Authors & editors
ANU Press has collaborated with a diverse range of authors and editors across a wide variety of academic disciplines. Browse the ANU Press collection by author or editor.
Arndt's Story »
The life of an Australian economist
Authored by: Peter Coleman, Selwyn Cornish, Peter Drake
Publication date: March 2007
‘H.W. Arndt has been Australia’s leading scholar of Asian economic development for over thirty years’
- Former World Bank President James D Wolfensohn.
The year of Heinz Wolfgang Arndt’s birth, 1915, was not a good time for a German boy to be born. His country was soon to be defeated in a great war, his school years were shadowed by the rise of Hitler. Yet when Heinz’s long-buried Jewish background led his academic father to lose his chair in chemistry and flee to Oxford, Heinz followed. As Heinz put it, the calamity of Hitler’s rise to power led him to ‘the incredible good fortune of an Oxford education and a life spent in England and Australia.’
This was a man of inexhaustible energy and optimism, who returned from months behind barbed wire interned in Canada to write a historical classic—The Economic Lessons of the Nineteen-Thirties. He seized the opportunity of an unexpected job offer to set off with his young family for Sydney where he quickly established himself as a leading authority on the Australian banking system, embarked on his fifty year career as a gifted university teacher and enjoyed the first of many vigorous forays as a public intellectual.
But it was at ANU that Heinz took the bold step which led him to become the Grand Old Man of Asian Economics. In 1966, just after the Sukarno coup and the year of living dangerously, he determined the time had come to study the Indonesian economy. It took all his charm, persistence and formidable intellect to persuade the Indonesians to open their doors to him. The result was a world-leading centre of Indonesian economics which greatly contributed to the development of modern Indonesia.
The Archaeology of the Aru Islands, Eastern Indonesia »
Edited by: Sue O'Connor, Matthew Spriggs, Peter Veth
Publication date: February 2007
This volume describes the results of the first archaeological survey and excavations carried out in the fascinating and remote Aru Islands, Eastern Indonesia between 1995 and 1997. The naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who stopped here in search of the Birds of Paradise on his voyage through the Indo-Malay Archipelago in the 1850s, was the first to draw attention to the group. The results reveal a complex and fascinating history covering the last 30,000 years from its early settlement by hunter-gatherers, the late Holocene arrival of ceramic producing agriculturalists, later associations with the Bird of Paradise trade and the colonial expansion of the Dutch trading empires.
The excavations and finds from two large Pleistocene caves, Liang Lemdubu and Nabulei Lisa, are reported in detail documenting the changing environmental and cultural history of the islands from when they were connected to Greater Australia and used by hunter/gatherers to their formation as islands and use by agriculturalists. The results of the excavation of the late Neolithic — Metal Age midden at Wangil are discussed, as is the mysterious pre-Colonial fort at Ujir and the 350-year old ruins of forts and a church associated with the Dutch garrisons.
Improving Implementation »
Organisational Change and Project Management
Edited by: John Wanna
Publication date: February 2007
The business of government is necessarily diverse, changing and of considerable scale. A focus on improving the implementation of government programs and initiatives is important because the community expects the Government to deliver on its policies, as does the Government.
The papers included in this collection address numerous aspects of improving implementation. They were initially presented at the Project Management and Organisational Change conference held in Canberra in February 2006, the first annual research conference organised by ANZSOG in conjunction with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. This collection represents a comprehensive drawing together of experience and insight from both practitioners and academic researchers, with speakers including top public sector executives from the Australian jurisdictions as well as representatives from the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.
Pieces of the Vanuatu Puzzle »
Archaeology of the North, South and Centre
Authored by: Stuart Bedford
Publication date: February 2007
Pieces of the Vanuatu Puzzle presents the results of the most intensive and widespread archaeological investigations in Vanuatu for more than 30 years. For the first time the results of extensive excavations carried out on three islands in the archipelago are published. The sites span from the period of initial Lapita settlement through to later cultural transformations. The research has brought greater clarity to the early history of the Vanuatu archipelago and has wider implications for the region in general particularly in terms of how processes of cultural change are explained.
