Showing results by publisher "Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd" in Politics & Social Sciences

At the age of 16, in a nationwide selection for royal consorts, Cixi was chosen as one of the emperor’s numerous concubines. When he died, in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a palace coup against the regents appointed by her husband and made herself the real ruler of China - behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her officials who were all male.

Once Were Warriors is Alan Duff's harrowing vision of his country's indigenous people two hundred years after the English conquest. In prose that is both raw and compelling, it tells the story of Beth Heke, a Maori woman struggling to keep her family from falling apart, despite the squalor and violence of the housing projects in which they live.

In 12 years, Michelle Lyons witnessed nearly 300 executions. First as a reporter and then as a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Michelle was a frequent visitor to Huntsville's Walls Unit, where she recorded and relayed the final moments of death row inmates' lives before they were put to death by the state. Michelle was in the death chamber as some of the United States' most notorious criminals, including serial killers, child murderers and rapists, spoke their last words on earth, while a cocktail of lethal drugs surged through their veins.

Once upon a time, the world was neatly divided into prosperous and backward economies. Babies were plentiful, workers outnumbered retirees and people aspiring towards the middle class yearned to own homes and cars. Companies didn't need to see any further than Europe and the US to do well. Printed money was legal tender for all debts. We grew up learning how to 'play the game', and we expected the rules to remain the same as we took our first job, started a family, saw our children grow up and went into retirement with our finances secure. That world - and those rules - are over.

In The Candy Machine, Tom Feiling travels the trade routes from Colombia via Miami, Kingston and Tijuana to London and New York. He meets Medellín hitmen, US kingpins, Brazilian traffickers and talks to soldiers and narcotics officers who fight the gangs and cartels. He traces cocaine's progress from legal ‘pick-me-up' to luxury product to global commodity, looks at legalization programmes in countries like Switzerland, and shows how America's anti-drugs crusade is actually increasing demand.

For more than 25 years Noriko Morishita has studied and practised the intricate rules of the famous Japanese Tea Ceremony, trying to master its complexities in order to find inner peace. In this vivid account of her experience of the universal trials and triumphs of adulthood, Morishita connects the core tenets of this ancient art with leading a fulfilling life, showing how we too may use mindfulness to achieve happiness. 

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption.

Friedrich Nietzsche's work blasted the foundation of Western thinking. The death of God, the Übermensch and the slave morality permeate our culture, high and low, and yet he is one of history's most misunderstood philosophers. Nietzsche himself thought that all philosophy was autobiographical, and in this myth-shattering book Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of a brilliant, eccentric and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work.

Packed with fascinating facts and insight, this book will fuel dinner party debate and provide listeners with the science and politics behind the world’s most controversial resource. Without oil, there would be no globalisation, no plastic, little transport, and a global political landscape that few would recognise. It is the lifeblood of the modern world, and humanity’s dependence upon it looks set to continue for decades to come. In this captivating audiobook, Vaclav Smil explains all matters related to "black gold", from its discovery in the earth, right through to the political maelstrom that surrounds it today.

In the autumn of 1992, two young women students at Melbourne University went to the police claiming that they had been indecently assaulted at a party. The man they accused was the head of their co-ed residential college. The controversial book that Helen Garner wrote about the resulting Ormond College sexual harassment case caused a social media storm. Prominent feminists were outraged at Garner's perceived support for the man involved, but many saw her approach a necessary and much welcome nuance towards the power dynamic between men and women. 

As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. Later in life, in war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she travelled to Somalia – "the most dangerous place on earth."

In ancient Greece or Rome, philosophers were seen as natural authorities on the most pressing questions. However, since then, the idea of finding wisdom from philosophy has come to seem bizarre. Enter a university department today and ask to study wisdom, and you will politely but firmly be shown the door. The Consolations of Philosophy sets out to refute the notion that good philosophy must be irrelevant and gathers together six great philosophers who were convinced of the power of philosophical insight to work a practical effect on our lives.

Elizabeth Packard was an ordinary Victorian housewife. That was, until the first Woman’s Rights Convention was held in 1848, inspiring Elizabeth and many other women to dream of greater freedoms. She began voicing her opinions on politics and religion – opinions that her husband did not share. Incensed and deeply threatened by her growing independence, he had her declared ‘slightly insane’ and committed to an asylum.

John Howard is the second longest serving prime minister in Australia's history. His tenure lasted almost 12 years. His autobiography is essential reading for those interested in contemporary politics, in Australian history or the craft of practical politics. John Howard spent decades under media scrutiny, and while his credentials as a political leader, devoted family man and sports tragic are beyond dispute, in this autobiography he reveals much more about himself.

We all worry about what others think of us. We all long to succeed and fear failure. We all suffer - to a greater or lesser degree, usually privately and with embarrassment - from status anxiety. For the first time, Alain de Botton gives a name to his universal condition and sets out to investigate both its origins and possible solutions. He looks at history, philosophy, economics, art, and politics - and reveals the many ingenious ways that great minds have overcome their worries. The result is a book that is not only entertaining and thought-provoking - but genuinely wise and helpful as well.

Trend forecaster James Wallman reveals the world's growing sense of stuffocation – and how we can move away from it. We have more stuff than we could ever need - clothes we don't wear, kit we don't use, and toys we don't play with. But having everything we thought we wanted isn't making us happier. It's bad for the planet. It's cluttering up our homes. It's making us feel 'stuffocated' and stressed - and it might even be killing us.

On March 7, 2004, former SAS soldier and mercenary Simon Mann prepared to take off from Harare International Airport. His destination was Equatorial Guinea; his intention was to remove one of the most brutal dictators in Africa in a privately organized coup d’état. The plot had the tacit approval of Western intelligence agencies, and Mann had already planned, overseen, and won two wars in Angola and Sierra Leone. So why did it go so wrong?

Aside from love, few actvities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so.

Paul Dolan shows us how to find pleasure and purpose in everyday life. As a professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics, Dolan conducts original research into the measurement of happiness and its causes and consequences, including the effects of our behaviour. Here he creates a new outlook on the pursuit of happiness - it's not just how you feel, it's how you act. Happiness by Design shows that being happier requires us to actively redesign our immediate environment.

Set between Los Angeles, San Francisco and London, Gay Bar takes us on a time-traveling, transatlantic bar hop through pulsing nightclubs, after-work dives, hardcore leather bars, gay cafes and saunas, asking what these places meant to their original clientele, what they meant to the author as a younger man and what they mean now.