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Islands of Turmoil »
Elections and Politics in Fiji
Authored by: Brij V. Lal
Publication date: August 2006
“It is not so much whether things are not as bad as they ought to be or could have been. It is, rather, whether things could have been much better”.
By rights, the island nation of Fiji should be thriving. It is easily the most developed country in the South Pacific; it is a hub for regional transportation and communication links, the home of international diplomatic, educational and aid organisations, with a talented multiethnic population. Yet, since its independence it has suffered two military coups in 1987 and an attempted putsch in 2000, resulting in strained institutions, and disrupted improvements to essential infrastructure, and to educational, social and medical services.
Maverick Mathematician »
The Life and Science of J.E. Moyal
Authored by: Ann Moyal
Publication date: August 2006
J.E. Moyal has been pronounced ‘one of Australia’s most remarkable thinkers’. Yet, he was, essentially, a scientific maverick. Educated in a modest high school in Tel Aviv, he took himself to France to train as an engineer, statistician and mathematician and escaped to England as France fell.
It was from outside academia that he entered into communication with the ‘high priest’ of British theoretical physics, P.A.M. Dirac, challenging him with the idea of a statistical basis of quantum mechanics. Their correspondence forms the core of this book and opens up an important and hitherto unknown chapter for physicists, mathematicians and historians of science. Moyal’s classic paper, ‘A statistical basis for quantum mechanics’, also reproduced here in full, has come to underlie an explosion of research and to underpin an array of major technological developments.
Joe Moyal emerges in this small biography as a witty and intrepid character, a scuba diver and wine connoisseur, a generous teacher and researcher, and a man whose academic life-spanning France, Ireland, Britain, the USA and Australia-intersected with some of the leading scientists of the 20th century.
The Turning Point in China's Economic Development »
Edited by: Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song
Publication date: August 2006
The profound economic transformation in China is not a linear process. It is subject to fundamental shifts in its underlying structure. One of those structural transformations will be a shift from unlimited to limited supplies of labour in China’s economic development. Is China approaching this turning point? What are the dynamic forces in driving China moving towards this turning point? What are the economic and policy implications of this turning point in China’s economic transformation and development? The book discusses these important issues by focusing on China’s long-term pattern of growth and employment, demographic shifts and rural-urban migration, its agricultural trade and local elections, China’s banking sector reform and its fiscal sustainability, China’s interaction with the international economy and global imbalances, its industrialisation and its resource and energy demand, was well as its environmental concerns. Contributions to this volume are made by leading analysts from China, the United States and Australia.
Nature, Nurture and Chance »
The Lives of Frank and Charles Fenner
Authored by: Frank Fenner
Publication date: July 2006
Judging by the numbers of newspaper reviews, biographies (including autobiographies) are amongst the most common literary works published these days. However, it is uncommon to find one book that combines a biography and an autobiography, as this book, Nature, Nurture and Chance: The Lives of Frank and Charles Fenner, does. As the author, Frank Fenner, sees it, ‘nature’ means the combination of genes that we inherit from our parents; ‘nurture’ means the way that our physical and social environment, especially during childhood, influence our mental and emotional characteristics; and chance is defined as ‘the way things fall out’. These three elements define the careers of all human beings. The author uses them to compare his father’s life and his own.
State, Communities and Forests In Contemporary Borneo »
Edited by: Fadzilah Majid Cooke
Publication date: July 2006
The name ‘Borneo’ evokes visions of constantly changing landscapes, but with important island-wide continuities. One of the continuities has been the forests, which have for generations been created and modified by the indigenous population, but over the past three decades have been partially replaced by tree crops, grass or scrub. This book, the first in the series of Asia-Pacific Environmental Monographs, looks at the political complexities of forest management across the whole island of Borneo, tackling issues of tenure, land use change and resource competition, ‘tradition’ versus ‘modernity’, disputes within and between communities, between communities and private firms, or between communities and governments. While it focuses on the changes taking place in local political economies and conservation practices, it also makes visible the larger changes taking place in both Indonesia and Malaysia. The common theme of the volume is the need to situate local complexities in the larger institutional context, and the possible gains to be made from such an approach in the search for alternative models of conservation and development.
Assessing the Evidence on Indigenous Socioeconomic Outcomes »
A focus on the 2002 NATSISS
Edited by: Boyd Hunter
Publication date: June 2006
This monograph presents the peer-reviewed proceedings of the CAEPR conference on Indigenous Socioeconomic Outcomes: Assessing Recent Evidence, held at The Australian National University in August 2005. It presents the latest evidence on Indigenous economic and social status, and family and community life, and discusses its implications for government policy.
