The Best Australian Essays 2002

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Setting the benchmark for the Australian essay the definitive, up-to-date collection. Each year, The Best Australian Essays brings together the most outstanding non-fiction from around the country. In 2011, to celebrate a rich decade of writing on all manner of topics, Black Inc.

In the second Quarterly Essay of 2002, John Button looks at what has gone wrong with the Labor Party. What has happened to the faith of the True Believers and why is the ALP so bad at recruiting new members? He offers a tough-minded analysis of what went wrong in the last election and asks why the Labor Party has turned its back on its destiny as a party of reform. Here is a very cool account of the factions which seem to stand for nothing but their own power bases, and the unions who both give and get little from the ALP. In a withering analysis, John Button looks at the quality of Labor members and the short-sightedness of a party turning its back on ideas. This is an essay by a man who still believes in Chifley's light on the hill but who thinks the only hope lies with New Believers. "Beyond Belief represents one of the coolest and most disheartening accounts of a great political party this country has seen. This is the Australian Labor Party seen from the perspective of an elder statesman who has an absolute belief ... in the moral superiority of the Labor cause but who seriously doubts whether the ALP will ever achieve government again and who distinctly implies that in its present state it is not fit for it." —Peter Craven, Introduction "After the election debacle some people blamed the Tampa and September 11. But the simple fact is that the ALP had not built an adequate policy profile or built up sufficient enthusiasm and respect for its style of politics. Without these, it had no hope of differentiating its position on refugees and asylum seekers from the government's when this became the key issue of the election." —John Button, Beyond Belief

New editor is Drusilla Modjeska, author of The Orchard, Stravinsky's Lunchand Timepieces. Past contributors include- Helen Garner, Inga Clendinnen, Robert Manne, Thomas Keneally, Richard Flanagan, Tim Flannery, M.J. Hyland, Barry Humphries, Peter Rose, Chloe Hooper, Gideon Haigh, Kate Jennings and many more. High profile extracts, reviews and feature interviews in weekend magazines and newspapers.

Who are the Greens, where do they come from and where are they going? In the wake of the Cunningham by-election and the Tasmanian results Amanda Lohrey, novelist and political thinker, looks at the philosophical background of the Greens, the history of the campaigns to save the wilderness and the election figures that suggest the Greens are making powerful advances towards becoming the major 'minor' party in Australia. This is a compelling portrait of the Greens and of their leader Bob Brown which depicts them as the most formidable attempt that has been made on the Left to deal with the damage of globalisation. ‘In Australia it is the Green, not the Democrats, who have emerged as the authentic representatives of this developing constituency ... They are not a collection of ersatz Liberals ... [they] are clear on the bottom-line accounting ... There is a crucial sense in which the Greens know where they come from.’ —Amanda Lohrey, Groundswell ‘Bob Brown in Amanda Lohrey's characterisation is certainly a man for all seasons. She emphasizes the skepticism as well as the spirituality and the kind of personal integrity that can hush a House of Parliament by force not of charisma but of conviction.’ —Peter Craven ‘She takes us systematically and in economic detail through the origins of the Green Movement as a new paradigm of what politics is or should be about – the ecological, the knowledgeable, respectful and restrained use of nature.’ —Canberra Times ‘Bringing her novelist’s eye to the history of environmental politics, Amanda Lohery paints a vivid picture of the Greens’ formative decades.’ —the Age Amanda Lohrey has written two Quarterly Essays, Groundswell: The Rise of the Greens and Voting for Jesus: Christianity and Politics in Australia. She is also the author of the novella Vertigo and of the short story collection, Reading Madame Bovary, which won the Fiction Prize and the Steele Rudd Short Story Award in the 2011 Queensland Literary Awards. Her novel, The Philosopher's Doll, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2012 she was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award.

The best of the best This essential book takes a decade of Best Australian Essays and selects the cream of the crop. These are the pieces that have captured key events - from September 11 to Victoria's fires - changed the way we see the nation, for good or ill - from Anzac Day to Palm Island - investigated intriguing figures - from Oskar Schindler to Charles Darwin - or which simply represent a peak of the writer's art. Contributors include: Thomas Keneally, Chloe Hooper, Peter Porter, David Malouf, John Birmingham, Helen Garner, Inga Clendinnen, MJ Hyland, Barry Humphries, David Marr, Clive James, Robyn Davidson, Christos Tsiolkas, Craig Sherborne, Kevin Brophy, Frank Devine, Barry Oakley, Jessica Anderson, Alan Frost, Gary Hughes, Christine Kenneally, JM Coetzee, Simon Leys, Anna Goldsworthy, Brenda Walker, Anne Manne, Shane Maloney, Noel Pearson, Tim Flannery, Robert Manne, Richard Flanagan, Gay Alcorn, Mark Riley, Nicolas Rothwell, Robert Dessaix, Anna Krien, Tim Winton, Kate Jennings, Benjamin Law and David Foster

This volume is a tribute to the life and work of Hazel Rowley, internationally acclaimed biographer who died unexpectedly in March 2011. Her passions were many and varied: biography, politics, questions of race and sexuality, the ways in which couples negotiate the dilemmas posed by the need to retain their individuality while building a life as a couple, the deleterious effects of imposing a corporate mentality on universities – all these, and more, were subjects of intense interest to her. This collection combines essays responding to many of those interests with creative writing to honour the complexity and variety of her own magnificent contribution. Hazel Rowley, whose life and work are honoured in this collection, was the author of many articles and essays and four outstanding biographies, Christina Stead: A Biography, Richard Wright: The Life and Times, Tête-à-Tête: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre, and Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage.