Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

$24.99 AUD

Category: Sociology

#1 New York Times Bestseller From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity's creation and evolution--a #1 international bestseller--that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be "human." One hundred thou sand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one--homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas. Dr. Harari also compels us to look ahead, because over the last few decades humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to design not only the world around us, but also ourselves. Where is this leading us, and what do we want to become? Featuring 27 photographs, 6 maps, and 25 illustrations/diagrams, this provocative and insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential reading for aficionados of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon Moalem. ...Show more

Not Just Lucky by Jamila Rizvi

$35.00 AUD

Category: Sociology

'Feisty and inquisitive - a fresh take on modern feminist issues.' Julia GillardAustralian women are suffering from a crisis of confidence about work. Accustomed to being overlooked and undervalued, even when women do get to the top, they explain their success away as 'luck'. But it's not.Not Just Lucky exposes the structural and cultural disadvantages that rob women of their confidence - often without them even realising it. Drawing on case studies, detailed research and her own experience in politics and media, Jamila Rizvi is the warm, witty and wise friend you've been waiting for. She'll give you everything you need to start fighting for your own success and for a more inclusive, equal workplace for all. (She'll also bring the red wine.)This unashamedly feminist career manifesto is for women who worry they'll look greedy if they ask for more money. It's for women who dream big but dread the tough conversations. It's for women who get nervous, stressed and worried, and seem to overthink just about everything.It will help you realise that you're not just lucky. You're brilliant.'Gentle, intelligent, meaningful and uncomfortably true career advice, and a huge high-five to sisterhood. Read it.' Zoe Foster Blake'Funny, insightful and affirming, this book will have you fist pumping the air.' Clementine Ford ...Show more

Out There by Kerri Sackville

$29.99 AUD

Category: Sociology

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

$24.99 AUD

Category: Sociology

Bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell revolutionises the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about about choices that seem to be made in an instant - in the blink of an eye - that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consis tently inept? How do our brains really work? Why are the best decisions often impossible to explain to others? ...Show more

The Future of Us: Demography Gets a Makeover by Liz Allen

$29.99 AUD

Category: Sociology

Demography is far more important than destiny. By tracing connections between a population’s past and present, demographers can foresee its future. The true wonder of demography, though, is not its ability to predict the future but to shape it. With energy and passion, demographer Liz Allen sets out the potential paths to make Australia better. Bold, fearless and revealing,The Future of Us does more than help you find your inner statistician. Looking beyond births, deaths and marriages, Allen takes apart inequality, migration, tax and home ownership. She also dissects how the word ‘population’ became so charged, daring to ask what Australia might look like in 20 years if we had zero immigration. The Future of Us gives demography a makeover and sets out future possibilities for a better us … just like a Choose Your Own Adventure, but for the nation. ‘Liz Allen’s romp around Australia’s demography is highly readable, and makes a compelling case for the benefits of immigration and the need for a comprehensive population policy.’  — Michelle Grattan ‘Put on that superpower cape. Liz Allen’s heartfelt study of how Australians live, die and migrate takes you from now to tomorrow and makes a plea for rethinking how we talk about migration and a renewed Australia. Forget the hate and hyperbole and replace it with hope.’ — Jenna Price ...Show more

Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change by Jared Diamond

$24.99 AUD

Category: Sociology

In his landmark international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now in the third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crisis. Diamond shows us how seven countr ies have survived defining upheavals in the recent past - from the forced opening up of Japan and the Soviet invasion of Finland to the Pinochet regime in Chile - through selective change, a process of painful self-appraisal and adaptation more commonly associated with personal trauma. Looking ahead to the future, he investigates whether the United States, and the world, are squandering their natural advantages and are on a devastating path towards catastrophe. Is this fate inevitable? Or can we still learn from the lessons of the past? Exhibiting the awe-inspiring grasp of history, geography, economics and anthropology that marks all Diamond's work, Upheaval reveals how both nations and individuals can become more resilient. The result is a book epic in scope, but also his most personal yet. ...Show more

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

$24.99 AUD

Category: Penguin Spinner Non-fiction | Reading Level: good

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate. ...Show more

The Status SyndromeHow Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity by Michael Marmot

$32.99 AUD

Category: Sociology

"Bold, important and masterful . . . Marmot's message is not just timely, it's urgent." " -The Washington Post Book World"You probably didn't realize that when you graduate from college you increase your lifespan, or that your co-worker who has a slightly better job is more likely to live a healthier li fe. In this groundbreaking book, epidemiologist Michael Marmot marshals evidence from nearly thirty years of research to demonstrate that status is not a footnote to the causes of ill health-it is the cause. He calls this effect the status syndrome.The status syndrome is pervasive. It determines the chances that you will succumb to heart disease, stroke, cancers, infectious diseases, even suicide and homicide. And the issue, as Marmot shows, is not simply one of income or lifestyle. It is the psychological experience of inequality-how much control you have over your life and the opportunities you have for full social participation-that has a profound effect on your health."The Status Syndrome" will utterly change the way we think about health, society, and how we live our lives. ...Show more

