Subjects | UNSW Press

Coming soon

Media Monsters: The Transformation of Australia’s Newspaper Empires

In 1941, the paper emperors of the newspaper industry helped bring down Robert Menzies. Over the next 30 years — thanks to shrewd and ruthless behaviour from members of the Murdoch, Packer and Fairfax families and other key players — they grew into media monsters.

9781742238067

Border Crossings: My Journey as an Outsider

Mohammad Chowdhury

Border Crossings takes you on a thrilling ride from the city of minarets to the heights of picture-perfect skyscrapers – a journey of finding one’s own identity and a place where you truly belong.

9781742237541

Cast Mates: Australian Actors in Hollywood and at Home

Sam Twyford-Moore

Cast Mates — starring Errol Flynn, Peter Finch, David Gulpilil and Nicole Kidman — uncovers the long history of Australian actors in cinema at home and abroad.

9781742238111

Everything You Need to Know About the Voice

Megan Davis, George Williams

In late 2023 Australians will vote in a referendum on enshrining an Indigenous Voice to parliament and government in the Constitution. What benefits will the Voice bring? And what was the journey to this point?

9781742238081

Back Up unearths the causes of back pain, the ways we try (and fail) to treat it, and the new science that might hold a cure.

9781742238098

The Chipilly Six

This is the remarkable war story of six ordinary Australian soldiers: the Chipilly Six.

New releases

The Plant Thieves: Secrets of the herbarium

Prudence Gibson

The Plant Thieves reveals remarkable stories from the National Herbarium of New South Wales – its people, its archives and its most guarded specimens.

Bhutan to Blacktown

Om Dhungel, with James Button

Om Dhungel was forced to flee Bhutan as a refugee, eventually arriving in Australia — this traumatic upheaval brought a surprising blessing: what Om learned about life when he lost everything except life itself.

Revealing Secrets: An unofficial history of Australian Signals intelligence & the advent of cyber

Clare Birgin, John Blaxland

This unofficial account of Australian Signals intelligence reveals the organisation’s efforts to reveal the secrets of others.

Dispatch from Berlin, 1943: The story of five journalists who risked everything

Anthony Cooper, with Thorsten Perl

Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the revolution

Edited by Michelle Arrow

The Morrison Government: Governing through crisis, 2019-2022

Edited by Michelle Grattan, Brendan McCaffrie, Chris Wallace

Leading thinkers on the policies and leadership of the Morrison Government from 2019 to 2022

9781742237664

Underground Lovers: Encounters with Fungi

Underground Lovers brings us down to earth, magnifier in hand, to dwell with fungal allies and aliens, discover how fungi hold forests together, and why humans are deeply entwined with these unruly renegades of the subterrain.

9781742237954

The Briefest English Grammar and Punctuation Guide Ever!

The Briefest English Grammar and Punctuation Guide Ever! is the bestselling book that will teach you all the basics of using the English language.

9781742237497

Political Lives: Australian prime ministers and their biographers

Political Lives is an intimate history of image-making and image-breaking in national politics.

9781742237329

Edited by Ann McGrath, Laura Rademaker, Jakelin Troy

Everywhen is a ground-breaking collection about diverse ways of conceiving, knowing, and narrating time and deep history.

UNSW authors

9781742238111

Everything You Need to Know About the Voice

Megan Davis, George Williams

In late 2023 Australians will vote in a referendum on enshrining an Indigenous Voice to parliament and government in the Constitution. What benefits will the Voice bring? And what was the journey to this point?

The Plant Thieves: Secrets of the herbarium

Prudence Gibson

The Plant Thieves reveals remarkable stories from the National Herbarium of New South Wales – its people, its archives and its most guarded specimens.

9781742237794

Sydney Harbour: A History, new edition

Award-winning historian Ian Hoskins revisits Sydney’s glittering harbour and the people who inhabited and shaped it in this updated edition.

9781742236230

Born of Fire and Ash: Australian operations in response to the East Timor crisis 1999–2000

Craig Stockings

The first volume in the landmark Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor, Born of Fire and Ash is an honest, challenging and compelling account of the 1999–2000 East Timor crisis and Australia’s response to it.