It is an essential reference work both for those archaeologists working in the western Pacific but also for those who deal with material culture generally and pottery more specifically.
What's Changing: Population Size or Land-Use Patterns? »
The archaeology of Upper Mangrove Creek, Sydney Basin
Authored by: Val Attenbrow
Publication date: February 2007
The Upper Mangrove Creek catchment was an ideal locality in which to undertake field investigation into Aboriginal use of the coastal hinterland. The area, 101 square kilometres in size, is rich in sites that provided significant archaeological evidence of Aboriginal use of the coastal hinterland. The catchment became the focus of major archaeological salvage work in the late 1970s, prior to the construction of the Mangrove Creek Dam. Further research, undertaken by Val Attenbrow, on the total catchment expanded upon the results of earlier work. This monograph describes the later research project and summarises the salvage program results. This evidence is used by the author to explore current research issues relating to the interpretation of the mid- to late-Holocene archaeological record in Australia, particularly quantitative changes relating to population numbers and aspects of human behaviour, such as risk management, subsistence, mobility and land-use patterns.
Aboriginal History Journal: Volume 31 »
Publication date: 2007
Since 1977, the journal Aboriginal History has pioneered interdisciplinary historical studies of Australian Aboriginal people’s and Torres Strait Islander’s interactions with non-Indigenous peoples. It has promoted publication of Indigenous oral traditions, biographies, languages, archival and bibliographic guides, previously unpublished manuscript accounts, critiques of current events, and research and reviews in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, sociology, linguistics, demography, law, geography and cultural, political and economic history.
Aboriginal History Inc. is a publishing organisation based in the Australian Centre for Indigenous History, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra.
For more information on Aboriginal History Inc. please visit aboriginalhistory.org.au.
Download for free
Not available for purchase
Numinous Subjects »
Engendering the Sacred in Western Culture, An Essay
Authored by: Lucy Tatman
Publication date: January 2007
Part religious studies, part feminist theory, part philosophy, part indescribable: such is Numinous Subjects. Described by the author as ‘a kaleidoscopic exploration of why three gendered figures of the sacred matter within western culture,’ the experience of reading this text truly is akin to gazing through a constantly turning kaleidoscope. Images, concepts, phrases and quotes are continually revisited, recombined, though never repeated in quite the same way. From these tumbling constellations arises a new understanding and wary appreciation of the figures of the virgin, the mother, and the whore. Drawing on the insights of thinkers as diverse as Rudolph Otto, Julia Kristeva, Simone de Beauvoir, and Martin Buber, Numinous Subjects simultaneously expands and focuses our attention on the myth of the sacred and its implications for female subjects in western culture today.
Coastal Themes »
An Archaeology of the Southern Curtis Coast, Queensland
Authored by: Sean Ulm
Publication date: December 2006
Coastal archaeology in Australia differs in many respects from that of other areas, with the potential to examine relatively fine-scale variation. Nevertheless, there has been a general tendency in Australian archaeology to play down the variability and to subsume the evidence into broader homogenising models of Aboriginal cultural change. This case study clearly and self-consciously addresses the need to focus on local and regional patterns before moving on to more general levels of explanation.
Coastal Themes builds a detailed chronology of Aboriginal occupation for the southern Curtis Coast in Queensland. Innovative analyses refine radiocarbon dates and explore discard behaviours and post-depositional processes affecting the integrity of coastal archaeological sites. The resulting insights highlight major changes in Aboriginal use of this region over the last 5,000 years and disjunctions between the course of occupation in this and adjacent regions.
Globalisation and Governance in the Pacific Islands »
State, Society and Governance in Melanesia
Edited by: Stewart Firth
Publication date: December 2006
The Pacific Islands are feeling the effects of globalisation. Free trade in sugar and garments is threatening two of Fiji’s key industries. At the same time other opportunities are emerging. Labour migration is growing in importance, and Pacific governments are calling for more access to Australia’s labour market. Fiji has joined Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Kiribati as a remittance economy, with thousands of its citizens working overseas. Meantime, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands grapple with an older kind of globalisation in which overseas companies exploit mineral and forest resources.
