A new year, a slew of new books, and after the nightmare of 2020 you can believe there are roughly a million on the pandemic alone.
Below are some of the most important releases of 2021 for Australian public servants, organised across five categories — COVID-19; climate change and natural disasters; foreign relations, national security and terrorism; domestic politics; and Indigenous, socio-economic and other institutional affairs — and with links provided where possible.
COVID-19
- Reset: Restoring Australia after the Pandemic Recession, Ross Garnaut (February, La Trobe University Press)
- The Ruby Princess, Duncan McNab (February, Macmillan)
- Renewal, Sophie Cousins (February, Text)
- People Count: Contact-Tracing Apps and Public Health, Susan Landau (February, MIT Press)
- How to Make a Vaccine: An Essential Guide for COVID-19 and Beyond, John Rhodes (March, University of Chicago Press)
- The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread – and Why They Stop, Adam Kucharski (March, Allen & Unwin)
- The Rome Plague Diaries: Lockdown Life in the Eternal City, Matthew Kneale (March, A&U)
- Coronavirus Politics: The Comparative Politics and Policy of COVID-19, eds Scott L. Greer, Elizabeth J. King, André Peralta-Santos and Elize Massard da Fonseca (April, University of Michigan Press)
- Criminal Contagion: How Mafias, Gangsters and Scammers Profit From a Pandemic, Tuesday Reitano and Mark Shaw (April, Hurst)
- The Loving Country, Hugh McKay (May, Allen & Unwin)
- American Health Crisis: One Hundred Years of Panic, Planning, and Politics, Martin Halliwell (May, University of California)
- So You Think You Know What’s Good for You, Norman Swan (July, Hachette).
- Viruses, Pandemics, and Immunity, Arup K. Chakraborty and Andrey S. Shaw (September, MIT Press)
- COVID-19 and World Order: The Future of Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation, eds Hal Brands and Francis J. Gavin (September, Johns Hopkins University Press)
- American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19, John Fabian Witt (October, Yale University Press)
Climate change and environmental disasters
- The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet, Michael E. Mann (January, PublicAffairs)
- Emerging Governance of a Green Economy: Cases of European Implementation, eds Jenny M. Fairbrass and Nicholas Vasilakos (January, Cambridge University Press)
- How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need, Bill Gates (February, Allen Lane)
- Dead in the Water: A Very Angry Book about our Greatest Environmental Catastrophe… the Death of the Murray-Darling Basin, Richard Beasley (February, Allen & Unwin)
- Water Conservation in the Era of Global Climate Change, eds Binota Thokchom, Pengpeng Qiu et al (February, Elsevier)
- Getting to Zero: Australia’s Energy Transition, Alan Finkel (March, Quarterly Essay)
- Flames of Extinction: The Race to Save Australia’s Threatened Wildlife, John Pickrell (March, NewSouth);
- Survival Governance: Energy and Climate in the Chinese Century, Peter Drahos (March, Oxford University Press)
- The Economisation of Climate Change: How the G20, the OECD and the IMF Address Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Climate Finance, Jakob Skovgaard (March, Cambridge University Press)
- The Human Scaffold: How Not to Design Your Way Out of a Climate Crisis, Josh Berson (March, University of California Press)
- Pathologies of Climate Governance: International Relations, National Politics and Human Nature, Paul G. Harris (March, Cambridge University Press)
- Beyond Climate Grief: A Journey of Love, Snow, Fire and an Enchanted Beer Can, Jonica Newby (February, NewSouth)
- Beyond Barbarism: A Manifesto for a Planet on Fire, Mathew Lawrence and Laurie Laybourn (April, Verso)
- Go Big: How To Fix Our World, Ed Miliband (June, Vintage Publishing)
- The Ferals that Ate Australia, Guy Hull (July, Harper Collins)
- White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism, Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective (May, Verso)
- Adapting to Climate Change: Markets and the Management of an Uncertain Future, Matthew E. Kahn (June, Yale University Press)
- Firestorm, Greg Mullins (September, Viking Australia)
Foreign relations, national security and terrorism
- Antipodean China: Reflections on Literary Exchange, eds Nicholas Jose and Benjamin Madden (February, Giramondo)
- Greetings from Trumpland: How an Unprecedented Presidency Changed Everything, Zoe Daniel and Roscoe Whalan (February, ABC Books)
- Coming of Age in the War on Terror, Randa Abdel-Fattah (February, New South)
- White Russians, Red Peril: A Cold War History of Migration to Australia, Sheila Fitzpatrick (March, La Trobe)
- Red Zone: China’s Challenge and Australia’s Future, Peter Hartcher (April, Black Inc)
- With The Falling Of The Dusk, Stan Grant (April, Harper Collins)
- The Beijing Bureau: 25 correspondents reporting China’s rise, eds Trevor Watson and Melissa Roberts (May, Hardie Grant)
- The Life of a Spy: An Education in Truth, Lies and Power, Rod Barton, (May, Black Inc)
- China Panic: Australia’s Alternative to Paranoia and Pandering, David Brophy (June, La Trobe)
- The Nordic Edge: Policy Possibilities for Australia, Andrew Scott, Rod Campbell (July, Melbourne University Press)
Domestic politics
- A Century of Compulsory Voting in Australia: Genesis, Impact and Future, eds Matteo Bonotti and Paul Strangio (February, Palgrave Macmillan)
- On Charlatans, Chris Bowen (February, Hachette)
- A Liberal State: How Australians Chose Liberalism over Socialism 1926–1966, David Kemp (February, MUP).
