‘The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear’ Antonio GramsciIs New Zealand’s political settlement beginning to fray? And does this mean we’re entering the interregnum, that ambiguous moment between society-wide discontent and political change? In BWB’s latest book of essays, edited by Morgan Godfery, ten of New Zealand’s sharpest emerging thinkers gather to debate the ‘morbid symp...

In the wake of Covid-19, this timely edited collection emphasises the importance of nurturing and fortifying emotional, social and societal connections in contemporary Aotearoa. Recognising the pandemic’s isolating nature, this Text highlights the vital role of these connections for overall wellbeing and identifies areas where these bonds have weakened or vanished.By combining first-person narratives, journalism and research, Reconnecting Aotearoa explores the profound impact of strong con...

‘I began to pull the threads of my experience back together. Instead of divergent stories about public failure, private torment, and postnatal distress, I started telling myself a united story: the truth, or as close as I could get to it.’A Rhodes scholar and former Green MP, Holly Walker tells the story of how she became one of New Zealand’s youngest parliamentarians, how motherhood intervened, and how she found solace and solidarity in the writings of women. This short book makes...

In the first Quarterly Essay of 2006, Clive Hamilton throws out a challenge to Australia’s party of social democracy – to both its true believers and right-wing machine men. Will it be business-as-usual and creeping atrophy, or will the Labor Party find a new way of talking to individualistic, affluent Australia?According to Hamilton, Labor and the Left must acknowledge that the social democracy of old – with its strong unions, public ownership of assets and distinct social classes...

The book behind the major TV series - Secret City - screening on Netflix and Fox.A sticky scandal. A political jam. A prescient tale of creeping Chinese influence, stuttering US strategy and shaky Australian loyalty, by two veteran Canberra insiders.*the Marmalade Files are documents that allegedly exist within the bowels of Foreign Affairs & trade that have been around for a half century.When seasoned newshound Harry Dunkley is sli...

With an election looming and criticism of the ALP now a national pastime, Mark Latham considers the future for Labor. The nation has changed, but can the party?With wit and insight, Latham reveals an organisation top-heavy with factional bosses protecting their turf. At the same time Labor’s traditional working-class base has long been eroding. People who grew up in fibro shacks now live in double-storey affluence. Families once resigned to a lifetime of blue-colla...

Also published as Empty Cradles.In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, ri...

Where did we lose our idealism and why and at what cost?' In these conversations with people of a younger generation Mamphela Ramphele responds to the growing despair among young South Africans about the cracks that are appearing in our system of governance and threatening the idealism of the country that reinvented itself with the dawn of democracy in 1994. She shows incisively how successive post-apartheid ANC governments have betrayed the nation for a culture of impunity among those clo...

A leading environmental and political commentator draws a roadmap towards new politics—offering a rallying cry for a new vision of what a ‘good’ society can be—in this “dazzling command of science and relentless faith in people” (Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine)What does the good life—and the good society—look like in the 21st century?A toxic ideology of extreme competition and individualism has come to dominate our world...

'I need a wife'It’s a common joke among women juggling work and family. But it’s not actually a joke. Having a spouse who takes care of things at home is a Godsend on the domestic front. It’s a potent economic asset on the work front. And it’s an advantage enjoyed – even in our modern society – by vastly more men than women.Working women are in an advanced, sustained, and chronically under-reported state of wife drought, and there is no sign of rain.

A time of major upheaval now stands between young and old in New Zealand. In 'Ruth, Roger and Me', Andrew Dean explores the lives of the generation of young people brought up in the shadow of the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, those whom he calls ‘the children of the Mother of All Budgets’. Drawing together memoir, history and interviews, he explores the experiences of ‘discomfort’ and ‘disconnection’ in modern Aotearoa New Zealand.

Conventional politics is at a crossroads. Amid recession, depression, poverty, increasing violence and rising inequality, our current politics is exhausted and inadequate. In Red Tory, Phillip Blond argues that only a radical new political settlement can tackle the problems we face.Red Toryism combines economic egalitarianism with social conservatism, calling for an end to the monopolisation of society and the private sphere by the state and the market. Decrying the legacy of both ...