Join us for a discussion between Lizzie O'Shea and John Postill - two authors of newly released books covering issues surrounding activism and digital technology. Together they will discuss what history can tell us about both the potentials and pitfalls of digital technology in the struggle for a better world. Copies of both books will be available for purchase.

Lizzie O'Shea is author of Future Histories: What Ada Lovelace, Tom Paine, and the Paris Commune Teach Us about Digital Technology published by Verso Books

John Postill is author of The Rise of Nerd Politics Digital Activism and Political Change, published by Pluto Press.

The New International Book Shop will host a book talk by Vannak Prum, who is on a tour of Australia to talk about his book:The Dead Eye and the Deep Blue Sea: A graphic memoir of modern slavery

About the Book: 

Too poor to pay his pregnant wife's hospital bill, Prum Vannak left his village in Cambodia to seek work in Thailand. Men who appeared to be employers on a fishing vessel promised to return him home after a few months at sea, but instead Vannak was hostaged on the vessel for four years of hard labor. Amid violence and cruelty, including frequent beheadings, Vannak survived in large part by honing his ability to tattoo his shipmates--a skill he possessed despite never having been trained in art or having had access to art supplies while growing up.  

As a means of escape, Vannak and a friend jumped into the water and, hugging empty fish-sauce containers because they could not swim, reached Malaysia in the dark of night. At the harbor, they were taken into a police station . . . then sold by their rescuers to work on a plantation. Vannak was kept as a laborer for over a year before an NGO could secure his return to Cambodia. After five years away, Vannak was finally reunited with his family. 

Vannak documented his ordeal in raw, colorful, detailed illustrations, first created because he believed that without them no one would believe his story. Indeed, very little is known about what happens to the men and boys who end up working on fishing boats in Asia, and these images are some of the first records. In regional Cambodia, many families still wait for men who have disappeared across the Thai border, and out to sea. The Dead Eye and the Deep Blue Sea is a testament to the lives of these many fishermen who are trapped on boats in the Indian Ocean.

https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-dead-eye-and-the-deep-blue-sea-9781609806026book  

On the day of the annual Big Red Bookfair, the New International Bookshop Presents:

A conversation between Dominic Kelly and Guy Rundle about Dominic's new book: Political Troglodytes and Economic Lunatics: The Hard Right in Australia

In the mid-1980s, Ray Evans and his boss at Western Mining Corporation, Hugh Morgan, became the pioneers of a new form of political activism. Morgan and Evans set up four small but potent organisations, intending to transform public thinking on industrial relations, the Constitution, Indigenous affairs and climate change.

Professor Raewyn Connell will give a talk about her new book: The Good University.

Higher education is booming as an industry, but is in serious trouble internally. Universities are increasingly tense and insecure, as fees rise and top managers' salaries rocket up, while casualization and outsourcing spread in the workforce. Australia's public universities have been privatised through the back door, re-made on a corporate model. Raewyn Connell analyses our experience from a union point of view, asking how we can move from a defensive position to a positive agenda for democratic universities. Her new book The Good University looks at the nature of university work, the global economy of knowledge, the social role of universities, the managerial revolution, the fascinating story of alternative universities, and possible futures. All welcome for an intense discussion!

Raewyn Connell is Professor Emerita, University of Sydney, and Life Member of the National Tertiary Education Union. She has taught in several countries and is a widely-cited researcher. Her recent books include The Good University; Southern Theory; and Gender in World Perspective (with Rebecca Pearse). Her work has been translated into nineteen languages. Raewyn has been active in the labour movement, the peace movement, and work for gender equality. Details at www.raewynconnell.net and Twitter @raewynconnell.

The New International Book Shop Presents a talk by Sarah Maddison, Professor of Politics at the University of Melbourne, who will talk about her new book: The Colonial Fantasy Why white Australia can't solve black problems.

The book argues that white Australia can't solve black problems because white Australia is the problem. Australia has resisted the one thing that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want, and the one thing that has made a difference elsewhere: the ability to control and manage their own lives. It calls for a radical restructuring of the relationship between black and white Australia.

Discount for NIBS membership is available. NIBS membership can be purchased at nibs.org.au/membership and also comes with 10% discount off all purchases at the bookshop.

As a former Australian diplomat with ten years’ experience writing political analysis for government, Anthony Skews is well placed to provide a comprehensive introduction to left-wing thought for the contemporary ‘post-fact’, politically polarised era. He will give a talk about his new book: Politics for the New Dark Age: Staying positive amidst disorder

Our societies are growing more unequal, more hierarchical, meaner and less human every year.