No Country is an Island: Australia and International Law

No Country is an Island: Australia and International Law

Hilary Charlesworth, Madelaine Chiam, Devika Hovell, George Williams

Inside Australia's Anti-Terrorism Laws and Trials

Andrew Lynch, Nicola McGarrity, George Williams

Most tellingly, the book asks whether seeing these anti-terror laws as normal is a danger in itself.

9781742237404

Everything You Need to Know About the Uluru Statement from the Heart

Megan Davis, George Williams

Everything you Need to Know About the Referendum to Recognise Indigenous Australians

Megan Davis, George Williams

This book explains everything that Australians need to know about the proposal to recognise Aboriginal peoples in the Constitution.

A Charter of Rights for Australia

George Williams, Daniel Reynolds

Australia does not have a bill or charter of rights, which means there is no comprehensive law that enshrines human rights in Australia – even though these laws are standard in the rest of the developed world. So what does this mean for the rights of Australian citizens?

Artificial Intimacy

Top evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks offers an innovative perspective on human behaviour, AI technologies and the future of sex.

9781742231600

Sex, Genes and Rock 'n' Roll: How evolution has shaped the modern world

Why are people getting fatter? Why do so many rock stars end up dead at 27?

Running the City

Felicity Fenner

Leading Australian curator Felicity Fenner profiles activity-based and pop-up contemporary public art projects from Australia and around the globe. Running the City explores art projects that bring together diverse disciplines and cultures – including running, cycling, architecture, and guerilla gardening.

The Ascent to Power, 1996

Edited by Tom Frame

The Ascent to Power, 1996 takes a critical look at the Howard Government's rise to power; its policies and priorities, successes and shortcomings in what Paul Kelly calls the 'foundational year'.

Back from the Brink, 1997-2001

Edited by Tom Frame

The years 1997–2001 were eventful ones for the Howard Government. This second volume of the Howard Government series explores these tumultuous years.

Trials and Transformations, 2001-2004

Edited by Tom Frame

Few periods in Australian political history have generated more controversy than 2001–2004.

The Desire for Change, 2004-2007

Edited by Tom Frame

The Liberal-National Party Coalition was elected to office on 2 March 1996 and continued in power until 3 December 2007 making John Howard the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister. This book is the final in a four-volume series examining the four Howard Governments.

Edited by Tom Frame

This collection of essays from ex-soldiers, military historians, chaplains and psychologists examines the unseen wounds sustained by Australians deployed to armed conflict, peacekeeping missions, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Edited by Tom Frame

Helping neighbours and partners stabilise their political systems and work towards peace and security is a core activity for the modern Australian Defence Force.

Anzac Day Then & Now

Edited by Tom Frame

Peter Stanley, Jeffrey Grey, Carolyn Holbrook, Ken Inglis, Tom Frame and others explore the rise of Australia's unofficial national day.

Ethics Under Fire

Edited by Tom Frame, Mr Albert Palazzo

Events at Abu Ghraib prison and the 1968 My Lai Massacre show that the behaviour of the military can descend into barbarism. How strong is the military's commitment to avoiding such atrocities? Ethics Under Fire – a timely and compelling book – asks questions and raises issues the Australian Army can't ignore.

Tom Frame, Mr Albert Palazzo

No-one in the Australian government or Army could have predicted that in the 25 years following the end of the Cold War Army personnel would be deployed to Rwanda, Cambodia, Somalia, Bougainville, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Solomon Islands. In a constructive critique of the modern Australian Army, 'On Ops'

Madeline Gleeson

What has happened on Nauru and Manus since Australia began its most recent offshore processing regime in 2012?

Refugee Rights and Policy Wrongs

Jane McAdam, Fiona Chong

Everyone has the right to seek asylum under international law. However, successive governments in Australia have declared the need to 'stop the boats' whatever the cost, be it human, economic, moral or legal.

British India, White Australia

Dr Kama Maclean

*Highly Commended — Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2021*

Dr Catherine Bond

During the Great War law was used in everyday life as a tool to discriminate, oppress, censor and deprive many Australians of property, liberty and basic human rights.

Level Up Your Essays

Dr Inger Mewburn, Katherine Firth, Shaun Lehmann

Level Up Your Essays is the essential guide to essay writing for university students. Written by the people who mark your essays, it will show you step-by-step how to write high-quality essays that will get you top marks.

Evolution in the Antipodes

'A masterpiece of analysis of the politics of transformative change.' — Otago Daily Times

Since 1967 more than 25,000 students have graduated from UNSW after studying at Duntroon, HMAS Creswell , the Australian Defence Force Academy. Tom Frame examines the productive 50-year partnership between UNSW and the Australian Defence Force.

9780868408224

Edited by Richard Francis-Jones, Lawrence Nield, Xing Ruan, Deborah Van der Plaat

Edited by Ainslie Murray, Xing Ruan

In Hand & Mind Through dialogues, interviews, creative reflections and essays, Hand & Mind brings together projects and critical writing to provide a fascinating insight into the study of architecture.

Art, Design & Architecture

9781742235929

Sydney: A Biography

Acclaimed playwright and author, Louis Nowra – author of Kings Cross and Woolloomooloo – expands his gaze to explore the energy, beauty, vulgarity, dynamism and pulsating sense of self-importance of his adopted city, Sydney.

9781742237435

Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters: Australia’s first female filmmaking team

Introducing the McDonagh sisters … a trio of extraordinary and ground-breaking filmmakers.

Andrew Andersons

Bernice Murphy, Leon Paroissien

The first book published on acclaimed Australian architect Andrew Andersons, written by well-known arts administrators Leon Paroissien and Bernice Murphy.

Picturing a Nation

The untold story of a major Australian artist. Regarded in his day as an important Australian impressionist painter, A.H. Fullwood (1863–1930) was also the most widely viewed British–Australian artist of the Heidelberg era.

Edited by Lily Hibberd, with Bonney Djuric

Parragirls ' Parragirls Parragirls is able to deliver something that is at once rigorous in its detailed presentation of a clear model, and accessible through its compelling narrative.' — Eugenia Flynn, The Saturday Paper

Edited by Ainslie Murray, Xing Ruan

In Hand & Mind Through dialogues, interviews, creative reflections and essays, Hand & Mind brings together projects and critical writing to provide a fascinating insight into the study of architecture.

Edited by Julie Cracknell, Peter Lonergan, Sam Rickard

Bruce Rickard was one of the most significant Australian architects of the twentieth century. A key member of the Sydney School, his practice spanned 60 years and he produced some of the most notable and recognisable houses of the period.

Sean Mallon, Sébastien Galliot

A strikingly designed and richly illustrated retelling of the unique history of Samoan tattooing, from 3000 years ago to today.

Collecting for the Nation

Edited by Jennifer Sanders

From ceramic cockatoos and hand-painted china to splendid silverware and historic paintings, Collecting for the Nation illustrates a broad sweep of Australian history and culture through the stories of the artworks in The Australiana Fund's unique collection.

Running the City

Felicity Fenner

Leading Australian curator Felicity Fenner profiles activity-based and pop-up contemporary public art projects from Australia and around the globe. Running the City explores art projects that bring together diverse disciplines and cultures – including running, cycling, architecture, and guerilla gardening.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Rayner Hoff was the most gifted – and controversial – public sculptor in Australia, best known for the sculptures and friezes that adorn Sydney's Anzac Memorial, including Sacrifice at its centre.

The incredible story of singing teacher extraordinaire Mathilde Marchesi who trained more international opera stars than anyone before or since.

Helena Grehan, Edward Scheer

Acclaimed photographer William Yang has captured the zeitgeist like no-one else, providing a very personal insight into the evolution of Mardi Gras, the spectre of AIDS, Sydney's theatrical and social scenes, and changing notions of 'belonging' in multicultural Australia.

Prudence Gibson

The Idea of Art

Curator Anthony Bond began building a contemporary international art collection at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney in 1984. The collection now features many important artists, including Anselm Kiefer, Antony Gormley, Francis Bacon, Anish Kapoor and Doris Salcedo.

Nancy Underhill

Digging through the myths around Australia's most famous artist, many of which he created himself as a masterful self-promoter, this book is the biography that Sidney Nolan deserves.

Curating Sydney

Jill Bennett, Saskia Beudel

What happens when artists are asked the questions usually addressed to planners and administrators?