The Pacific Islands confront unique problems of governance in this era of globalisation. The modern, democratic state often fits awkwardly with traditional ways of doing politics in that part of the world. Just as often, politicians in the Pacific exploit tradition or invent it to serve modern political purposes.
The contributors to this volume examine Pacific globalisation and governance from a wide range of perspectives. They come from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Hawai’i, the Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand and Jamaica as well as Australia.
Power and Pork »
A Japanese Political Life
Authored by: Aurelia George Mulgan
Publication date: December 2006
Power and Pork: a Japanese political life aims to tell the ‘inside story’ of a Japanese politician—Matsuoka Toshikatsu—one of the more controversial members of Japan’s national Diet. Matsuoka belongs to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as a representative of the Lower House constituency of Kumamoto No. 3, one of Japan’s regional electorates. His behaviour has been the subject of much speculation and commentary in the media. The book details Matsuoka’s political stratagems and policy activities as an archetypal ‘traditional’ politician representing farm and rural interests. As an old-style, old-guard LDP Diet member, Matsuoka is the kind of politician that former Prime Minister Koizumi targeted in his attempt to reform his own party and the policymaking process. Matsuoka’s reversal of fortune under Prime Minister Abe with his appointment to the post of Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries raises questions about the durability of Koizumi’s reforms.
The scope of the work is contemporary Japanese domestic politics, including electoral processes, zoku influence, pork barrelling and ‘money politics’ as exemplified by one of its key players. Power and Pork gives an account of how Matsuoka has catered to local, sectional and clientele interests in order to build and retain his political power base. One of the most important conclusions of the book is that individual ruling party backbenchers can exercise extraordinary influence over government policy in Japan.
What Good Condition? »
Reflections on an Australian Aboriginal Treaty 1986–2006
Edited by: Peter Read, Gary Meyers, Bob Reece
Publication date: December 2006
What Good Condition? collects edited papers, initially delivered at the Treaty Advancing Reconciliation conference, on the proposal for a treaty between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, a proposal which has been discussed and dissected for nearly 30 years.
Featuring contributions from prominent Aboriginal community leaders, legal experts and academics, this capacious work provides an overview of the context and legacy of the residue of treaty proposals and negotiations in past decades; a consideration of the implications of treaty in an Indigenous, national and international context; and, finally, some reflections on regional aspirations and achievements.
For more information on Aboriginal History Inc. please visit aboriginalhistory.org.au.
Australian Department Heads Under Howard: Career Paths and Practice »
Collected Articles from The Canberra Times
Authored by: Paul Malone
Publication date: November 2006
The articles in this collection were first published in the Canberra Times between 14 November 2005 and 22 April 2006 in a slightly different format. In some cases two articles were published on the one secretary. These have been combined into one and minor edits and corrections have been made. The articles have not been updated to take account of events since they were first published.
The Islamic Traditions of Cirebon »
Ibadat and Adat Among Javanese Muslims
Authored by: A.G. Muhaimin
Publication date: November 2006
This work deals with the socio-religious traditions of the Javanese Muslims living in Cirebon, a region on the north coast in the eastern part of West Java. It examines a wide range of popular traditional religious beliefs and practices. The diverse manifestations of these traditions are considered in an analysis of the belief system, mythology, cosmology and ritual practices in Cirebon. In addition, particular attention is directed to the formal and informal institutionalised transmission of all these traditions.
Managing Consultants »
A Practical Guide for Busy Public Sector Managers
Authored by: Leo Dobes
Publication date: November 2006
A revised and updated 2016 edition of Managing Consultants is available.
Despite considerable investment in skills development, managers in public sector organisations still exhibit significant deficiencies in contract and relationship management skills and knowledge. This monograph is a practical, user-friendly guide to the benefits, perils and pitfalls of managing outside consultants.
Writing from years of experience in managing consultants in government, Dr Dobes guides on best practice, as well as including advice on what not to do, and how to rectify shortcomings in the process of using consultants effectively.
Humanities Research: Volume XIII. No. 1. 2006 »
Britishness & Otherness
Edited by: Christina Parolin, Robyn Westcott
Publication date: November 2006
Humanities Research is an internationally peer-reviewed journal published by the Research School of Humanities at The Australian National University. The Research School of Humanities came into existence in January 2007 and consists of the Humanities Research Centre, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, National Europe Centre and Australian National Dictionary Centre. Launched in 1997, issues are thematic with guest editors and address important and timely topics across all branches of the humanities.
