ANU Press (1965-Present)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1885/101479
This collection contains a digital reproduction of the ANU Press back set from 1965-1991 with the express aim of exposing this valuable resource to a whole new audience in an online world.
It also contains more recent titles written by ANU authors and openly available via the ANU Press website.
Browse
Recent Submissions
Publication Restricted Fiji's Indian migrants : a history to the end of indenture in 1920 / by K. L. Gillion.(Melbourne : Oxford University Press in association with The Australian National University, |c 1962., 1962) Gillion, Kenneth L.Today immigrants from India and their descendants make up the largest section of Fiji’s multi-racial population.Publication Metadata only Reimagining strategy and statecraft for the future(ANU Press, 2025) Prantl, JochenCrystal balls are a rare commodity in strategic policymaking. Yet, developing a structured and systematic way of imagining the future is more critical than ever in a strategic and policy environment that is undergoing transformational change.Item Open Access Pandemic daze: From causal to casual(ANU Press, 2025) Kenny, MarkWhen the Australian of the Year was announced in January 2024, the two eminent melanoma specialists jointly awarded the country’s top annual tribute snapped the public’s patriotic reverie with a sobering corrective. Aware they were beaming into lounge rooms across the country, professors Georgina Long and Richard Scolyer, the latter afflicted with terminal brain cancer, used their pinnacle moment of good-vibes television to deliver an uncompromising reality check to a public wilfully defying a mortal risk: ‘Tomorrow, [Australia Day] thousands of Aussies will be on the beaches, working on their tans, or as we see it, brewing their melanomas’, Long said: A tan is skin cells in trauma in response to over-exposure to UV radiation from the sun. There is nothing healthy about a tan, nothing. Our bronzed Aussie culture is actually killing us. (Long, 2024)Item Open Access Australia and forced displacement: A new research agenda?(ANU Press, 2025) Ogg, KateIn the global and interdisciplinary field of forced displacement or forced migration studies, there is a significant focus on Australian laws and practices. There is a wealth of literature on Australia’s treatment of those who come in search of international protection and how Australia’s refugee policies have influenced legal developments in other parts of the world (such as the now abandoned refugee offshore processing agreement between the United Kingdom and Rwanda). In this body of scholarship, Australia is positioned as a refugee receiving state. Scholars of forced migration and forced displacement have traditionally not considered Australian laws and policies that cause or respond to the displacement of Australian residents. This is despite forced displacement being a central aspect of Australian life. The brutal history of post-invasion Australia is one of genocide and forced displacement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Australia has a long history of bushfire, flood, drought and cyclone events that have resulted in people leaving their homes and communities temporarily or permanently.Item Metadata only China's Transition to a New Phase of Development(ANU Press, 2022) Song, Ligang; Zhou, Yixiao; Ligang Song; Yixiao ZhouThe Chinese economy is currently undergoing fundamental changes. In this context, the 2022 China Update examines the key characteristics of China’s transition towards a new phase of economic growth and development. This year’s update book covers a range of diverse topics that reflect the complex and changing nature of the economy. It explores critical questions: Why does China need a new development paradigm, and what is the best way to achieve it? What are China’s choices when faced with the restructuring of global industrial value chains? What key roles will domestic consumption play in the next phase of China’s development? What does the digital transformation mean for the Chinese economy? What has been the domestic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on income inequality and labour market outcomes? What pathways exist for China in its transition towards carbon neutrality? How does China’s emissions-trading market compare with that of Europe? How will China’s carbon neutrality strategy affect the Australian economy? What are the political factors influencing bilateral trade flows between China and its trading partners? And what is at stake for China–US relations?Item Metadata only High vis and hard hats versus the care economy(ANU Press, 2023) Williams, Blair; Sawer, Marian; Sawer, Marian; Gauja, Anika; Sheppard, JillBlair Williams and Marian Sawer examine how the 2022 federal election was a watershed in terms of women’s disaffection with the Morrison Government and its handling of ‘their’ issues. Women’s safety became a salient electoral issue, along with climate change and an integrity commission, and women Independents helped loosen the grip of the two-party system. This chapter examines how despite continuing revelations of women’s mistreatment in politics there was an increased number of women standing for the federal parliament and increased diversity in the forty-seventh parliament. The chapter also analyses the gendered nature of