In the 1980s and 90s, amid an explosion in international money flows, a handful of people saw a new financial future and staked claims in it, triggering a battle to control the world's money markets. With phenomenal profits at stake, the conflict would go all the way to the United States Supreme Court, in a case that involved not just the largest Wall Street banks against each other, but also the tech behemoths of Silicon Valley. The extraordinary story of Alice Corporation, a company crea...

Libraries are filled with magic. From the Bodleian, the Folger and the Smithsonian to the fabled libraries of middle earth, Umberto Eco’s mediaeval library labyrinth and libraries dreamed up by John Donne, Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Stuart Kells explores the bookish places, real and fictitious, that continue to capture our imaginations.The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders is a fascinating and engaging exploration of libraries as places of beauty and wonder. It...

The remote Kimberley region of Western Australia has a rich history and unique geography. In the 1960s De Beers, the world's largest diamond company, sent gem-hunters to the area but they came away empty-handed. It was a vast region to survey, and they'd overlooked something vital. A few years later, a team of Australian geologists with a tiny budget searched for even tinier mineral clues. Those clues led them to the earth's largest diamond deposit and the world's richest source of rare pi...

What does successful public policy look like, and how has it been achieved in Australia? What strategies are needed to overcome petty partisanship and narrow self-interest? And who gets to decide what a 'better Australia' even looks like? In A Better Australia John Brumby, Scott Hamilton and Stuart Kells examine policy design, implementation and reform, and show what can be achieved when engagement is sincere and intent clear. Leading policymakers and political insiders - Julia Gi...

Australia's oldest university press is also one of our best known and most trusted publishers. Founded in 1921 as a bookshop for students at the University of Melbourne, Melbourne University Press was soon publishing important works that contained the best of national scholarship. Landmark MUP books and series include The Australian Dictionary of Biography, Manning Clark's History of Australia, The Encyclopaedia of New Guinea and the journal Meanjin. The...

What was behind the wall and the wire? The local people knew . . . fine courtyards . . . an old swimming pool . . . dilapidated tennis courts and a remnant garden, now wild and sprawling. The Abbotsford Convent was this haunted place, left to languish for years after the last of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd had gone. In its prime it had been a school, a refuge, a retreat, a workhouse and a prison-the single largest charitable institution in the southern hemisphere. In...

Millions of words of scholarship have been expended on the world’s most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare’s library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions, palaces and libraries; in riverbeds, sheep pens and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the bard’s manuscripts, books or letters has ever been found.The search for Shakespeare’s library is much more than a treasure hun...

The Murray–Darling Basin is Australia’s greatest environmental asset. The story of water in Australia is written into its ancient rivers, creeks and wetlands. It’s home to more than forty Indigenous nations, and it covers an area bigger than France. It is the beating heart of our regions and sustains 40 per cent of our food production.In 2012 Australia signed up to the Murray–Darling Basin Plan, a scheme designed to create a market for the Basin’s water and to safeguard the environ...

Across the globe, the so-called Big Four accounting and audit firms – Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG – are massively influential. Together, they earn more than US$100 billion annually and employ almost one million people. In many profound ways, they have changed how we work, how we manage, how we invest and how we are governed.Stretching back centuries, their history is a fascinating story of wealth, power and luck. But today, the Big Four face an uncerta...

With staffs that are collectively larger than the Russian army, the Big Four accounting firms are a keystone in global finance --but do they really provide stability and safety? Leading scholar Ian Gow and award-winning writer (and former KPMG director) Stuart Kells warn that a house of cards may be about to fall.Across the globe, the so-called Big Four accounting and audit firms - Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG - are massively influential. Together, they...

Richard Lane was one of three brothers who founded Penguin Books in 1935.But like all great stories, his life didn’t start there.After sailing to Adelaide in 1922, Richard began work as a boy migrant – a farm apprentice living in rural South Australia as part of the ‘Barwell Boys’ scheme.In Australia, he deepened his appreciation for literature, and understood how important it was to make good writing widely accessible.Richard’s diaries – th...

Phizzwhizzing new cover look and branding for the World's NUMBER ONE Storyteller!BOY, Roald Dahl's bestselling autobiography, is full of hilarious anecdotes about his childhood and school days, illustrated by Quentin Blake.As a boy, all sorts of unusual things happened to Roald Dahl. There was the time he and four school friends got their revenge on beastly Mrs Prachett in her sweet shop.There are stories of holidays in fishing boats, African adventures and t...