Contaminated Country is a powerful account of the devastating effects that the nuclear cycle -- from the mining of radioactive minerals, to nuclear bomb testing, and attempts to establish a dumping site for radioactive waste--has had on Aboriginal lands in Australia in the 20th century. It's special power is in Jessica Urwin's research and interviews with Indigenous people whose lands and lives were affected, and their continuing campaigns to resist nuclear colonialism. Aboriginal people spoke up about how damaging these terrible exploits by individual settlers and British and Australian governments were and took their protests all the way to the United Nations.
The destruction and defiance that swirled around Australia's embrace of the world's nuclear order
Though a nonnuclear state, Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear energy programs of numerous global powers across the twentieth century. From uranium extraction to nuclear testing, Australia's lands became sites of imperial exploitation under the guise of national development. The continent was subject to rampant nuclear colonialism. However, this history is not just one of imposition. Aboriginal communities, bearing the brunt of these processes, have persistently resisted, reclaiming their rights to Country and demanding reparations.
As Jessica Urwin shows, extraction, weapons testing, and…
This beautiful novel is rare in that -- while British imperial contexts are not unusual -- the early 20th century colonial Malaysia setting is strikingly different and absorbing. Not only is it a gripping read, the history and culture of British Penang are richly evoked -- from the social life to the urban and natural environments and the food. Tan Twan Eng has evidently conducted a good deal of historical research on both Somerset Maugham and Sun Yat Sen, who feature as major players based on their actual visits to Penang. Indeed, the author seems to have channelled Somerset Maugham in both the plot and in his writing style. I especially appreciated the feminist sensibility that shone through.
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023 LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, NEW YORKER AND WASHINGTON POST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of the early twentieth century. But in 1921 he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write.
His friend Robert Hamlyn offers an escape in the Straits Settlements of Penang, where Robert's steely wife Lesley learns to see Willie as he is - a man…
Given how big an issue forced migration and political refugees are in our contemporary world, this novel is highly educational. While I knew that many people have been forced to flee their countries due to persecution, this semi-autobiographical story gave me new insight. It also gave me new respect for Britain's track record of accepting such immigrants despite the bureaucratic abuse the story entails. The central character is wonderfully complex. And I learned about so many things -- Islam; the history of Zanzibar; historic maritime trade along the east coast of Africa; and political and economic conditions in newly independent eastern Africa.
**By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021**
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2002
'One scarcely dares breathe while reading it for fear of breaking the enchantment' The Times _______________
On a late November afternoon Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick Airport from Zanzibar, a far away island in the Indian Ocean. With him he has a small bag in which lies his most precious possession - a mahogany box containing incense. He used to own a furniture shop, have a house and be a husband and father. Now he is an asylum seeker from paradise; silence his only…
Everyday Revolutions is a fresh and comprehensive look at how much Australian culture -- like other parts of the world--changed in the 1970s. We know about the Women's Liberation Movement and its victories, including prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex or gender, and winning reproductive rights for women. But this collection of readable and engaging essays is full of surprises -- from what it was like to be a female garage mechanic in the 1970s; to how the wave of communes in rural settings was structured by gender; how feminist publishing suddenly sprouted; what did and did not change with homosexuality coming out of the closet; and how we can read shifting sexual mores in the magazines of the day. Written by scholars of history, art, education, literature and language, Everyday Revolutions brings the 1970s to vibrant life and shows what a watershed decade it was.
