Australia : Invites Us All to an Upcoming Book Launch

Not your ordinary literary calendar; not in Australia in any case --
Despite the Australian draught, despite the brush fires, despite the unseasonably warm temperatures in northern and eastern Canada as the globe warms unnaturally, I would jump at the opportunity to head off for Australia before the end of January of 'next' year (2007) (i.e., one month from today).

True, there are (or were) about one million things I want to do and see in Australia OTHER THAN go to 'one more' book launch or poetry reading. (As if there aren't more than enough of both such events in Montreal! Enough, at least, to fill my next year's agenda.) In your North American city, I'll wager you have the same sort of embarras de choix. Yet after reading the calendar and the announcement copied below, I would go just for this book show and my own signed copies of two books. Nothing local in my area can compare.

Read the blurb I've pasted below from what appears to me to be a very interesting and dynamic leftish bookstore in Sydney. Many people I imagine would love to have this sort of book launch happening in a local venue with local writers; yet we would also accept an urgent call by an editor to write this particular launch up after said imaginary editor 'flips' for the plane tickets and hotel reservations I'm certain. But this is only one of several events of equal or greater importance being held in this particular Australian bookstore this coming Winter and Spring -- click on the title above to discover more offerings at gleebooks.

Eat your hearts out lefties and progressive intellectuals (if you happen to live halfway around the globe from Australia as does Blogaulaire

---------------------- A twin twin-title launch by the multiple authors of two interesting books.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007 / 6.00pm for the 6.30pm Launch

The authors who will be launching their respective books are:
Georgina Murray, Mike Donaldson & Scott Poynting

The two books:

Capitalist Networks & Social Power in Aust & NZ
&
Ruling Class Men: Money, Sex, Power

To be launched by Raewyn Connell

Venue: gleebooks
49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: Free

RSVP: gleebooks - 9660 2333
or
Request a place

Book Summaries:

Capitalist Networks & Social Power in Aust & NZ
Georgina Murray

It is often asserted that the ruling elite in Western capitalist economies now consists of liberal intellectuals and their media sympathisers. By contrast this book looks at the real elite in Australian and New Zealand society and shows that there is still a
ruling class based upon economic dominance. From an analysis of corporate and public records, interviews, and other primary and secondary data, it develops a icture of networks of power that are changing but are as real as any network in the past.

Ruling Class men: Money, Sex, Power
Mike Donaldson, Scott Poynting

What is it like to be a master of the universe?

The authors have researched the desires and fears of the world's most powerful men. The Murdochs, Packers, Kennedys, Agnellis and other men like them, directly determine the fates of thousands and influence the future of the world like no other people. Described as 'sacred monsters' by one of their own, they are carefully created to be what they are and to enjoy shaping the world in their own likeness. To learn about these often reclusive men, the authors extended the lifehistory technique to interrogate autobiographies, diaries and biographies and have created a composite picture, a collective portrait, of tycoons over three generations. The book carefully explores the childhoods, schooling, work and play, sexual activities, marriages and deaths of the wealthiest men who have ever lived. It exposes the nature of ruling-class masculinity itself.

The Authors:

Mike Donaldson convenes the Sociology Programme at the University of Wollongong. He has written many books and articles on contemporary life,
including Male Trouble, Looking at Australian Masculinities (2003), Taking Our Time (1996) and Time of Our Lives, Labour and Love in the Working Class (1991). He has worked as a consultant with UNESCO and has taught at universities in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Australia.

Scott Poynting is Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of Western Sydney, where he teaches Cultural and Social Analysis.

His recently co-authored books include Bin Laden in the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other (2004), and Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime: Youth, Ethnicity and Crime (2000).


Publisher and media enquiries to: Morgan Smith gleebooks Events Manager
morgan@gleebooks.com.au