Australian painter and theatre artist Loudon Sainthill and his partner, entrepreneur and gallery director Harry Tatlock Miller, were at the heart of avant-garde artistic and literary circles in mid-twentieth century Melbourne, Sydney and London.

The Beethoven Obsession

The Beethoven Obsession tells the story of how the greatest piano music ever written acquired a unique Australian voice, played on a revolutionary grand piano that shook up the conservative music establishment.

The Flash of Recognition

As a student, Jane Lydon was shocked by the photograph on the cover of Charles Rowley's 1970 classic, The Destruction of Aboriginal Society

Once Upon a Time in Papunya

Vivien Johnson

Sustainable House

Whether you're planning to build or renovate, whether you live in an apartment or a house, Sustainable House

9780868408224

Edited by Richard Francis-Jones, Lawrence Nield, Xing Ruan, Deborah Van der Plaat

What's Wrong with Contemporary Art?

Peter Timms

Australian history

9781742238098

The Chipilly Six

This is the remarkable war story of six ordinary Australian soldiers: the Chipilly Six.

9781742238111

Everything You Need to Know About the Voice

Megan Davis, George Williams

In late 2023 Australians will vote in a referendum on enshrining an Indigenous Voice to parliament and government in the Constitution. What benefits will the Voice bring? And what was the journey to this point?

Media Monsters: The Transformation of Australia’s Newspaper Empires

In 1941, the paper emperors of the newspaper industry helped bring down Robert Menzies. Over the next 30 years — thanks to shrewd and ruthless behaviour from members of the Murdoch, Packer and Fairfax families and other key players — they grew into media monsters.

Bhutan to Blacktown

Om Dhungel, with James Button

Om Dhungel was forced to flee Bhutan as a refugee, eventually arriving in Australia — this traumatic upheaval brought a surprising blessing: what Om learned about life when he lost everything except life itself.

Revealing Secrets: An unofficial history of Australian Signals intelligence & the advent of cyber

Clare Birgin, John Blaxland

This unofficial account of Australian Signals intelligence reveals the organisation’s efforts to reveal the secrets of others.

The Morrison Government: Governing through crisis, 2019-2022

Edited by Michelle Grattan, Brendan McCaffrie, Chris Wallace

Leading thinkers on the policies and leadership of the Morrison Government from 2019 to 2022

Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the revolution

Edited by Michelle Arrow

9781742237329

Edited by Ann McGrath, Laura Rademaker, Jakelin Troy

Everywhen is a ground-breaking collection about diverse ways of conceiving, knowing, and narrating time and deep history.

9781742237497

Political Lives: Australian prime ministers and their biographers

Political Lives is an intimate history of image-making and image-breaking in national politics.

9781742237794

Sydney Harbour: A History, new edition

Award-winning historian Ian Hoskins revisits Sydney’s glittering harbour and the people who inhabited and shaped it in this updated edition.

9781742236230

Born of Fire and Ash: Australian operations in response to the East Timor crisis 1999–2000

Craig Stockings

The first volume in the landmark Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor, Born of Fire and Ash is an honest, challenging and compelling account of the 1999–2000 East Timor crisis and Australia’s response to it.

9781742235929

Sydney: A Biography

Acclaimed playwright and author, Louis Nowra – author of Kings Cross and Woolloomooloo – expands his gaze to explore the energy, beauty, vulgarity, dynamism and pulsating sense of self-importance of his adopted city, Sydney.

9781742237565

Elizabeth and John

A landmark and revealing joint biography of Elizabeth and John Macarthur, from one of Australia’s most respected historians.

9781742237770

Tongerlongeter: First Nations Leader and Tasmanian War Hero, new edition

Henry Reynolds, Nicholas Clements

An epic story of resistance, suffering and survival. Tongerlongeter resurrects a once-in-a-generation leader all Australians can admire.

9781742237527

Boundary Crossers: The hidden history of Australia's other bushrangers

Not all Australian bushrangers were white men, and not all were seen in a glowing light in their own time — historian Meg Foster reveals the stories of bushrangers who didn’t fit the mould.