This issue of Humanities Research presents a selection of papers offered to the ‘Britishness & Otherness: Locating Marginal White Identities in the Empire’ symposium, convened at the Humanities Research Centre at The Australian National University in July 2004. The symposium was designed to provoke a more sustained and nuanced contemplation of the mechanisms by which a plethora of British identities circulated within the Empire. Moreover, participants were encouraged to question the assumption that ‘Britishness’ was a static cultural identity accessed easily and equally by all phenotypically similar (i.e. white skinned) subjects of the British Empire.
Award winner
The Coalition for Western Women’s History, has awarded Sarah Carter’s article “Britishness, ‘Foreignness’, Women and Land in Western Canada 1890s-1920s” in Humanities Research Vol XIII. No. 1. 2006, the 17th Annual Joan Jensen – Darlis Miller Prize for the best article published in 2006 in the field of History of Women and Gender in the Trans-Mississippi West.
Download for free
Not available for purchase
Australian Political Lives »
Chronicling political careers and administrative histories
Edited by: Tracey Arklay, John Nethercote, John Wanna
Publication date: October 2006
This monograph brings together some of the best practitioners of the art and craft of political biography in Australia. They are simultaneously some of our best scholars who, at least in part, have turned their attention to writing Australian political lives. They are not merely chroniclers of our times but multidisciplinary analysts constructing layers of explanation and theoretical insight. They include academic, professional and amateur biographers; scholars from a range of disciplines (politics, history, sociology, public administration, gender studies); and politicians who for a time strutted the political stage. The assembled papers explore the strengths and weaknesses of the biographical approach; the enjoyment it can deliver; the problems and frustrations of writing biographies; and the various ways the ‘project’ can be approached by those constructing these lives. They probe the art and craft of the political biographer.
Origins, Ancestry and Alliance »
Explorations in Austronesian Ethnography
Edited by: James J. Fox, Clifford Sather
Publication date: October 2006
This collection of papers, the third in a series of volumes on the work of the Comparative Austronesian Project, explores indigenous Austronesian ideas of origin, ancestry and alliance and considers the comparative significance of these ideas in social practice. The papers examine social practice in a diverse range of societies extending from insular Southeast Asia to the islands of the Pacific.
Performance Measurement, Reporting, Obstacles and Accountability »
Recent Trends and Future Directions
Authored by: Paul G. Thomas
Publication date: October 2006
This monograph identifies the ways that ‘politics’ enters into the creation of performance measurement systems, the selection of the official and unofficial aims of such systems, the selection of performance criteria and measures, the interpretation of findings, the responses to such findings and the implications of performance reporting for the accountability of both politicians and public servants. Along the way, both the conditions favouring and the obstacles to successful performance measurement will be highlighted.
Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land »
Land and territory in the Austronesian world
Edited by: Thomas Reuter
Publication date: October 2006
This collection of papers is the fifth in a series of volumes on the work of the Comparative Austronesian Project. Reflecting the unique experience of fourteen ethnographers in as many different societies, the papers in this volume explore how people in the Austronesian-speaking societies of the Asia-Pacific have traditionally constructed their relationship to land and specific territories. Focused on the nexus of local and global processes, the volume offers fresh perspectives to current debate in social theory on the conflicting human tendencies of mobility and emplacement.
Cross-sections, The Bruce Hall Academic Journal: Volume II, 2006 »
Publication date: 2006
Representing the combined energies of a large group of authors, editors, artists and researchers associated with Bruce Hall at the ANU, Cross-sections collects a range of works (from academic articles and essays to photography, digital art and installation artwork) that represents the disciplinary breadth and artistic vitality of the ANU.
Presenting a challenging and absorbing way for students to hone vital research skills, in the process, Cross-sections nurtures a fruitful environment of collaborative interaction between academics and students.