campaign discourses, whether centring on hardhats or the care economy, and assesses the nature of party offerings for women.Item Metadata only Watershed: The 2022 Australian federal election(ANU Press, 2023) Gauja, Anika; Sawer, Marian; Sheppard, Jill; Marian Sawer; Anika Gauja; Jill SheppardIn this chapter we introduce key themes of the 2022 federal election campaign, including the widening gap between the salience of issues such as climate change for voters and for the major parties. As a result of this gap there was further erosion of the traditional two-party system and the appearance of new players such as the Teal Independents. We also analyse some of the regulatory issues highlighted by the campaign, including how to deal with electoral disinformation and fake news.Item Metadata only Building a World-Class Navy: The Story of China's First Aircraft Carrier(ANU Press, 2023) Chan, Edward; Jaivin, Linda; Klein, Esther Sunkyung; Ren, Annie LumanItem Metadata only Grassroots Law in Papua New Guinea(ANU Press, 2023-12) Demian, MelissaThe introduction of village courts in Papua New Guinea in 1975 was an ambitious experiment in providing semi-formal legal access to the country’s overwhelmingly rural population. Nearly 50 years later, the enthusiastic adoption of these courts has had a number of ramifications, some of them unanticipated. Arguably, the village courts have developed and are working exactly as they were supposed to do, adapted by local communities to modes and styles consistent with their own dispute management sensibilities. But with little in the way of state oversight or support, most village courts have become, of necessity, nearly autonomous. Village courts have also become the blueprint for other modes of dispute management. They overlap with other sources of authority, so the line between what does and does not constitute a ‘court’ is now indistinct in many parts of the country. Rather than casting this issue as a problem for legal development, the contributors to Grassroots Law in Papua New Guinea ask how, under conditions of state withdrawal, people seek to retain an understanding of law that holds out some promise of either keeping the attention of the state or reproducing the state’s authority.Item Metadata only After the Coup: Myanmar’s Political and Humanitarian Crises(ANU Press, 2023-12) Ware, Anthony; Skidmore, MoniqueThe coup in Myanmar on 1 February 2021 abruptly reversed a decade-long flirtation with economic and political freedoms. The country has since descended into civil war, the people have been plunged back into conflict and poverty, and the state is again characterised by fragility and human insecurity. As the Myanmar people oppose the regime and fight for their rights, the international community must find ways to act in solidarity. There is an urgent need for new policy settings and for practical engagement with local partners and recipient groups. The contributors to After the Coup offer timely insights into ways international actors can try to reduce the suffering of millions of citizens who are again being held hostage by a brutal and self-serving regime. Chapters analyse topics including coercive statecraft, international justice, Rakhine State (Rohingya) dynamics, pandemic weaponisation, higher education, non-state welfare and aid delivery, activism from exile, self-determination and power sharing in the National Unity Government’s alternative constitution, and the roles of China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.Item Metadata only China between Peace and War: Mao, Chiang and the Americans, 1945–1947(ANU Press, 2023-11) Cheng, VictorIn China between Peace and War, Victor S. C. Cheng explores the gripping history of peace talks and international negotiations from 1945 to 1947 that helped determine the shape of the Chinese Civil War. The book focuses on the efforts of the two belligerent parties—the Chinese Nationalists, or Guomindang, and the Communists—to achieve an enduring peace. It presents previously unexplored major elements of the peace talks: ambiguous treaties, package deals and short-term solutions. It identifies the burning challenges that confronted attempts at peacemaking, including the two warring parties’ high-risk decision-making styles and the temptation to veto agreements and resume fighting. Cheng argues against popular notions that differences between the two belligerents in the Chinese Civil War were irreconcilable, that the failure of the peace talks was predetermined and that the US government mediators needed to remain neutral. Because the actions around the negotiating table occurred in a developing theatre of war, Cheng also explores the military decision-making of the opposing sides as well as the conflicts that ultimately plunged China into the world’s largest military engagement of the seven-plus decades since World War II. China between Peace and War highlights the contradictory role of political leaders who micromanaged the military, including their struggle to connect political objectives and military power, their rhetorical use of the ‘decisive war’ concept, and their pursuit of radical military-political goals at the expense of a negotiated peace.Item Metadata only Memory in Place: Locating colonial histories and commemoration(ANU Press, 2023-11) Dalley, Cameo; Barnwell, AshleyMemory in Place brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars and practitioners grappling with the continued potency of memories and experiences of colonialism. While many of these conversations have taken place on a national stage, this collection returns to the rich intimacy of the local. From Queensland’s sweeping Gulf Country, along the shelly beaches of south Sydney, Melbourne’s city gardens and the rugged hills of South Australia, through Central Australia’s dusty heart and up to the majestic Kimberley, the collection charts how interactions between Indigenous people, settlers and their descendants are both remembered and forgotten in social, political, and cultural spaces. It offers uniquely diverse perspectives from a range of disciplines including history, anthropology, memory studies, archaeology, and linguistics from both established and emerging scholars; from Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors; and from academics as well as museum and cultural heritage practitioners. The collection locates some of the nation’s most pressing political issues with attention to the local, and the ethics of commemoration and relationships needed at this scale. It will be of interest to those who see the past as intimately connected to the future.Item Metadata only Visions and Revisions in Sanskrit Narrative: Studies in the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas(ANU Press, 2023-11) Balkaran, Raj; Taylor, McComasSanskrit narrative is the lifeblood of Indian culture, encapsulating and perpetuating insights and values central to Indian thought and practice. This volume brings together eighteen of the foremost scholars across the globe, who, in an unprecedented collaboration, accord these texts the integrity and dignity they deserve. The last time this was attempted, on a much smaller scale, was a generation ago, with Purāṇa Perennis (1993). The pre-eminent contributors to this landmark collection use novel methods and theory to meaningfully engage Sanskrit narrative texts, showcasing the state of contemporary scholarship on the Sanskrit epics and purāṇas.Item Metadata only The Road to Batemans Bay: Speculating on the South Coast During the 1840s Depression(ANU Press, 2023-11) Greig, AlastairThe Road to Batemans Bay is the story of competing ventures to create ‘the Great Southern Township’ on the South Coast of New South Wales in the early 1840s. The idea of developing the furthest reaches of settlement was linked to the hopes of southern woolgrowers for a road from their properties to the coast, over the Great Dividing Range. The township proponents dreamed that having a quicker and cheaper connection to Sydney would allow them to open a port second only to Port Jackson. The scene begins with the proposed coastal township of St Vincent, in an age of optimism: settlement is expanding, exports are growing and land prices are soaring, generating Australia’s first land boom. Before long, however, the colony experiences a catastrophic economic depression whose ‘pestilential breath’ infects those with a stake in the coastal townships. Alastair Greig follows the fate of these individuals, while also speculating on the broader fate of South Coast development during the mid-nineteenth century. Greig gives a unique insight into many aspects of colonial life—including the worlds of Sydney’s merchants, auctioneers, land speculators, surveyors, map-makers and lawyers—as well as its maritime challenges. The Road to Batemans Bay is a chronicle of how Australia first developed its land-gambling habit and how land speculation led to the road to ruin.Item Metadata only The Compleat Busoni, Volume 3: Ending to Dr. Faust and the definitive realisations of the Fantasia Contrappuntistica(ANU Press, 2023-11) Sitsky, LarryLarry Sitsky, professor emeritus at The Australian National University, is an internationally known composer, pianist, scholar, and teacher. His books are fundamental reference works on subjects such as Australian piano music, the 20th-century avant-garde, the piano music of Anton Rubinstein, the early 20th-century Russian avant-garde, and the classical reproducing piano roll. The Compleat Busoni is the result of Sitsky’s lifelong focus on the composer Ferruccio Busoni. Over three volumes, Sitsky surveys Busoni’s vast output, provides an ending to the unfinished opera Dr. Faust, and presents definitive realisations of the Fantasia Contrappuntistica in two-piano and orchestral versions. New insights into Busoni’s style and aesthetics are an integral aspect of this work.Item Metadata only The Compleat Busoni, Volume 2: Busoni’s other music: A complete survey(ANU Press, 2023-11) Sitsky, LarryLarry Sitsky, professor emeritus at The Australian National University, is an internationally known composer, pianist, scholar, and teacher. His books are fundamental reference works on subjects such as Australian piano music, the 20th-century avant-garde, the piano music of Anton Rubinstein, the early 20th-century Russian avant-garde, and the classical reproducing piano roll. The Compleat Busoni is the result of Sitsky’s lifelong focus on the composer Ferruccio Busoni. Over three volumes, Sitsky surveys Busoni’s vast output, provides an ending to the unfinished opera Dr. Faust, and presents definitive realisations of the Fantasia Contrappuntistica in two-piano and orchestral versions. New insights into Busoni’s style and aesthetics