Voters appalled by the direction of current politics respond to leaders that articulate a cohesive and genuine progressivism. This book provides the framework for politicians and activists to deliver that vision, organised around the themes of cooperative solutions to social problem-solving and a social contract centred on rights and the equal dignity of all people.

Drawing on contemporary Australian examples, Politics for the New Dark Age: Staying positive amidst disorder shows how the partisan divide recurs in policy debates from civil rights, to inequality, to economic growth, to the environment and foreign policy. It argues that we should recommit to fighting for our democracy in order to manage these social differences and channel them into opportunities for social progress.

Above all, this book argues for an alternative future.

About the author: Anthony Skews is a former Australian diplomat with ten years’ experience writing political analysis for government. A graduate of the University of Melbourne and Australian National University, he is currently writing his dissertation in political science at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. With a background in science, international law and political theory, he brings together a unique perspective on modern social and political life informed by his personal commitment to social and economic justice.

Pre Book your ticket here

Terry Leahy will give a talk about his recently released book Food Security for Rural Africa: Feeding the Farmers First.

At least fifty years of projects aimed at the rural poor in Africa have had very little impact. Up to half of the children of these countries are still suffering from stunting and malnutrition. Soil degradation and poor crop yields are ubiquitous. Projects are almost always aimed at helping local people to solve their problems by growing for the market. In some countries, projects link poor villagers into cooperatives to produce a commercial output. In other countries, projects target more competent entrepreneurial villagers. Almost all these projects fail after several years. Even those that are successful make few inroads into the problems.

The slogan 'feeding the farmers first' is particularly applicable to much of Africa. Customary tenure land ownership means that most of the rural poor have access to some land to grow food. Household food security can come from household production. Focusing on particular people and projects, the book gives a sociological analysis of why this is so difficult to manage, and how the problems can be managed. This book challenges the models promoted by academics in the field of development studies and argues against the strategies adopted by most donor organizations and government bodies. It explains why commercial projects have been so ubiquitous even though they rarely work. It gives practical tips on how to set up villages and farms to achieve sustainable solutions that also provide plenty of nutritious food. The book is written to be accessible and engaging. For anyone planning to work in the rural areas of Africa, this book is required reading.

Pre Book your ticket here

Dr Steven Hail, will give a talk explaining why unemployment and inequality are political choices and not economic necessities. The Australia's government, he argues, could deliver equitable and inclusive full employment this year if it chose to do so. That no major political party has so far made this promise is largely a consequence of a widely held misunderstanding of the functions of government spending and taxation.

Steven Hail is a Research Scholar at the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity and a Lecturer in the School of Economics at the University of Adelaide. He has recently been a spokesperson for GetUp Australia and a consultant for the US campaign group, Real Progressives.

Pre Book your ticket here

Clinton Fernandes will discuss the background to the prosecution of Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery and his client, a former officer of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) known only as Witness K. The charges relate to revelations that the Australian government spied on the government of East Timor during oil and gas treaty negotiations in 2004.

Clinton’s new book, Island Off The Coast Of Asia, covers Australia’s foreign relations and discusses the espionage operation against East Timor. The book will be available for sale on the night.

Pre book your ticket here

Social theorist, political economist and cultural critic, Boris Frankel, will give a talk about his new book: Fictions of Sustainability: The Politics of Growth and Post-Capitalist Futures

This book discusses the growing political contest between conservative and reform-orientated defenders of capitalist societies on the one side, and the policies and imagined futures advanced by green and socialist critics on the other. All are subjected to detailed scrutiny. Is ‘green growth’ innovation able to resolve deep-seated global inequality and other socio-political and environmental problems? Can new technology sustain capitalist production and high consumption by decoupling economic growth from the limits of nature? How feasible or utopian are ‘post-work’ or post-capitalist societies based on full automation and a universal basic income? What are the political economic strengths and weaknesses of green post-growth or degrowth proposals? These and other crucial issues are analysed by the author in a challenging and thought-provoking book covering an extensive range of policy reports, social theories, environmental proposals and political practices across the world.

Join us for the Melbourne Launch of: Wrong Way: How Privatisation and Economic Reform Backfired

Jeff Sparrow will officially launch the book followed by comments from the two editors Damien Cahill and Phillip Toner

In Wrong Way, Australia’s leading economists and public intellectuals do a cost-benefit analysis of the key economic reforms, including child care, aged care, housing, banking, prisons, universities and the NBN. Have these reforms for the Australian community and its economy been worthwhile? Have they given us a better society, as promised?

