Join us for the Brisbane launch of the new Quarterly Essay 101 on Australia and Asia by Michael Wesley

ABOUT THE BOOK

Southeast Asia has never been more important to Australia – and Australia has never been more alienated from Southeast Asia and with so little idea of what to do about it.
For Australia, the region holds the key to our security and prosperity. Yet as a society we have never fully grasped its importance. Our gaze has vaulted over Southeast Asia towards Northeast Asia's industrial giants, and now towards a rising India. Yet Southeast Asia is where the future world order will be decided – the place where China's bid for regional power will succeed or fail.
This illuminating, original essay reveals Australia's blind spot. What do we need to know about Southeast Asia? What has our foreign policy elite's subservience to the United States stopped us from seeing and doing? What do our neighbours have to tell us, if only we could hear? This is an essay about values, imagination and a new way of seeing ourselves.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Wesley's books include There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the Rise of Asia and Mind of the Nation: Universities in Australian Life. He is Professor of Politics and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Global, Culture and Engagement) at the University of Melbourne and was formerly head of the Lowy Institute and dean of ANU's College of Asia and the Pacific.

Is it possible to write a singular story about Australia?

In his Shortest History of Australia, eminent historian Mark McKenna distils hundreds of years of post-encounter and many thousands of years of First Nations history into a concise but wide-ranging, thoughtful, generous history. As we learn not only from First Nations storytellers but all those who have been marginalised by conventional histories, we need new ways of understanding who we are and where we have come from. In this McKenna includes Country itself as historical actor – a leading player in our story rather than its backdrop. This is a bold, creative, and short book that presents Australia in striking new light. ‘Original, eloquent and moving,’ writes Tom Griffiths on the book’s jacket, ‘this book takes us on ‘a revelatory journey’.

This conversation will be held in-person at St James’ King Street and streamed live. Please join us for refreshments in the crypt after the event.

In their recent, gripping novels, Kate Mildenhall and Holly Wainwright establish secluded, seemingly idyllic worlds where tensions build and secrets emerge. The question transpires: how well do we really know our friends? In conversation with Nina Cullen, Kate and Holly speak about betrayal, trust, and the pressures of parenthood.