Download for free
Not available for purchase
The Austronesians »
Historical and Comparative Perspectives
Publication date: September 2006
The Austronesian-speaking population of the world are estimated to number more than 270 million people, living in a broad swathe around half the globe, from Madagascar to Easter Island and from Taiwan to New Zealand. The seventeen papers in this volume provide a general survey of these diverse populations focusing on their common origins and historical transformations. The papers examine current ideas on the linguistics, prehistory, anthropology and recorded history of the Austronesians. This volume is a publication of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies’ Comparative Austronesian Project.
The First Ten K R Narayanan Orations »
Essays by Eminent Persons on the Rapidly Transforming Indian Economy
Edited by: Raghbendra Jha
Publication date: September 2006
The rapidly transforming Indian economy has thrown up a number of possibilities as well as several challenges with profound implications for India’s vast population as well as globally. The K R Narayanan Oration Series at the Australia South Asia Research Centre in The Australian National University has been devoted to in-depth examination of this important issue by leading experts. The present volume collects the first ten essays in this series. Contributors include Dr Raja Chelliah, Dr U R Rao, Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati, Mr P. Chidambaram, Dr C. Rangarajan, Lord Meghnad Desai, Prof. Pranab Bardhan, Dr Vijay Kelkar, Dr M S Swaminathan, and Dr K. Kasturirangan. The essays cover a broad array of topics from various aspects of economic reforms, the political economy of India’s development, the role of agriculture in India’s food security and the role of space research in India’s economic development. His Excellency Dr Narayanan and his successor as President of India, His Excellency Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, have provided introductory messages to the orations.
Inside Austronesian Houses »
Perspectives on domestic designs for living
Edited by: James J. Fox
Publication date: September 2006
The eight papers in this volume examine the spatial organization of a variety of Austronesian houses and relate the domestic design of these houses to the social and ritual practices of the specific groups who reside within them. The houses considered in this volume range from longhouses in Borneo to the meeting-houses of the Maori of New Zealand and from the magnificent houses of the Minangkabau of Sumatra to the simpler dwellings of the population of Goodenough Island in Papua New Guinea. Together these papers indicate common features of domestic design from island South-East Asia to Melanesia and the Pacific. This volume is a publication of the Research School of Pacific Studies’ Comparative Austronesian Project.
The Poetic Power of Place »
Comparative Perspectives on Austronesian Ideas of Locality
Edited by: James J. Fox
Publication date: September 2006
This collection of papers is the fourth in a series of volumes on the work of the Comparative Austronesian Project. Each paper describes a specific Austronesian locality and offers an ethnographic account of the way in which social knowledge is vested, maintained and transformed in a particular landscape. The intention of the volume is to consider common patterns in the representation of place among Austronesian-speaking populations.
Complex Science for a Complex World »
Exploring Human Ecosystems with Agents
Edited by: Pascal Perez, David Batten
Publication date: August 2006
It is well known that human activities are endangering the stability and sustainability of many fragile ecosystems to such an extent that their future is in doubt. At the same time, these ecosystems are inherently challenging to manage successfully because of the complexity and uncertainty associated with their ongoing evolution. Much of this complexity and uncertainty may be attributed to the human dimension. Thus it is imperative that we deepen our understanding of how and why people choose to interact with one another and how this interactive behaviour affects these ecosystems as time passes.
Fortunately, a new kind of science is helping us deepen our understanding of how human ecosystems might grow and change over time. Beyond a mere collation of various reflections and applications, the chapters in this book aim to convince the reader that this new kind of science is worthy of our attention. It is a science that fully embraces the complexity of our surrounding world. It is also a science that addresses the frontiers of interactions between human behaviour and environmental responses. Furthermore, it is a science that challenges our limited understanding and treatment of uncertainty. And finally, because it is socially embedded, it is a science that can generate partnerships with local communities in a constructive manner.
We hope that you will enjoy the reading of such a diverse ‘ouvrage’ whose purpose is to attract more early career scientists into our field of research and to convince decision-makers that a growing contingent of colleagues working on complexity theory can provide useful tools and methods to better understand complex and adaptive environments. It is time to reassure you (the reader) that the rise of a ‘Complex Science for a Complex World’ doesn’t mean more complicated relationships between science and society.