are an integral aspect of this work.Item Metadata only Sisters in Peace: The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in Australia, 1915–2015(ANU Press, 2023-11) Laing, KateIs preparing for war the best means of preserving peace? In Sisters in Peace, Kate Laing contends that this question has never been solely the concern of politicians and strategists. She maps successive generations of twentieth-century women who were eager to engage in political debate even though legislative and cultural barriers worked to exclude their voices. In 1915, during the First World War, the Women’s International Congress at The Hague was convened after alarmed and bereaved women from both sides of the conflict insisted that their opinions on war and the pathway to peace be heard. From this gathering emerged the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), which to this day campaigns against militarism and nuclear weapons. In Australia, the formation of a section of WILPF connected political women to a worldwide network that sustained their anti-war activism throughout the last century. In examining the rise of WILPF in Australia, Sisters in Peace provides a gendered history of this country’s engagement with the politics of internationalism. This is a history of WILPF women who committed to peace activism even as Australia’s national identity and military allegiances shifted over time—a history that has until now been an overlooked part of the Australian peace movement.Item Metadata only Adapting for Inertia: Delivering Large Government ICT Projects in Australia and New Zealand(ANU Press, 2023-10) Douglas, GrantDespite much learning and research over many decades, large ICT software projects have continued to experience poor outcomes or fallen short of original expectations—some spectacularly so. This is the case in the Australian and New Zealand public sectors, even though these projects operate within historically developed institutional frameworks that provide the rules, guidelines and controls, and aim to consistently improve outcomes. Something is amiss. In Adapting for Inertia, Grant Douglas questions the effectiveness of these institutional frameworks in governing large ICT software projects in the Australian and New Zealand public sectors. He also gauges the perspectives of a large number of actors in projects in both sectors and examines two case studies in detail. The main narrative to emerge is that the institutional frameworks are in a state of inertia: they are failing to adapt, owing to various institutional factors—all of which have public policy implications. Sadly, Douglas finds, this inertia is likely to continue. If there is difficulty in changing the capacity to govern, he proposes, policymakers should look to change the nature of what is to be governed.Item Metadata only Return to Volcano Town: Reassessing the 1937–1943 Volcanic Eruptions at Rabaul(ANU Press, 2023-10) Johnson, R. Wally; Threlfall, Neville A.Wally Johnson and Neville Threlfall re-examine the explosive volcanic eruptions that in 1937–43 killed more than 500 people in the Rabaul area of East New Britain, Papua New Guinea. They reassess this disaster in light of the prodigious amount of new scientific and disaster-management work that has been undertaken there since about 1971, when strong tectonic earthquakes shook the area. Comparisons are made in particular with volcanic eruptions in 1994–2014, when half of Rabaul town was destroyed and then abandoned. A striking feature of historical eruptive periods at Rabaul is the near‑simultaneous activity at Vulcan and Tavurvur volcanoes, on either side of Rabaul Harbour. Such rare ‘twin’ eruptions are interpreted to be the result of a common magma reservoir beneath the harbour. This interpretation has implications for ongoing hazard and risk assessments and for volcano monitoring in the area.Item Metadata only A Young Englishman in Victorian Hong Kong: The Diaries of Chaloner Alabaster, 1855–1856(ANU Press, 2023-10) Penny, BenjaminIn August 1855, 16-year-old Chaloner Alabaster left England for Hong Kong, to take up a position as a student interpreter in the China Consular Service. He would stay for almost 40 years, climbing the rungs of the service and eventually becoming consul-general of Canton. When he retired he returned to England and received a knighthood. He died in 1898. Throughout his adult life, Alabaster kept diaries. In the first four volumes of these diaries, collected here by Benjamin Penny, the teenage Alabaster recorded his thoughts and observations, told himself anecdotes, and exploded in outbursts of anger and frustration. He was young and enthusiastic, and the everyday sights, sounds and smells of Hong Kong were novel to him. He describes how the Chinese people around him ironed clothes, dried flour and threshed rice; how they gambled, prepared their food and made bean curd; and what opera, new year festivities and the birthday of the Heavenly Empress were like. Like many a young Victorian, he was also a keen observer of natural history, fascinated by fireflies and ants, corals and sea slugs, and the volcanic origins of the landscape. Alabaster’s diaries are a unique, vibrant and riveting record of life in the young British colony on the cusp of the Second Opium War. With A Young Englishman in Victorian Hong Kong, Penny sheds new light on the history of the region.