Burning coal is the one of the main sources of greenhouse gases, but mining expansion continues apace in Australia. Given the all-but unqualified support of federal and state governments for new mining…
In his new book, activist and author Dennis Altman takes a look at how far the global gay liberation movement has come since events such as the Stonewall riots in New York.
New York Daily News
In a recent speech celebrating 30 years of the Victorian AIDS Council, Adam Carr, one of its founders who went onto pursue a PhD in history, made the point that: …not many people get to make history in…
Treasurer Chris Bowen needs voters to put a 1 next to his party on the ballot in the upcoming election. Will his new book help win the political argument?
AAP/Dean Lewins
Treasurer Chris Bowen’s new blueprint for Labor party reform Hearts and Minds gives us the easy listening version of Paul Keating, just as Tony Abbott offers us the same for John Howard. The book provides…
Today we worry that cow farts are destroying the environment with methane; back in the Proterozoic, it’s certain that algae farts ruined it with oxygen. As an evolutionary biologist and conservationist…
Media giant Fairfax has been plagued by board troubles and company indecision, according to a new book.
AAP/Julian Smith
In the same week that Colleen Ryan’s tell-all book Fairfax: The Rise and Fall hits bookstores, Fairfax’s two biggest metropolitan newspapers will place their content behind a metered digital paywall. If…
It’s steady as she goes in Australia’s universities according to a new book on the changing dynamics in higher education.
Higher education image from www.shutterstock.com
Writing books on fast-evolving topics is a hazardous business. The news can easily overtake a slow-moving publisher’s schedule. Fortunately for Peter Coaldrake and Lawrence Stedman’s new book on higher…
Every Parent’s Nightmare tells the true story of Australian Jock Palfreeman, caught in Bulgaria’s corrupt legal system.
ABC TV/AAP
Australians running into trouble with the law overseas is a common topic in the news. The coverage is usually fleeting, ending with the announcement of a conviction or, less often, an acquittal. Belinda…
Ben Goldacre spreading the news at the Free University of Glastonbury, June 2011.
Neil Melville-Kenney
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) published a poll in late-October 2012 asking, “Who is mainly at fault for denying access to negative clinical trial results?” Respondents were able to choose from a list…
Mear’s novel is “a love story about horses as much as anything else”.
Eduardo Amorim
MILES FRANKLIN REVIEW: The winner of the 2012 Miles Franklin Award will be announced this week. In preparation, The Conversation brings you academic reviews of the five novels shortlisted for Australia’s…
The traditional academic world has gone, but what has replaced it?
Flickr/Nick in exsilio
When a friend showed me the blurb for Whackademia: an insider’s account of the troubled university, I immediately left the office to buy a copy, solely on the promise in the title. I read it in just two…
The days of ‘sit down, shut up and do your science’ are over. Today’s students ask hard questions.
University of Iowa
Two recently published books suggest that the public - and school children in particular - are being fed lies about environmental issues such as climate change. The books - “How to Get Expelled from School…