Please note the NEW DATE for this second screening - now on Saturday November 10th.

Due to popular demand NIBS will host a second screening of the new documentary by Antony Loewenstein & Thor NeureiterDISASTER CAPITALISM

The film reveals the underbelly of the global aid and investment industry. It’s a complex web of interests that spans the earth from powerful nations and multinational corporations to tribal and village leaders. This documentary offers unique insights into a multi-billion dollar world by investigating how aid dollars are spent.

Best-selling journalist and author Antony Loewenstein joins award-winning filmmaker Thor Neureiter on a six-year investigation into this world and the ramifications of disaster capitalism in Afghanistan, Haiti and Papua New Guinea. There are ideological, economic, political and corporate connections between all three states.

Entry: $10 

NIBS will host a screening of the new documentary by Antony Loewenstein & Thor NeureiterDISASTER CAPITALISM

The film reveals the underbelly of the global aid and investment industry. It’s a complex web of interests that spans the earth from powerful nations and multinational corporations to tribal and village leaders. This documentary offers unique insights into a multi-billion dollar world by investigating how aid dollars are spent.

Best-selling journalist and author Antony Loewenstein joins award-winning filmmaker Thor Neureiter on a six-year investigation into this world and the ramifications of disaster capitalism in Afghanistan, Haiti and Papua New Guinea. There are ideological, economic, political and corporate connections between all three states.

Told through Loewenstein's eyes and with compelling local characters, we weave them together to show viewers the dark side of Western aid. How did we get here? How can it change and who is leading it? What role and responsibility lies with Western governments? As the long-termjourney unfolds, DISASTER CAPITALISM will provide unique insight into one of the most challenging issues of our age.

Journalist and author Jeff Sparrow will be in conversation with Roz Ward (socialist and co-founder of the Safer Schools Co-alition) to discuss his new book: Trigger Warnings: Political correctness and the rise of the right. 

If Trump – and others like Trump – can turn hostility to PC into a winning slogan, how should the left respond? In the face of a vicious new bigotry, should progressives double-down on identity politics and gender theory? Must they abandon political correctness and everything associated with it to reconnect with a working class they’ve alienated? Or is there, perhaps, another way entirely?

In Trigger Warnings, Jeff Sparrow excavates the development of a powerful new vocabulary against progressive causes. From the Days of Rage to Gamergate, from the New Left to the alt-right, he traces changing attitudes to democracy and trauma, symbolism and liberation, in an exhilarating history of ideas and movements. Challenging progressive and conservative orthodoxies alike, Trigger Warnings is a bracing polemic and a persuasive case for a new kind of politics.

Update: you can see a youtube screening of this event at link!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_juBjfeZfho

Quetin Beresford will give a talk about his new book: Adani and the War over Coal

Coal is the political, economic and cultural totem for debates about climate change. Quentin Bereford’s searing book takes apart the pivotal role of the Adani Carmichael mine and the conflict over coal in Australia. Looking into the social, environmental and economic elements of this big fight, this book tells the full story of one of the lightning rod issues of our time.

In this presentation activist and author Jeff Rickertt will attempt to make sense of Australian pre-Bolshevik socialism by examining the ideological evolution of pioneering radical, Ernest Henry Lane. Drawing from his recent biography of Lane, Jeff will make the case that Lane can be regarded as a bridge linking pre-modern with social democratic and Marxian traditions of socialism in Australia, and that he and his comrades, for all their political inconsistencies, blazed the track that the CPA would eventually make its own.

Jeff Rickertt is a labour activist and historian from the Deep North. He publishes and lectures extensively on the history of Queensland trade unionism and radical politics. Jeff’s current project is a history of Queensland meatworkers and their union, the AMIEU. His book The Conscientious Communist: Ernie Lane and the Rise of Australian Socialism was published by Australian Scholarly Publishing in 2016.

Technological change might seem beyond the reach of politics. But the streamlined utopias envisioned by Silicon Valley tech giants conceal power dynamics operating in the here and now. From automation to cryptocurrencies, smart cities and beyond, the digital age presents enormous opportunities for addressing some of the greatest problems we face, such as climate change, wealth inequality and the democracy deficit. But huge challenges are also looming, especially if we leave corporations and governments in charge of designing the future. How can we effect change in such a complex world? 



Lizzie O'Shea is lawyer, broadcaster and writer. She has mainly worked in human rights. She is publishing a book next year with Verso about the politics and history of digital technology.