9781742237787

Darwin Spitfires

It has been 80 years since the bombing of Darwin. This anniversary edition of Darwin Spitfires offers a detailed and fascinating history of this unparalleled attack.

9781742237152

Australia’s China Odyssey

The story of the complex and crucial relationship between Australia and China, charting the highs and lows through the prism of the prime ministers who have handled relations with Beijing since Whitlam in 1972.

9781742237596

Influential historian Henry Reynolds returns with this new edition of Forgotten War, which questions the conspicuous absence of the frontier wars from our official military history and public memory.

9781742237473

Lessons from History

Edited by Carolyn Holbrook, Lyndon Megarrity, David Lowe

Leading historians tackle the biggest challenges that face Australia and the world and show how the past provides context and knowledge that can guide us in the present.

9781742237312

Exquisitely written, Eda Gunaydin’s essays unsettle neat descriptions of inheritance, belonging and place.

9781742237343

An Uncommon Hangman

The gruesome and compelling tale of Robert ‘Nosey Bob’ Howard, the longest-serving executioner for the colony of NSW.

9781742236957

The Secret of Emu Field

Elizabeth Tynan

Liz Tynan, the award-winning author of Atomic Thunder, reveals the little-known story of Emu Field, the first British atomic test site in South Australia, pre-dating Maralinga by three years.

9781742237442

Sneaky Little Revolutions

edited by Nadia Wheatley

From her wild bohemian years on Hydra to her radical feminist writings, Charmian Clift is a larger-than-life personality of Australian literature.

Documents on Australian Foreign Policy

Edited by James Cotton

Symbols of Australia

Edited by Richard White, Melissa Harper

Australia & the Pacific

Dear Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister is a fascinating insight into the concerns, assumptions and political beliefs of 1950s and 1960s Australians.

9781742237398

Edith Blake’s War

Krista Vane-Tempest

Wounded Country

Quentin Beresford

Henry Reynolds, Nicholas Clements

During Tasmania’s gruesome Black War of 1823-31, Tongerlongeter led the most effective Aboriginal resistance campaign in Australian history. His Oyster Bay Nation of southeast Tasmania and his ally Montpelliatta’s Big River Nation of central Tasmania embarked on 710 attacks, killing 182 colonists and wounding a further 176.

9781742236810

French Connection

Alexis Bergantz

Winner, NSW Premier’s History Awards 2022, Australian History Prize

9781742237404

Everything You Need to Know About the Uluru Statement from the Heart

Megan Davis, George Williams

Ruth Balint, Julie Kalman

Truth-Telling_front_FINAL

The Bible in Australia

WINNER of the Nonfiction Award 2020 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature

British India, White Australia

Dr Kama Maclean

*Highly Commended — Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2021*

Bedlam at Botany Bay

*Winner of the Australian History Prize in the NSW Premier's History Awards 2020*

Hugh Dolan, illustrated by Dave Dye

This graphic book brings to life the struggles of daily life on the goldfields and the powerful events of the Eureka stockade.

Back from the Brink, 1997-2001

Edited by Tom Frame

The years 1997–2001 were eventful ones for the Howard Government. This second volume of the Howard Government series explores these tumultuous years.

Serving our Country

Edited by Joan Beaumont, Allison Cadzow

After decades of silence, Serving Our Country is the first comprehensive history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's participation in the Australian defence forces.

The Ascent to Power, 1996

Edited by Tom Frame

The Ascent to Power, 1996 takes a critical look at the Howard Government's rise to power; its policies and priorities, successes and shortcomings in what Paul Kelly calls the 'foundational year'.

Hidden in Plain View

Contrary to what you may think, local Aboriginal people did not lose their culture and die out within decades of Governor Phillip's arrival in Sydney in 1788.

Michael Duffy, Nick Hordern

The first ever book devoted entirely to the golden years of the Sydney underworld.

Darling Mother, Darling Son

Edith M Ziegler, introduction by Megan Martin

'However far away from you I am, you are the real centre of my life ...' – Leslie Walford

Edited by Tom Frame

Helping neighbours and partners stabilise their political systems and work towards peace and security is a core activity for the modern Australian Defence Force.

