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This practical guide from the Bureau of Meteorology draws together our knowledge about Australia’s climate, past and present. It examines typical and extreme weather patterns, long-term variability and the effects of climate change.
Fully illustrated throughout, the Climate of Australia contains detailed maps and tables that chart rainfall, temperature, humidity and sunshine. Colour photographs show the variety of landscapes shaped by Australia’s climate. Specific case studies of extreme weather events such as cyclones and droughts incorporate satellite and radar imagery.
An accompanying CD-ROM contains a full set of monthly climate maps, together with statistical tables from a selection of the Bureau’s observation sites.
ISBN: 978 0 642706 01 0 | RRP: $64.95
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In 1975, a tiny, grey-haired woman took the microphone at a protest rally following Prime Minister Whitlam’s dismissal, and blasted the audience with an impassioned speech about the importance of the democratic process.
Dorothy Auchterlonie Green was a teacher, literary critic and poet. Together with her husband H. M. Green, she is best known for her unstinting work to promote Australian literature. In her later years, she established herself as a defender of the power of the word, using her writing and speeches to expose those structures in our society which misuse language for exploitation and greed.
How did this small conservative academic become a warrior for peace? Willa McDonald traces Dorothy Green’s path to political activism, from her childhood and early working years as a wartime radio journalist in Brisbane, through to the 1980s and her role in the founding of the Australian Association for Armed Neutrality, the Nuclear Disarmament Party and the lobby group, Writers Against Nuclear Arms.
ISBN: 978 1 74097 147 8 | RRP: $44.00
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This book tells a fascinating story of the way the ECCV moved (remarkably quickly) from being a fringe player to occupying a central role as an advocate for people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. It should be recommended reading for anyone who is interested in knowing how Victoria, and in particular how Melbourne, has managed its remarkable transformation into one of the world’s leading centres of peaceful multicultural cohabitation.
Dr John Chesterman, political historian and author of Civil Rights: How Indigenous Australians Won Formal Equality
ISBN: 978 1 921509 52 0 | RRP: $39.95
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The term ‘moral economy’ has been used to demonstrate strong philosophical opposition to neoclassical economics. Over a millennium and across a spectrum of thinkers, it has been maintained that the economy always had, and indeed should always have, a moral foundation. In this timely work Owen retrieves from the history of economic thought a tradition of economic reasoning founded upon popular right, customary entitlement and commercial justice. For social scientists concerned with using ‘moral economy’ to counter the ethical claims of neo-classical economics, the thinkers examined in this work provide a necessary and illuminating starting point.
ISBN: 978 1 921509 24 7 | RRP: $44.00
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When Margaret Kennedy discovered gold in an isolated central Victorian creek in 1851 she unwittingly gave birth to nineteenth-century Australia’s richest goldfield: Bendigo. But the diggers who rushed to this new Eldorado found that to wash gold from the alluvium they needed a reliable supply of water. This ‘liquid gold’ powered the steam-technology used to exploit the field’s underground quartz reefs.
Central Victoria’s early mining communities also needed clean water to drink. That need was painfully demonstrated in 1866 when a fierce drought wrought sickness and death from waterborne diseases. Mining also came to a standstill, forcing desperate miners to plead for the Victorian Government to save their dying towns.
Water for Gold! documents the fascinating 27-year-long battle to slake Central Victoria’s thirst by building the Coliban System of Waterworks, an engineering marvel that still supplies Bendigo and Castlemaine to this day.
ISBN: 978 1 921509 39 1 | RRP: $44.00
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How important have ideas been in the history of Australia? This collection of essays examines key ideas that motivated Australians, including democracy, the ideal of Europe and socialism. The papers range from the colonial period to the present day, from the ideal of the natural aristocrat to the conservative populism of Pauline Hanson. They deal with fascinating Australians; from the colonial firebrand Daniel Deniehy to possibly the only Australian intellectual to engage actively in propaganda for the Nazis, Randolph Hughes. These essays demonstrate that there is a genuine intellectual depth to Australia.
ISBN: 978 1 74097 188 1 | RRP: $39.95
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That’s not their country, why they putting up gates... that’s our country...we want our land first!
Dinah Norman a-Marrngawi
For the author of this book, the Yanyuwa people and their country in the Northern Territory offer an opportunity to explore the politics of the past from the perspective of critical and social theory, which allows for multiple interpretations of the past and presents complex systems of meaning in people’s relationship to place.