- Good for the Soul: John Curtin’s Life with Poetry, Toby Davidson (UWA Publishing)
- How Good is Scott Morrison?, Peter van Onselen and Wayne Errington (March, Hachette)
- Sex, Lies and Question Time: The successes and struggles of women in Australia’s parliament, Kate Ellis (April, Hardie Grant)
- Political Parties and Campaigning in Australia: Data, Digital and Field, Glenn Kefford (April, Palgrave Macmillan)
- Full Circle: Power, Hope and the Return of Nature, Scott Ludlam (May, Black Inc.)
- Gough And Me, Christine Skyes (May, Ventura)
- Gender Politics: Navigating Political Leadership in Australia, Zareh Ghazarian and Katrina Lee-Koo (May, NewSouth)
- The Forgotten Menzies: The World Picture of Australia’s Longest-Serving Prime Minister, Stephen Chavura and Greg Melleuish (May, MUP)
- Jacinda Ardern: Leading with Empathy, Supriya Vani and Carl A. Harte (May, Hardie Grant)
- The Accidental PM, Annika Smethurst (June, Hachette)
- The Brilliant Boy, Gideon Haigh (July, Simon & Schuster)
- Untitled memoir, Mehreen Faruqi (July, Allen & Unwin)
- Power Play, Julia Banks (August, Hardie Grant)
- Scott Morrison: A Political Portrait, Sean Kelly (October, Black Inc)
Indigenous, socio-economic, and other institutional affairs
- Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement, Henry Reynolds (February, NewSouth)
- Growing Up Disabled in Australia, ed Carly Findlay (February, Black Inc)
- Open Minds: Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech in Australia, Carolyn Evans and Adrienne Stone (March, La Trobe)
- Return to Uluru, Mark McKenna (March, Black Inc)
- ‘In The National Interest‘ series (March-April, Monash University Publishing)
- The Digital Revolution: A Survival Guide, Simon Wilkie
- Unmasked: The Politics of Pandemics, Bill Bowtell
- Leadership, Don Russell
- Power & Consent, Rachel Doyle
- A Decade of Drift, Martin Parkinson
- Challenging Politics, Scott Ryan
- The Case for Courage, Kevin Rudd
- Universities & the Public Interest, Margaret Gardner
- The Private Rental Sector in Australia: Living with Uncertainty, Alan Morris, Kath Hulse and Hal Pawson (April, Springer Singapore)
- Cop This Lot: Rewriting the Myth of a Classless Nation, ed Tobias McCorkell (May, Scribe)
- Everything You Need to Know about the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Megan Davis and George Williams (June, NewSouth)
- The Boys’ Club, Mick Warner (June, Hachette)
- Black Convict, Santilla Chingaipe (July, Picador)
- Rewrite the Story, Emma Alberici (September, Hardie Grant)
- Sly Fox, Paddy Manning (November, Black Inc)
- Brains, Bri Lee (late 2021, Allen & Unwin)
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Et veniam alterum nec. Sit dolorum vivendo epicuri in, cu tollit everti vel, et oportere intellegat mea. Ei mei hinc nullam. Ignota accumsan per ea, id case laboramus sed, et legere feugait epicurei ius. Ne qui soleat consulatu.
In etiam utamur feugiat vis, pri autem maiestatis in. Ex ceteros gloriatur mediocritatem per, sit minim accumsan in. Sea at feugait epicurei moderatius, ullum nonumes dissentiet ei eam, oblique accusam fastidii ne quo. Quot patrioque ad quo, at dicant regione mel.Nusquam corpora mea in, delicata imperdiet et mea. Eam prima rationibus comprehensam cu. Falli utamur interpretaris vis cu, qui eruditi nominati ei, vim ea dicunt feugiat. Et reque docendi nec. Usu no soluta accumsan, regione vulputate vel eu. Ad cum cibo nominati delicatissimi, quis singulis lobortis in est.
Et veniam alterum nec. Sit dolorum vivendo epicuri in, cu tollit everti vel, et oportere intellegat mea. Ei mei hinc nullam. Ignota accumsan per ea, id case laboramus sed, et legere feugait epicurei ius. Ne qui soleat consulatu.
Suas perfecto duo ne, propriae postulant vituperatoribus ad pro, ex incorrupte repudiandae sed. Ut aliquid dolores ocurreret pro. Ut vel solum mollis. Qui ei vide dicunt, duo tollit omnium ei. Sea ullum delicata urbanitas ei, lobortis disputationi duo ut. Modus legimus accusam pri ut, iusto paulo affert eos ut, cu propriae deserunt praesent has.