The Honest History Book

Edited by David Stephens, Alison Broinowski

In Australia's rush to commemorate all things Anzac, have we lost our ability to look beyond war as the central pillar of Australia's history and identity?

White Butterflies (Updated edition)

Colin Mcphedran

A new edition of this bestselling Australian classic.

Ms Colleen McCullough

Several years before she died, Colleen McCullough wrote this unusual and stimulating work of non-fiction exploring a subject close to her heart – the role of water in human history, and how best to harness its power to ensure Australia's future.

Up Came a Squatter

Battles with local Aboriginal people, other settlers, Commissioners of Crown Lands and bush-fires, along with droughts, family feuds, multiple trips back to Scotland to find a wife and Black's rise to gentrified excess are all vividly brought to life.

The Worst Woman in Sydney

Matriarch of the criminal underworld … or the Robin Hood of inner Sydney?

The Europeans in Australia

Alan Atkinson

It is the duty of historians to be, wherever they can, accurate, precise, humane, imaginative - using moral imagination above all - and even-handed.

The Europeans in Australia

Alan Atkinson

'It is the duty of historians to be, wherever they can, accurate, precise, humane, imaginative - using moral imagination above all – and even-handed.' - Alan Atkinson

We all think we know the story of Ned Kelly, Australia's most famous outlaw, but we've never seen him in full colour like this before …

Minding Her Own Business

Catherine Bishop

A history that populates the streets of colonial Sydney with entrepreneurial businesswomen earning their living in a variety of small – and sometimes surprising – enterprises.

The National Tertiary Education Union

John Michael O'Brien

The Changi Book

Edited by Dr Lachlan Grant

The story of Changi, told by those who lived through it.

Paul Davey

Unfolding like a political thriller, Joh for PM reveals for the first time the details of the campaign that rocked Australian politics.

Hugh Dolan, Adrian Threlfall

View the Reg Saunders teaching resource on the Reading Australia website

Van Diemen's Land

Mr Murray Johnson, Mr Ian McFarlane

Carefully researched, using the findings of archaeologists and extensive documentary evidence, some only recently uncovered, this important book fills a long-time gap in Tasmanian history.

Australian Soldiers in Asia-Pacific in World War II

Dr Lachlan Grant

Focusing on the day-to-day interactions between soldiers on the ground and the people and cultures they encountered, this book paints a picture not only of individual lives transformed, but of dramatically shifting national perceptions, as the gaze of Australia turned from Britain to Asia.

The Europeans in Australia

Alan Atkinson

This is the third and final volume of the landmark, award-winning series The Europeans in Australia that gives an account of settlement by Britain. It tells of the various ways in which that experience shaped imagination and belief among the settler people from the eighteenth century to the end of World War I.

Anzac, The Unauthorised Biography

Carolyn Holbrook

Raise a glass for an Anzac. Run for an Anzac. Camp under the stars for an Anzac. Is there anything Australians won't do to keep the Anzac legend at the centre of our national story?

Diary of a Foreign Minister

Six years after vacating his position as the longest-serving Premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr returned to politics in his dream job: as Foreign Minister of Australia and a senior federal cabinet minister.

From Eden to Byron Bay, the New South Wales coast is more than 2000 kilometres long, with 130 estuaries, 100 coastal lakes, and a rich history.

Kings Cross: A biography

Louis Nowra burrows beneath the sensationalist Underbelly 'sex and sin' narrative, revealing stories and a cast of characters – some household names others little-known - that not even a writer could conjure up.

The Flash of Recognition

As a student, Jane Lydon was shocked by the photograph on the cover of Charles Rowley's 1970 classic, The Destruction of Aboriginal Society

The Sydney Harbour Bridge (Revised edition)

Peter Spearritt

'...clear, concise and vibrant history takes the reader on the journey from 19th-century dreams to 20th-century reality.' — Troy Lennon, Daily Telegraph

A Swindler's Progress

Kirsten McKenzie

Turning Points in Australian History

Edited by Martin Crotty, David Roberts

Anzacs and Ireland

Jeff Kildea

The Other Side of the Frontier

Ancient and Modern

Stephen Muecke

Deadly Sounds, Deadly Places

Peter Dunbar-Hall, Chris Gibson

Australian Frontier Wars, 1788-1838