It is time to reassess the work of Geoffrey Blainey, and consider his role in Australian history, politics and public life. Geoffrey Blainey has steered Australian history into the nation's conversation. No one would dispute that he is a courageous public intellectual, a writer of rare grace and a master storyteller. And he has indeed provoked a rare fuss, both public and professional, with some of his comments on Asian immigration and Aboriginal land rights. Blainey has challenged the academic history profession, not only with his ideas but also by his practice. A brilliant student, he looked set for Oxford but chose instead the austere west coast of Tasmania for his postgraduate research. For the next decade he earned a living with his pen. And instead of political history in the traditional academic mould, he wrote corporate histories that dispensed with footnotes. Always probing and speculative, Blainey has dislodged many of the keystones in our understandings of Australia's past. He was one of the first to write about the expansive social history of this land before 1788; he questioned whether Botany Bay was founded primarily as a convict colony; he argued that the Eureka uprising had economic rather than political causes; and he identified sport as a neglected key to the Australian character. His controversial views earned such newspaper headlines as 'Brave Man Set Upon by Thugs for Telling Truth'. In The Fuss That Never Ended a lively and distinguished assembly of fellow historiansandmdash;of various ages, interests and political stancesandmdash;take a fresh look at Blainey's remarkable and sometimes controversial career.

Methodism has played a major role in all areas of public life in Australia but has been particularly significant for its influence on education, social welfare, missions to Aboriginal people and the Pacific Islands and the role of women. Drawing together a team of historical experts, Methodism in Australia presents a critical introduction to one of the most important religious movements in Australia's settlement history and beyond. Offering ground-breaking regional studies of the development of Methodism, this book considers a broad range of issues including Australian Methodist religious experience, worship and music, Methodist intellectuals, and missions to Australia and the Pacific.

The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics is a comprehensive collection that considers Australia's distinctive politics— both ancient and modern— at all levels and across many themes. It examines the factors that make Australian politics unique and interesting, while firmly placing these in the context of the nation's Indigenous and imported heritage and global engagement. The book presents an account of Australian politics that recognizes and celebrates its inherent diversity by taking a thematic approach in six parts. The first theme addresses Australia's unique inheritances, examining the development of its political culture in relation to the arrival of British colonists and their conflicts with First Nations peoples, as well as the resulting geopolitics. The second theme, improvization, focuses on Australia's political institutions and how they have evolved. Place-making is then considered to assess how geography, distance, Indigenous presence, and migration shape Australian politics. Recurrent dilemmas centres on a range of complex, political problems and their influence on contemporary political practice. Politics, policy, and public administration covers how Australia has been a world leader in some respects, and a laggard in others, when dealing with important policy challenges. The final theme, studying Australian politics, introduces some key areas in the study of Australian politics and identifies the strengths and shortcomings of the discipline. The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics is an opportunity for others to consider the nation's unique politics from the perspective of leading and emerging scholars, and to gain a strong sense of its imperfections, its enduring challenges, and its strengths.

The story of Faith's extraordinary life, her journey from a childhood in a South Sea Islander community in northern New South Wales, to national recognition as one of Australia's leading human rights activists.

This book analyzes China's bureaucratic behavior since the inauguration of administrative reform in the late 1970s. Although bureaucratic behavior in China in the past decade was increasingly corrupted, this aspect of China's post-Mao reform has not been subjected to a rigorous scrutiny. This book explores the gulf between desired and the actual bureaucratic behavior among China's public administrators. The author argues that this behavioral gap in China's modernization stems from several factors including the nation's cultural heritage, the ruling party's approach to government, and the absence of trusted, full-fledged academic groups assigned to advise on administrative reform. The book then probes one of the gravest consequences of the behavioral gap: 'reform corruption', a phenomenon which seems to be a mixed blessing of modernization.