(Paperback, 52nd edition)

Whether we're aware of it or not, we spend much of our time in this globalised world lost in translation. Language is a big part of it, of course, as anyone who has fumbled with a phrasebook in a foreign country will know, but behind language is something far more challenging to translate: culture.

(Paperback)

(Paperback)

Benjamin Law considers himself pretty lucky to live in Australia: he can hold his boyfriend's hand in public and lobby his politicians to recognise same-sex marriage. As the child of migrants, though, he also wonders how different life might have been had he grown up elsewhere. So off he sets to meet his fellow Gaysians.

(Paperback, 5th edition)

No issue has so divided Australians recently as how to handle the arrival on our shores of asylum seekers. This controversial account of Australia's treatment of refugees by legandary political journalist, Mungo MacCallum, looks at the moral and financial cost of the Pacific Solution.

(Paperback, 46th edition)

Respected journalist Laura Tingle writes on politics, affluence and an angry nation.

(Paperback, 8th edition)

The last federal election saw a massive rise in support for the Greens. They doubled their primary vote and scored over $1.4 million in public funding. In a political era when the two major parties are so similar, the time is ripe for a new conviction party, one with a strong philosophy. Could it be the Greens

(Paperback, 26th edition)

John Howard has the loudest voice in Australia. He has cowed his critis, muffled the press, intimidated the ABC, gagged scientists, silenced NGOs, censored the arts, prosecutred leakers, criminalised protest and shut down parliamentary scrutiny.

(Paperback)

Attacks the right-wing campaign against the 'Bringing Them Home' report which revealed how thousands of Aborigines had been taken from their parents.

(Paperback)

"With a new essay on Turnbull in power"--Title page.

(Paperback, 30th edition)

In this riveting piece of reportage and analysis, Toohey examines the wholesale attempt to change an entrenched way of life. He takes a perceptive, at time humorous, look at the encounter between outsiders, doctors, police, military and bureaucrats, and Territory Aboriginals.

(Paperback, 12th edition)

Australia's British inheritance is a paradox that has preoccupied much of Malouf's fiction, and now it gives rise to a brilliant essay exploring Australia's connection with our one-time 'mother-country'. Malouf ponders the strengths and weaknesses, the values and illusions of Australia's complex relationship with England.

(Paperback, 67th edition)

(Hardback)

(Paperback, 49th edition)

'During the term of the Rudd and Gillard governments, criticism of the Labor Party became a national pastime.' So writes Mark Latham, a one-time leader of the party and still its most perceptive - and fiercest - critic. In Quarterly Essay 49 , Latham argues that the time has come to go beyond criticism to solutions.

(Paperback)

Here Simon Leys translates for the first time into English an essay by the remarkable Simone Weil -- philosopher, activist, mystic -- which makes a case for the corrupting effect of political parties on political life. This is a dazzling account of the perils of political conformity, written with brilliant clarity and wit.

(Paperback)

In August 2004, Parliamentary senators wept as they presented Forgotten Australians, the report from the Senate Inquiry into the treatment of children in care.

(Paperback)

Panic (noun). A sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour. Australians see themselves as a relaxed and tolerant bunch. But scratch the surface and you'll uncover an extraordinary level of fear. Cronulla. Henson. Hanson. Wik. Haneef. The Boats...

(Paperback, 7th edition)

West Papua is today the site of a covert and brutal struggle. Investigative reporter John Martinkus has just returned from the region, where he has spoken to guerillas and Indonesian officers, politicians and ordinary people. His essay Paradise Betrayed combines these testimonies with a pacy political analysis.

(Paperback, 60th edition)

(Paperback)

Tony Abbott is poised to become the nation's next prime minister and, more than ever, Australian's are asking: what kind of man is he and how might he run the countryDavid Marr's Political Animal, with its revelation of 'the punch,' triggered intense scrutiny of Abbott's character in 2012.

(Paperback, 39th edition)

This essay considers Australia's place between China and the US. As the power balance shifts and China's influence grows, what might this mean for the nation How to define the national interest in the Asian Century It considers the shape of the world to come and the implications for Australia as it seeks to carve out a place in a new world order.

(Paperback, 38th edition)

This irreverent, controversial account is a ground-breaking, in-depth profile that traces Rudd's years in Queensland, in China, in opposition and finally in government. Based on extensive research, observation and interviewing, it examines the forces that have made Kevin Rudd and the way he wields his power.

(Paperback, 4th edition)

Presents a timely and thought-provoking essay on our relationship with America. In light of the recent tragedy in New York, this trend is receiving a certain focus and the cosy nature of our relationship is beginning to be scrutinised and questioned.

(Paperback)

Noel Pearson turns his attention to the question of education. He argues powerfully that underclass students, many of whom are Aboriginal, should receive a rigorous schooling that gives them the means to negotiate the wider world. He examines the long-term failure of educational policy in Australia, especially in the indigenous sector