Collection: Adult Non Fiction - Society and Beliefs

The Utopians is the remarkable story of six experimental communities - Santiniketan-Sriniketan in India, Dartington Hall in England, Atarashiki Mura in Japan, the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in France, the Bruderhof in Germany and Trabuco College in America - that sprang up in...

Our world is full of fault lines - growing inequality in income and opportunity; systemic racism; health and economic crises from a global pandemic; mistrust of experts; the existential threat of climate change; deep threats to employment in a digital economy with robotics on the rise. These fund...

The Vanishing reveals the plight and possible extinction of Christian communities across Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine after 2,000 years in their historical homeland. Some of the countries that first nurtured and characterized Christianity - along the North African Coast, on the Euphr...

A cracking account of the rivalries and hatreds that split the Liberal Party, brought down Malcolm Turnbull and propelled Scott Morrison to power. They plotted. They schemed. They unleashed chaos. Australia lost two prime ministers in three years in a period of political bloodshed that took the n...

Through ancient art, evocative myth, exciting archaeological revelations and philosophical explorations Bettany Hughes shows why this immortal goddess endures through to the twenty-first century, and what her journey through time reveals about what matters to us as humans. Charting Venus's origin...

In 2012, Dr. Karen King, a star professor at the Harvard Divinity School, announced a blockbuster discovery at a scholarly conference just steps from the Vatican: She had found an ancient fragment of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene "my wife." The discovery made front-page news around ...

An inside look at sexual practices in medieval England. Were medieval women slaves to their husband's desires, jealously secured in a chastity belt in his absence? Was sex a duty or could it be a pleasure? Did a woman have a say about her own female sexuality, body, and who did or didn't get up c...

"In Vexed, James Mumford tackles the polarization of civil society across the democratic West, taking a fresh look at the existential questions and "hot button" issues that are an essential part of the politics of the Left and Right. In examining issues like the "right-to-die" movement and assist...

In 1841 in Port Phillip's new Supreme Court a young Redmond Barry argued that the evidence against two Tasmanian Aboriginals accused of murder was quite insufficient for conviction--to no avail. In January 1842 the first execution took place in front of 3000 spectators. Four decades later, the em...

For the first time this book brings together a comprehensive collection of biographical and political portraits of the Victorian premiers written by leading Australian historians and political scientists. The result is a compelling journey through a turbulent, occasionally anarchic, political lan...