ISBN: 978 1 921509 31 5 | RRP: $39.95
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For over twenty eventful years the Attorney-General John Hubert Plunkett was a keystone in the administration of New South Wales, applying himself with vigour. This book considers his life and times, but goes further, searching his Irish past for explanations as to why he was such a distinctive lawyer. As a young man Plunkett was himself disenfranchised by statute owing to his Catholicism, and took an active part in the Irish campaign for Catholic Emancipation under Daniel O’Connell. The success of that campaign led directly to his being appointed to a government position in the colony, where he continued to strive for civil equality regardless of race or creed on issues which are still relevant to Australia today.
ISBN: 978 1 921509 03 2 | RRP: $39.95
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Economics became a major discipline at the University of Melbourne following the establishment of the Faculty of Commerce in 1925 and the appointment of Douglas Copland as founding dean. As political economy, however, the subject had been taught in the Faculty of Arts from the University’s foundation. This book provides a history of the Department of Economics: its staff and students, curriculum, contributions to economic theory and policy, governance and funding. The narrative is set in the context of the world outside the department, of higher education policy in Australia and the state of the economy.
ISBN: 978 1 921509 35 3 | RRP: $39.95
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Authenticity is a formidable word, a dangerous word, a word whereby fortunes, careers, and reputations can be won or lost. But what has authenticity to do with art? The essays in this book focus on their turbulent relationship ranging across the fields of literature and the visual arts and philosophy, and covering topics as diverse as fictional biography, portraiture, copies and forgeries, war photography, letters as testimony and texts in translation. The reader encounters erasmus, Rousseau, Heidegger, Beckett, Borges, and Houellebecq; engages with subjects as varied as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, da Vinci’s La Belle Ferronnière, and Million Dollar Baby.
ISBN:978 1 921509 13 1 | RRP: $44.00
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The spectacular 1860s bushranging outbreak in New South Wales evolved out a complex set of circumstances. The bandits’ mastery of their environment and the symbiotic relationship they enjoyed with their supporters is revealed here as being central to their fleeting success.Through the extensive use of police and government records this book pares away the layers of myth surrounding bushrangers. For the first time the challenges the bandits posed to the new police force are explored in detail.
ISBN:978 1 74097 166 9 | RRP: $44.00
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Cricketer, councillor, administrator, visionary … they are all part of Colin mcDonald’s considerable C.V. A schoolboy star from Scotch College, he played Test cricket for a decade from 1952 onwards. A former Melbourne Cricket Club premiership captain, he averaged just on 40 as an opening batsmen in 47 Test matches. Fifty years ago this year he was world cricket’s No. 1 ranking batsman, having made back-to-back Ashes centuries against old enemy England. This memoir also tells of mcDonald’s pivotal role in the building of Australia’s Grand Slam tennis centre, now known as Rod Laver Arena. It relates his time as a melbourne City councillor and of his conscience regarding the injustices of apartheid during both his roles as a cricketer and senior tennis administrator. Richie Benaud contributes the Foreword.
ISBN:978 1 921509 49 0 | RRP: $39.95
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Australia’s Constitutions tell only part of the story. They omit or barely mention many of the essential and well known elements of our systems of government, such as the Cabinet, the Prime minister or Premier, ministerial Responsibility and the Opposition. This work fills that void by explaining the nature of conventions, how they arise, how they are altered, as well as their operation and development. A book for anyone who has an interest in understanding the complexities and mysteries of the unwritten rules of Australian government.
ISBN:978 1 921509 23 0 | RRP: $44.00
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Cyril Hopkins’ Marcus clarke
Edited by Laurie Hergenhan, Ken Stewart and Michael Wilding
This biography of marcus Clarke was written a century ago by Cyril Hopkins, brother of Gerard manley Hopkins and a close friend of Clarke, and is published now for the first time. Drawing on memories of their schooldays together in Highgate and Clarke’s letters from Australia, Hopkins gives a fascinating picture of the mercurial immigrant’s ups and downs as he moves from banking to jackarooing, before emerging as a controversial journalist. Clarke’s career as theatre critic, bon viveur, librarian and author of the classic novel His Natural Life is vividly and movingly captured, along with the bustling and variegated character of a colonial city, the outback mining towns and the remote unexplored bush.
ISBN:978 1 921509 12 | RRP: $39.95
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Who had the first espresso coffee machine in melbourne? In colonial days coffee was vended from stalls that dotted the city’s streets. At the height of the 1880s temperance movement coffee palaces preached stern sobriety. In the 20th century coffee-lounge culture gradually supplanted the genteel tearoom tradition. In the 1950s the youthful craze for espresso, fostered by new immigrants, vitalised the city—and alarmed some members of the public. Celebrating a cultural revolution, the best-selling Espresso chronicles melbourne’s coffee history and the desires and fortunes of many of the city’s coffee industry pioneers.