Dr David McNight will give a talk about his new book - Populism Now: The Case For Progressive Populism

Populism can be a dirty word. Brexit and the election of Donald Trump have certainly given it a bad name. But rather than associating it with demagoguery and exclusion, might we better see it as a backlash against free market globalisation? Might it be harnessed as a positive force able to thrive in difficult times?


This timely and persuasive book exposes the failures of globalisation: greedy banks, predatory privatisation, corporate tax avoidance and a growing underclass of temporary overseas workers. David McKnight argues that a progressive populism could address the genuine economic grievances of everyday people, without scapegoating immigrants or ethnic minorities. In fact, a progressive form of populism may be the best way of defeating the racist backlash of right-wing populism. It may also be the best way to save the planet.

In a world where the super-rich get richer, one that is charged with hate-filled language as people look for someone else to blame, the case for progressive populism must be heard. This important book helps give it voice.

In Conjunction with the Search Foundation, NIBS will host a lecture by Canadian Harry Glasbeek, Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University.

In his new book (part of a triology) Capitalism: A Crime Story, Harry makes the case that if the rules and doctrines of liberal law were applied as they should be according to law’s own pronouncements and methodology, corporate capitalism would be much harder to defend.

How many of us are on first name terms with a robot? Who is not time-poor? These questions sum up conflicting prospects for life under the rule of capital into the twenty-first century. Automation threatens paid employment while we are being subjected to the prolongation of intensified, albeit oft fragmented working periods within the same day. This contrary is more than a paradox. Its transient manifestations have sustained accumulation processes throughout capitalism’s 230-year existence.

The talk will laud Luddites for acting on their recognition that machines are weapons to intensify exploitation and destroy community. The effects of technologies are determined by social relations of production, not the other way around. Vulgar Marxians get excited about UBER and driverless vehicles without attending to the composition of capital. The dynamics for automation will be examined through the interlocking of active and reserve armies of labour. The discussion will wind towards BrainComputerInterface in the exercise of the state power and warfare.

Humphrey McQueen is a Canberra-based historian and activist at work on yet one more Marxist account of the origins of capitalism, to be titled The revolution inside capital. For access to a selection of his writings over fifty years, see www.surplusvalue.org.au His $2 pamphlet, 150 Years Young, on the sesqui-centenary of Capital is in stock.

Pre-Book tickets at link below 

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-robots-are-coming-what-would-marx-say-what-can-we-do-tickets-44826266570

Ariel Salleh will give a talk about Eco-Feminism to mark the re-release of her classic title Eco-Feminism as Politics. Following the talk feminist philosopher Janna Thompson and environmental sociologist Terry Leahy will give some reflections. 

Originally published in 1997, it argues that ecofeminism reaches beyond contemporary social movement ideologies and practices, by prefiguring a political synthesis of four-revolutions- in-one: ecology is feminism is socialism is postcolonial struggle.

Entry - $5 or $3 for NIBS Members

There is plenty of debate about what the Greens should be on about. We have an awesome panel to discuss the question!
Speakers:
Hon Adam Bandt MP - Federal Member for Melbourne
Dennis Altman - Professorial Fellow in the Institute for Human Security at Latrobe
Verity Burgmann - Professor of Politics in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University.
Kathleen Maltzahn - Victorian Greens Candidate for Richmond

Entry $5 - Pre-Book at link.

INDONESIA TODAY: Stable Discontent and the Challenges for Radical Politics.

It is now almost 20 years since the fall of Suharto in the face of a student led peoples power movement. Indonesia has had its first president - Joko Widodo - not directly connected to the Suharto era New Order. Widodo has continued the economic strategy of previous governments, but with less cronyism and an accelerated program of deregulation and attempted infrastructure construction. But still in 2017, there are increasing complaints of a drop in the real incomes of the mass of the people and an increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of tiny elite.

In the last ten years, there has been a growth of trade union activity and of embryonic progressive groups. There are also signs of deepening question of the status quo by youth.

But will the discontent just stabilise where it is now?
Will the progressive groups evolve a larger role?

Indonesian expert Max Lane will discuss these issues. 

Pre-Booking at link - $5 (plus booking fee) 

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/indonesia-today-discontent-the-challenge-of-radical-politics-tickets-42516958367

To mark the release of the new edited volume -Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW - two expert contributors to the volume, Verity Burgmann and Paula de Angelis, will discuss various aspects of the Industrial Workers of the World's history and the lessons and inspiration they can provide for us today. 

Admission: $5 (plus booking fee).

Pre-Book Online here: