Peacekeeping has been a significant part of Australia's overseas military engagement since the end of the Second World War. Yet it is part of our history that has been largely neglected until the 1990s, and even since then interest has been slow to develop. In the last sixty years, between 30,000 and 40,000 Australian military personnel and police have served in more than 50 peacekeeping missions in at least 27 different conflicts. This insightful, engaging and superbly-edited volume approaches Australian peacekeeping from four angles: its history, its agencies, some personal reflections, and its future. Contributors discuss the distinction between peacekeeping and war-fighting, the importance of peacekeeping in terms of public policy, the problems of multinational command, and the specialist contributions of the military, civilian police, mine-clearers, weapons inspectors and diplomats.

Consuming Pleasures traces the international and Australian history of licit and illicit drug use. It examines why we consume and what we consume, as well as the way in which consumption is regulated in the era of global free trade. It also looks at drug use from an Australian perspective, going back to our own opium-growing industry and the racist origins of our drug laws. In doing so it considers the paradox of contemporary white Australian identity: on the one hand an image of fit, sun-bronzed athletic types at home in the surf; on the other a nation of people whose per capita drug consumption often equals and more often than not surpasses that of most other nations.

Darwin was a battle Australia would rather forget. Yet the Japanese attack on 19 February 1942 was the first wartime assault on Australian soil. The Japanese struck with the same carrier-borne force that devastated Pearl Harbor only ten weeks earlier. There was a difference. More bombs fell on Darwin, more civilians were killed, and more ships were sunk.The raid led to the worst death toll from any event in Australia. The attackers bombed and strafed three hospitals, flattened shops, offices and the police barracks, shattered the Post Office and communications centre, wrecked Government House, and left the harbour and airfields burning and ruined. The people of Darwin abandoned their town, leaving it to looters, a few anti-aircraft batteries and a handful of dogged defenders with single-shot .303 rifles.Yet the story has remained in the shadows. Drawing on long-hidden documents and first-person accounts, Peter Grose tells what really happened and takes us into the lives of the people who were there. There was much to be proud of in Darwin that day: courage, mateship, determination and improvisation. But the dark side of the story involves looting, desertion and a calamitous failure of leadership. Australians ran away because they did not know what else to do. Absorbing, spirited and fast-paced, An Awkward Truth is a compelling and revealing story of the day war really came to Australia, and the motley bunch of soldiers and civilians who were left to defend the nation.

A simple, practical how-to guide to representing yourself in a non-criminal court or tribunal. It applies Australia-wide and covers all areas of non-criminal law, including debt, consumer claims, landlord and tenant issues, family law and appeals of government decisions. The book can be used by both the person bringing the action and someone defending an action brought against them. Although written for non-lawyers, it is also a useful resource for law students and new lawyers.

The book: In George Raper, midshipman on the Sirius of the First Fleet, talent and opportunity magnificently coalesced to produce what is now one of the National Library of Australia’s most treasured collections, the Ducie Collection of First Fleet Art. Raper’s enviable ability to observe and depict the captivating beauty of Australian birds and plants was heightened by his youthful enthusiasm for the novelty of what he witnessed. In telling Raper’s story, Groom adds an entirely new dimension to our understanding of the First Fleet experience and the life of a junior officer in the British Navy.

Judith Wright fought to save the Great Barrier Reef and campaigned for a Treaty with Aboriginal Australians. Patrick White led anti-nuclear peace marches and boycotted the Bicentenary. Helen Garner and Les Murray took a stand against political correctness. What drives our most outstanding literary figures to become activists and public intellectuals? How have their public interventions provoked us, and how have we responded? Can writers really change the world? Literary Activists examines these questions through the lives and actions of some of Australia's foremost writers. It offers fresh insights into the activism, public-intellectual careers and writings of Judith Wright, Patrick White, Oodgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal, Les Murray, Helen Garner, David Malouf and Tim Winton. It also explores the intimate connection between writers and activism and asks what this reveals about the future of Australian literature.