Comandante: Inside Hugo Chavez's Venezuela by Rory Carroll

$39.99 AUD

Category: Political

Hugo Chavez was a true phenomenon. On his death in March 2013 tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets and honoured a seven-day period of national mourning. Chavez has been compared to Napoleon, Nasser, Peron and Castro but the truth is there has never been a leader like him. He was democrat ically elected, reigned like a monarch from a mobile television throne, and provoked adoration and revulsion in equal measure. How did a charismatic autocrat seduce not just a nation but a significant part of world opinion? And how did he continue to stay in power despite the crumbling of Venezuela? When he first came to power in 1999, Chavez became a symbol of hope and freedom for his people. Yet, in his fourteen years as president, Chavez seized control of the lucrative Venezuelan oil industry, allowed basic government functions to wither, jailed political opponents and courted Castro and Ahmadinejad, all while occupying much of Venezuela's airwaves with his long-running television show, Alo Presidente!. In Comandante, acclaimed journalist Rory Carroll breaches the walls of Miraflores Palace to tell the inside story of Chavez's life and his political court in Caracas. Blending the lyricism and strangeness of magical realism with the brutal, ugly truth of authoritarianism - a powerful combination reminiscent of Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Emperor - Rory Carroll has written the definitive account of Hugo Chavez's presidency, and the legacy he has left behind. ...Show more

Good Son: JFK Jr. and the Mother He Loved by Christopher Andersen

$33.00 AUD

Category: Political

Critically acclaimed author Christopher Andersen is a master of celebrity biographies-boasting sixteen bestsellers, among them These Few Precious Days, Mick, and William and Kate. Now, in his latest thrilling book, new and untold details of the life and death of JFK Jr. come to light, released in time f or the fifteenth year marker of the tragic plane crash on July 16, 1999. At the heart of The Good Son is the most important relationship in JFK Jr.'s life: that with his mother, the beautiful and mysterious Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Andersen explores his reactions to his mother's post-Dallas suicidal depression and growing dependence on prescription drugs (as well as men); how Jackie felt about the women in her son's life, from Madonna and Sarah Jessica Parker, to Daryl Hannah and Carolyn Bessette, to his turbulent marriage; the senseless plane crash the took his life; the aftermath of shock, loss, grief, and confusion; and much more. Offering new insights into the intense, tender, often stormy relationship between this iconic mother and son, The Good Son is a riveting, bittersweet biography for lovers of all things Kennedy. ...Show more

The Unquiet Monk: Thomas Merton's Questing Faith by Michael W Higgins

$25.00 AUD

Category: Political

"For the 25th anniversary of Thomas Merton's birth, a fresh introduction to his life and work."Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, poet, spiritual writer, and social critic, remains many years after his death in 1968, one of the most influential religious figures of our time. From a cloistered monastery i n Kentucky he spoke to the spiritual and social concerns of the world, offering a voice of conscience, sanity, and compassion. One hundred years after his birth in 1915, his fascinating life and spiritual wisdom continue to find an audience. In this concise but original work, Michael Higgins offers a fresh interpretation of this endlessly fascinating, complex, and multivalent genius. Drawing in part on interviews with those who knew him, Michael Higgins explores the story of Merton's life, his work as a poet and writer, his prophetic response to war and social disorder, his contemplative response to the human condition, and his forays into interreligious dialogue. ...Show more

Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Al Franken

$40.00 AUD

Category: Political

AL FRANKEN, GIANT OF THE SENATE is a book about an unlikely campaign that had an even more improbable ending: the closest outcome in history and an unprecedented eight-month recount saga, which is pretty funny in retrospect. It's a book about what happens when the nation's foremost progressive satirist gets a chance to serve in the United States Senate and, defying the low expectations of the pundit class, actually turns out to be good at it. It's a book about our deeply polarized, frequently depressing, occasionally inspiring political culture, written from inside the belly of the beast. In this candid personal memoir, the honorable gentleman from Minnesota takes his army of loyal fans along with him from Saturday Night Live to the campaign trail, inside the halls of Congress, and behind the scenes of some of the most dramatic and/or hilarious moments of his new career in politics. ...Show more

Isaiah Berlin by Ignatieff, Michael

$34.95 AUD

Category: General

Front Row at the White House....??? by THOMAS Helen

$29.95 AUD

Category: Political

George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis

$45.00 AUD

Category: Political

Selected by "The New York Times Book Review" as a Notable Book of the Year Drawing on extensive interviews with George Kennan and exclusive access to his archives, an eminent scholar of the Cold War delivers a revelatory biography of its troubled mastermind. In the late 1940s, George Kennan wrote two documents, the "Long Telegram" and the "X Article," which set forward the strategy of containment that would define U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union for the next four decades. This achievement alone would qualify him as the most influential American diplomat of the Cold War era. But he was also an architect of the Marshall Plan, a prizewinning historian, and would become one of the most outspoken critics of American diplomacy, politics, and culture during the last half of the twentieth century. Now the full scope of Kennan's long life and vast influence is revealed by one of today's most important Cold War scholars. Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis began this magisterial history almost thirty years ago, interviewing Kennan frequently and gaining complete access to his voluminous diaries and other personal papers. So frank and detailed were these materials that Kennan and Gaddis agreed that the book would not appear until after Kennan's death. It was well worth the wait: the journals give this book a breathtaking candor and intimacy that match its century-long sweep. We see Kennan's insecurity as a Midwesterner among elites at Princeton, his budding dissatisfaction with authority and the status quo, his struggles with depression, his gift for satire, and his sharp insights on the policies and people he encountered. Kennan turned these sharp analytical gifts upon himself, even to the point of regularly recording dreams. The result is a remarkably revealing view of how this greatest of Cold War strategists came to doubt his strategy and always doubted himself. This is a landmark work of history and biography that reveals the vast influence and rich inner landscape of a life that both mirrored and shaped the century it spanned. ...Show more

Clive: The Story of Clive Palmer by Sean Parnell

$40.00 AUD

Category: Political

Big-spending Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer bought a football team, helped create a political party, and is set to recreate the 'Titanic' and build a dinosaur park. But are these just fanciful splurges or something more calculated? The reality is that Palmer uses his immense mining wealth (estimate d at over $6 billion) in a proactive (if sometimes eccentric) global way. His personal story is just as colourful and intriguing: Clive spent time as a child in China and writes poetry. He is well-known for attention-grabbing statements that send the media into a spin. Shortly after Clive was named a National Living Treasure, he claimed that the CIA was secretly backing green groups in a bid to kill the Australian coal-mining industry. In true Clive fashion, in May 2012 he announced that he was building a luxury cruise liner - the 'Titanic II' - and his political feuds are legendary. Part business expose, part political insider profile, and all rollicking tale, this is a dramatic portrayal of the man himself and the unconventional life he leads. ...Show more

A Smile For My Parents by Heather Henderson

$30.00 AUD

Category: Political

Heather Henderson is the only daughter of Sir Robert Menzies, Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister and founder of the Liberal party. Father and daughter were very close, and in 2011 Heather edited and published Letters to My Daughter, a collection of letters written by Menzies to Heather throughou t the fifties, sixties and seventies, when she was living overseas with her diplomat husband. They are full of warmth, love, humour and insights - both political and personal - and they allow us to see a completely different side of a man many Australians think of as a rather stern and forbidding authoritarian figure. Now comes A Smile for My Parents, Heather Henderson's engaging memoir recounting charming and insightful stories and memories of Dame Pattie and Sir Robert and their family and friends that will surprise and delight all who read it. ...Show more

