The tantalising title of this book derives from Shakespeare{u2019}s Autolycus, that engaging scoundrel who snapped up any 'unconsidered trifles'. A.D. Hope describes his traffic, like that of Autolycus, as being 'in sheets', and the sheets as being the results of his curiosity and speculation over many years of exploring the corners and byways of literary history. The books that aroused Hope{u2019}s curiosity range wide and far over time, from Beowulf to Kangaroo.

How good or bod was the performance of Australian military commanders in World War II? Controversy over this has continued ever since the end of the war. Australia entered the war with seriously deficient defence planning. The armed services were inadequately trained and had little equipment. Australia's strategic assessments were deficient or inaccurate. It is against this background that the achievements and failures of the commanders are assessed in the Papua New Guinea campaigns - bloody battles fought against a determined enemy in a savagely difficult terrain.

Although trade with China is no longer regarded exclusively as a one-way street permitting Western mercantilism to exploit an infinite market, the subject has been largely ignored in the West since the establishment of the People's Republic. Hence the importance of this pioneering study. In his illuminating discussion of the objectives of Chinese foreign trade, Professor Hsiao explains its significance both in the development of the national economy and in a diplomatic context.

Sir Richard Boyer, K.B.E., Dick Boyer to all who knew him, was a man of many careers. First Methodist minister stationed in Canberra, pioneer of a western Queensland sheep-run, humanist and internationalist, and finally chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission during the critical years between 1945 and his death in 1961, Boyer attempted to put into practice the classic principles of liberalism in the pragmatic realities of Australian public life. This biography attempts to show how Boyer{u2019}s liberalism survived in the face of government and public pressures.

This book provides a new way of looking at the old problem of the assignment of powers in federal structures. A federal state is, by definition, one in which there exists two or more jurisdictional levels between which authority over domains of public policies has to be assigned. In Canada, for example, the provinces have been given exclusive jurisdiction over education; currency and international trade are assigned to the federal government; and both levels have concurrent authority in agriculture.

Russia in the nineteenth century was an extremely backward, authoritarian society. The tsars, resolved to maintain their iron grip on the Russian people, had virtually strangled the economy, subverted religious and cultural institutions to their own ends, and drained the people of their spirit. Yet from this repressed society emerged a remarkable group of women, enlightened in their thinking, determined in their fight for equal justice, dedicated to humanist and feminist principles, who made a major contribution to the revolutionary movement of their time.

Never before in Australia{u2019}s history has there been so much popular concern over the growth of foreign investment in the economy. Why can Australians not buy shares in so many of the large foreign-owned subsidiaries? Are they being exploited by highly profitable foreign companies? Is Australia losing control of its own economic destiny? These and other questions are increasingly worrying not only the ordinary citizen but also senior government ministers.