Creating Cities by Marcus Westbury

$25.00 AUD

Category: Sociology

In 2008, Marcus Westbury returned to his hometown of Newcastle, Australia and found more than 150 empty buildings lining its two main streets. Three years later the world’s largest travel publisher, Lonely Planet, named it one of the Top Ten cities to visit in the world. Creating Cities is ab out the unlikely events in between. How a failed idea to start a bar morphed into a scheme that has helped transform Newcastle, launched more than two hundred creative and community projects across Australia and is fast becoming a model for cities and towns around the world. In an engaging, thoughtful and observational style, Marcus Westbury argues that most towns and cities are wasting their most obvious opportunities: the talent, imagination, and passion of the people that live there. In a globalised age, local creativity has access to new possibilities that most places have barely begun to grasp. Marcus weaves a local story of how identifying and fixing small scale failures in Newcastle into a larger set of ideas and “why-to” strategy with potential applications in cities and towns around the world. Creating Cities is an inspiring must read for creative people, civic and business leaders, town planners, citizens and anyone who cares about the communities that they live in. ...Show more

Growing up Queer in Australia by Benjamin Law

$29.99 AUD

Category: Sociology

No amount of YouTube videos and queer think pieces prepared me for this moment.’ ‘The mantle of “queer migrant” compelled me to keep going – to go further.’ ‘I never “came out” to my parents. I felt I owed them no explanation.’ ‘All I hea rd from the pulpit were grim hints.’ ‘I became acutely aware of the parts of myself that were unpalatable to queers who grew up in the city.’ ‘My queerness was born in a hot dry land that was never ceded.’ ‘Even now, I sometimes think that I don’t know my own desire.’ Compiled by celebrated author and journalist Benjamin Law, Growing Up Queer in Australia assembles voices from across the spectrum of LGBTIQA+ identity. Spanning diverse places, eras, ethnicities and experiences, these are the stories of growing up queer in Australia. ‘For better or worse, sooner or later, life conspires to reveal you to yourself, and this is growing up.’ With contributions from David Marr, Fiona Wright, Nayuka Gorrie, Steve Dow, Holly Throsby, Sally Rugg, Tony Ayres, Nic Holas, Rebecca Shaw and many more. ...Show more

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

$19.99 AUD

Category: Sociology

"This is a book that was begging to be written. This is the kind of book that demands a future where we'll no longer need such a book. Essential." --Marlon James "The most important book for me this year." -Emma Watson Selected by Emma Watson as the Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick for January/February 2018 Sunday Times Bestseller Winner of the British Book Awards Nonfiction Narrative Book of the Year Winner of the Jhalak Prize Foyles Nonfiction Book of the Year Blackwell's Nonfiction Book of the Year Named One of the Best Books of 2017 by: NPR The Guardian TheObserver TheBrooklyn Rail Cultured Vultures Award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge was frustrated with the way that discussions of race and racism are so often led by those blind to it, by those willfully ignorant of its legacy. Her response,Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, has transformed the conversation both in Britain and around the world. Examining everything from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, from whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge, and counter racism. Including a new afterword by the author, this is a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of color in Britain today, and an essential handbook for anyone looking to understand how structural racism works. ...Show more

Talking to My Country by Stan Grant

$24.99 AUD

Category: Sociology

An extraordinarily powerful and personal meditation on race, culture, and identity. When Stan Grant was born in Australia in 1963, the national census classed him and his family among the country's flora and fauna. As Aboriginal Australians, their history and culture had been suppressed for centuri es. A legacy of racism stood between him and the opportunities that white Australia - the so-called Lucky County - seemed awash with. But Grant was lucky enough to find an escape route through education. Finding early inspiration in the writing of James Baldwin and fellow indigenous activists at the Australian National University, on completing his studies he went on to become one of the country's leading journalists. As a correspondent for CNN he travelled extensively, covering conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Struck by how common humanity can live on in the face of repression and mass destruction - from North Korea to Pakistan to Baghdad - the lives of individuals he met spoke to him of sacrifice, endurance, and the undying call of family and homeland. And in the stories of other dispossessed peoples, he saw that of his own.  In Talking To My Country, Grant draws on his own life and community to respond to the ongoing racism that he sees around him. He writes with passion and striking candour of the sorrow, shame, anger, and hardship of being an indigenous man. Forthright and unblinking, Stan reaches beyond his own heritage to show how the effects of colonialism and racism are everyday realities that still shape our world, and how we should never grow complacent in the fight to overcome them.  ...Show more