Keith Kyle, Reporting the World by Keith Kyle

$59.95 AUD

Category: Political

Keith Kyle was 'the epitome of the intellectual journalist' and the foremost historian of the Suez War. In this, his posthumously published autobiography, he takes the reader on a spectacular and exhilarating journey through the political history of the later 20th century, to the heart of world-shaking international crises where great events, people and places come to life. The clarity, expertise, enthusiasm and essential modesty with which he wrote gave his international audience the vital feeling of involvement and being there. Here was a reporter - and he claimed to be no more - of rare skill, intelligence, humanity and true moral purpose. Keith Kyle's extraordinary career took him from history at Oxford with A.J.P. Taylor, military service in India and Burma (ending as 'an unlikely infantry captain'), to the BBC World Service. He was recruited for The Economist by Geoffrey Crowther to act as Political and Parliamentary Correspondent in Washington, where he was at the epicentre of world politics. He was in Washington when the Suez crisis broke - the subject of his major history, Suez: Britain's End of Empire in the Middle East, which has defined the subject to the present. Keith Kyle's radio and television journalism brought him into countless British homes as BBC Talks Producer but he also held political ambitions which saw him contesting - unsuccessfully - St Albans and Braintree for Labour and Northampton South for the SDP/Alliance. In Keith Kyle's last years his life evolved from his years of vivid reporting of world politics, to scholarly research and writing at the John F Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard; St Antony's College, Oxford; the RIIA at Chatham House; and, the University of Ulster, where he was Visiting Professor of History. ...Show more

The Man Who Brought Down a Taoiseach and Exposed the Greed and Corruption at the Heart of Irish Politics by Frank Connolly

$35.00 AUD

Category: Political

No. 1 Bestseller A successful property developer in England, the Sligo-born Tom Gilmartin had ambitious plans for major retail developments in Dublin in the late 1980s. Little did he know that in order to do business in the city, senior politicians and public officials would want a slice of the action i n large amounts of cash. Gilmartin blew the whistle on corruption at the heart of government and the city s planning system, and the fallout from his claims ultimately led to the resignation of the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in 2008. The developer, who died in November 2013, was thoroughly vindicated in the final report of the Mahon Tribunal in March 2012. This is a compelling narrative of official wrong-doing and abuse of office. It exposes the roots of the political and financial disaster that has wreaked havoc in the lives of so many Irish people. Praise for the author: Frank Connolly is the best investigative journalist we ve ever had. Eamon Dunphy Tom Gilmartin did all Irish people an immense service by telling the truth about the corruption and cynicism he encountered at the very top of the political system. Frank Connolly brought Gilmartin s story to light, and does another great service by retelling that story with such vividness, clarity and power. As human and engaging as a novel, this is a truth stranger, and more urgent, than fiction. Fintan O Toole Frank Connolly lays bare, in cold, forensic detail, how hard it has been to arrive at certain truths, and the human price paid for those truths. Theo Dorgan Frank Connolly s biography of the businessman who died last year is ultimately a pretty devastating account of how being bright, hardworking and ambitious was absolutely no use to Tom Gilmartin in his native country................It s a story worth retelling, but just as compelling is the deeper story, that emerges throughout the biography, of how Ireland failed Tom Gilmartin, not once, not even twice, but throughout his lifetime. Donal O DonovanIrish Independent Review 05 April 2014 The corruption endemic in parts of Irish public life is clearly illustrated by the story of what happened to the developer and whistleblower Tom Gilmartin. Frank McDonald Irish Times Weekend Review 05 April 2014 'If you want to keep your blood pressure down on holiday, then Frank Connolly's book probably isn't for you, but it deserves to be read. It's a maddening and deeply vital tale of how figures in Ireland's political establishment sought to enrich themselves at the expense of the people they had sworn to serve.' - Sunday Business Post" ...Show more

Santamaria A Most Unusual Man by Gerard Henderson

$60.00 AUD

Category: Political

B.A. Santamaria was one of the most controversial Australians of our time. An ardent anti-Communist and devout Catholic, he was fiercely intelligent and a natural leader, polarising the community into loyal followers and committed opponents. In the 1940s Santamaria created the anti-Communist organisatio n 'The Movement'. In the 1950s he was a key figure in the tumultuous split of the Australian Labor Party. He subsequently enjoyed great influence as a public commentator on his television program Point of View and in his weekly column in The Australian. Santamaria had a strong social conscience and spent much of his time helping the underprivileged. Although he began as an advocate and champion of the Catholic Church, he spent much of his last decades opposing some of its activities. Published for the 100th anniversary of Santamaria's birth, Santamaria: A Most Unusual Man is an authoritative biography from Gerard Henderson, a close colleague until a disagreement saw the two men estranged and never reconciled. ...Show more