ISBN:978 1 74097 132 4 | RRP: $24.95
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For his services to education, especially in the field of Australian literature, in 1990 Harry Heseltine was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. This account of a long and distinguished career gives a special insight into the varying fortunes of the discipline he helped to establish, along with recollections of some of the major personalities involved. In Due Season also reprints some of his most important writings: milestones in a career which helped to shape our understanding of Australia’s literary culture. His writings were right for their time, and are still current. All are truly words spoken in due season.
ISBN:978 1 921509 28 5 | RRP: $39.95
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A charming, brilliant, wealthy young Russian, he led a forcedly peripatetic life in Siberia, Berlin and France, and came to Australia as a refugee from a shattered europe. He saw the SBS as a major influence in building a new society — Australian, English-speaking, British-law-based, multicultural and multiracial — and was instrumental in overcoming the challenges of its establishment.
ISBN:978 1 921509 43 8 | RRP: $39.95
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In 1839 Miss Anne Drysdale sailed from Scotland to Port Philip. She was 47 years old, had a small inheritance, and was determined to be a sheep farmer. Soon after arriving in melbourne she took up land near Geelong and formed a partnership with another enterprising woman, Caroline Newcomb. They established a successful pastoral business and for thirteen years lived and worked together on their properties Boronggoop, on the River Barwon, and Coriyule, on the Bellarine Peninsula. The daily lives of these remarkable women were recorded in Anne’s diary and four of its five volumes have survived, providing a rare, detailed account of domestic and farming life in the 1840s. Substantial extracts from the diary are published for the first time in this book, and were selected and edited by Bev Roberts to trace the story of two extraordinary Victorian pioneers.
ISBN:978 1 921509 14 8 | RRP: $39.95
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This is a celebration of the contribution to music of Dr Doreen Bridges Am, a doyenne of music education. This Festschrift was undertaken to mark her 90th birthday in 2008 and will be of interest to those involved in diverse facets of music. Teachers, students and scholars will find it an authoritative sourcebook. Contributors include renowned concert pianists, composers, music educators, musicologists and ethnomusicologists from Australia, Britain, South Africa and the USA. The publication complements a collection of writings published in 1992, Doreen Bridges: Music Educator.
ISBN:978 1 921509 41 4 | RRP: $39.95
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In Australia in the early 1840s, Caroline helped single-female emigrants arriving in the colony without family, friends, money or jobs. She established a home for these young women, which was later extended to house families and young men. The home also became an employment agency, with Caroline leading large groups inland to find work. In Britain, she was tireless in her efforts to assist migration to Australia. Carole Walker’s research casts new light on the life of a remarkable woman. In her day, she was a public figure as well-known as Florence Nightingale.
ISBN:978 1 921509 37 7 | RRP: $34.95
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The Lindy Chamberlain trial dominated the media landscape in the 1980s as a major miscarriage of justice unfolded. The Chamberlain Case delivers a comprehensive account of the case’s intricacies, including the forensic evidence, prejudicial media coverage, scapegoating and religious vilification. Lindy Chamberlain relates her experiences of the trial, and there are contributions by eyewitnesses, members of the Chamberlain defence, academic experts and distinguished authors, as well as extracts from each of the eight judicial findings. The Chamberlain case is one that continues to resonate with Australians.
ISBN:978 1 921509 09 4 | RRP: $39.95
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The charismatic Xanana Gusmão shouldered the Herculean task of leading his east Timorese people to Independence. During the brutal 24-year war with Indonesia, he was transformed through crisis from being a young apolitical outsider into a hardened guerrilla commander and keen political strategist, who ultimately became the central unifying figure of east Timorese nationalism. This book focuses on his years in leadership and seeks to explain how the events of the time affected the development of his ideas, policies and strategies.
ISBN:978 1 921509 08 7 | RRP: $44.00
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When white people act as textual midwives for Aboriginal women writers, what happens to the baby? Black Writers, White Editors explores the outcomes of the editorial relationship for three foundational Indigenous women writers. These women, dogged advocates of Aboriginal rights, wrote their life-stories in the 1970s. Their manuscripts addressed experiences of dispossession, racism, forced child removal and the struggle to right these situations. These distinctly Aboriginal priorities, perspectives and voices were vulnerable to editorial alteration. Jennifer Jones examines the nature of the cross-cultural collaborations between these Indigenous writers and their white editors and demonstrates how the transformation of their manuscripts into published texts came at a political price.
ISBN:978 1 921509 06 3 | RRP: $44.00
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