The main focus of this volume is on analysing the 2002 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS) outputs and issues about how to interpret the data. It also offers some assessment of changes in Indigenous social conditions over time and examines how Indigenous people fared vis-à-vis other Australians in other statistical collections. The discussion of the broad Indigenous policy context by three prominent Indigenous Australians—Larissa Berhendt, Tom Calma, and Geoff Scott—explores different perspectives.
Negotiating the Sacred »
Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society
Edited by: Elizabeth Burns Coleman, Kevin White
Publication date: June 2006
This cross-disciplinary exploration of the role of the sacred, blasphemy and sacrilege in a multicultural society brings together philosophers, theologians, lawyers, historians, curators, anthropologists and sociologists, as well as Christian, Jewish and Islamic and secular perspectives. In bringing together different disciplinary and cultural approaches, the book provides a way of broadening our conceptions of what might count as sacred, sacrilegious and blasphemous, in moral and political terms. In addition, it provides original research data on blasphemy, sacrilege and religious tolerance from a range of disciplines.
The book is presented in four sections:
Section I: Religion Sacrilege and Blasphemy in Australia.
Section II: Sacrilege and the Sacred
Section III: The State, Religion and Tolerance
Section IV: The Future: Openness and Dogmatism.
The book will appeal to both those actively involved in religious negotiation and to scholars and students of religion in history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology and political science.
Humanities Research: Volume XII. No. 1. 2005 »
Bigotry and Religion in Australia 1865- 1950
Edited by: Benjamin Penny
Publication date: May 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 collection of essays examines manifestations of bigotry on the basis of religion in the period from the latter part of the nineteenth century until the aftermath of the second world war. It includes articles concerning both prejudice directed against one religious group as in the case of anti-semitism, as well as inter-religious bigotry, particularly conflict between Protestant and Catholic Christians. Some papers address specific incidents that took place under very particular local conditions while others analyse patterns of discrimination over the broad sweep of time; some examine prejudice in face-to-face situations and others in academic discourse. In other words, we have attempted to include as many different manifestations of the many tentacled beast that is religious bigotry as we have been able. In this way we hope to bring into clearer focus the situation in present-day Australian society, to trace important social changes, to provide historical contexts for current manifestations of religious prejudice, and to examine specific incidents or practices, or patterns of discrimination and prejudice, in our past.
This issue of Humanities Research is sponsored by the Herbert and Valmae Freilich Foundation, a part of the Humanities Research Centre of ANU devoted to research into all forms of prejudice and discrimination.
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NGOs and Post-Conflict Recovery »
The Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency, Bougainville
Edited by: Helen Hakena, Peter Ninnes, Bert Jenkins
Publication date: April 2006
When government services have broken down or when international nongovernment organisations are uninterested or unable to help, grassroots non-government organisations provide important humanitarian, educational and advocacy services. Yet, too often the story of the crucial role played by these organisations in conflict and post-conflict recovery goes unheard.
The Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency provides many salutary lessons for grassroots non-government organisations undertaking peacemaking and peace-building work. In the thirteen years of its existence, it has contributed humanitarian assistance, provided education programs on peace, gender issues and community development, and has become a powerful advocate for women’s and children’s rights at all levels of society. Its work has been recognised through the award of a United Nations’ Millennium Peace Price in 2000 and a Pacific Peace Prize in 2004.
This book makes a unique contribution to understanding the role of nongovernment organisations in promoting peace and development and gender issues in the South West Pacific.
Giblin's Platoon »
The trials and triumph of the economist in Australian public life
Publication date: April 2006
Around 1920 there formed a friendship of four men who were to be at the heart of Australian economic thought and policy-making over the next 30 years: L.F. Giblin, J.B. Brigden, D.B. Copland and Roland Wilson.
This book tells their story. As economists, they were to become key figures in the debates of the day, staking sometimes controversial positions on protectionism, central banking, industrial relations, and federalism. As public figures they were at the hub of several events punctuating their times: the Premiers’ Plan of 1931, the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, and the inauguration of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. As leading public intellectuals, they spoke out on censorship, appeasement and defence. As four men who really counted in Australian public life, they were decisive in the establishment of The Australian National University, the Commonwealth Grants Commission, and the modern form of the Australian Public Service and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Giblin’s Platoon comprehends the personal and intellectual dimensions of their lives, as well as depicting them in political and cultural contexts. It recounts their chequered relations with Jack Lang, John Curtin, S.M. Bruce, R.G. Menzies, and J.B. Chifley, as well as their encounters with the Bloomsbury group, Joseph Conrad of the Jindyworobaks, and William Dobell.