today poses risks of anomic nuclear wars.
Braithwaite’s proposals refine some of criminology’s central theories and sharpen their relevance to all varieties of freedom. They can be reduced to one sentence. Strengthen freedom to prevent crime, prevent crime to strengthen freedom.
‘A true magnum opus, Macrocriminology and Freedom is a thought provoking and generative book from one of criminology’s intellectual giants. John Braithwaite reaches far and wide across societies, time, and disciplines to advance no less than a theory of how to build a society that simultaneously reduces both domination and crime. His ambitious ideas on cascades of non-dominating collective efficacy and crime prevention, for example, and their connections to social movements and political freedom, go well beyond usual criminological discourse. Chock full of theoretical propositions and bold insights, this a book that will keep criminologists busy for years. Macrocriminology and Freedom should not just be read, but better yet, savoured.’
– Robert J. Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University
‘In this majestic theorisation of the relationship between crime and freedom John Braithwaite isolates the unique power of macrocriminology as a lens through which to comprehend and challenge many of the fundamental crises facing our planet. Very few scholars have the breadth and overview to succeed in a mission of this order … Braithwaite does. This extraordinary book is an object lesson for all who seek to understand and resist domination and the crimes of power that flow from it.’
– Penny Green, Professor of Law and Globalisation, Queen Mary University of London
‘For over 40 years, John Braithwaite has been a voice of wisdom, hope and humanity in criminology. This dazzling new book weaves together all the main themes of his influential work, reanimating many of the core concepts of the discipline, as well as incorporating interdisciplinary resources from south and north, east and west, to produce an elegant and ambitious explanatory and normative account of crime as freedom-threatening domination. Decentring criminal justice as the solution to crime, Braithwaite shows that, on a global scale, the aspiration to tackle crimes, ranging from interpersonal violence through corporate crimes to ecocide, lies in the development of freedom-enhancing, power-tempering institutions in the political, economic and social spheres.’
– Nicola Lacey, Professor of Law, Gender and Social Policy, London School of Economics
‘Macrocriminology and Freedom is a criminological epic, an expansive and erudite story that sweeps across history and contexts. The book is frightening in showing how cascading events can produce catastrophes from crime to environmental destruction. But in the end, its message is hopeful, identifying pathways—or “normative rivers”—for guiding freedom from domination and crime. Drawing on his distinguished career, John Braithwaite has bestowed an extraordinary gift—a book, like other masterpieces, that will yield special insights each time we take an excursion through its pages.’
– Francis T. Cullen, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, University of Cincinnati
‘In this engaging book John Braithwaite reinvigorates discussions about crime and its control. While advocating a macro approach, the book is punctuated not only with insights and data from smaller-scale studies conducted in a range of jurisdictions, but also with auto-biographical vignettes. The effect creates a deeply personal account of the perils of state, non-state and market violence and authoritarianism and the potential and indeed duty, of criminologists to work towards their reduction, by refocusing their efforts on explaining and tackling crime in its myriad of forms.’
– Mary Bosworth, Professor of Criminology, University of Oxford and Monash University
‘John Braithwaite has had a unique influence on criminology globally. In this encyclopaedic text he synthesises a wealth of criminological knowledge, particularly in the sphere of anomie theory, into broader debates about the nature of domination and freedom in contemporary society. He defends the relevance of criminological theory, while urging criminology to be activist rather than reactive and technocratic, counter-hegemonic rather than neutral. Not for the first time, John Braithwaite has challenged criminologists to construct theories that cut across micro and macro structures. This book will stir debate. It deserves a broad readership.’
– Harry Blagg, Professor of Criminology, University of Western Australia
Georges River Blues »
Swamps, Mangroves and Resident Action, 1945–1980
Authored by: Heather Goodall
Publication date: February 2022
The lower Georges River, on Dharawal and Dharug lands, was a place of fishing grounds, swimming holes and picnics in the early twentieth century. But this all changed after World War II, when rapidly expanding industry and increasing population fell heaviest on this river, polluting its waters and destroying its bush.
Local people campaigned to defend their river. They battled municipal councils, who were themselves struggling against an explosion of garbage as population and economy changed. In these blues (an Australian term for conflict), it was mangroves and swamps that became the focus of the fight. Mangroves were expanding because of increasing pollution and early climate change. Councils wanted to solve their garbage problems by bulldozing mangroves and bushland, dumping garbage and, eventually, building playing fields. So they attacked mangroves as useless swamps that harboured disease. Residents defended mangroves by mobilising ecological science to show that these plants nurtured immature fish and protected the river’s health.
These suburban resident action campaigns have been ignored by histories of the Australian environmental movement, which have instead focused on campaigns to save distant ‘wilderness’ or inner-city built environments. The Georges River environmental conflicts may have been less theatrical, but they were fought out just as bitterly. And local Georges River campaigners – men, women and often children – were just as tenacious. They struggled to ‘keep bushland in our suburbs’, laying the foundation for today’s widespread urban environmental consciousness.
Cover: Ruth Staples was a courageous Georges River campaigner who lived all her life around Lime Kiln Bay at Oatley West. She kept on fighting to regenerate the river until her death, aged 90, in 2020.