A comprehensive introduction to the study of Asia. Written thematically, it provides comparisons between Asian and Australian societies and encourages readers to think about Australia's neighbours across a wide range of social, economic and historical contexts.

One of the most pressing policy challenges for Australia and Japan today is ensuring that China’s rise does not threaten the stability of the Asia-Pacific, while also avoiding triggering conflict with their largest trading partner. This book examines how Australian and Japanese perceptions of US primacy shape their respective views of the Asia-Pacific regional order, the robustness of Asia’s alliance system, and the future of Australia-Japan security cooperation.

Australia’s development, from the most unpromising of beginnings as a British prison in 1788 to the prosperous liberal democracy of the present is as remarkable as is its success as a country of large-scale immigration. Since 1942 it has been a loyal ally of the United States and has demonstrated this loyalty by contributing troops to the war in Vietnam and by being part of the “coalition of the willing” in the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in operations in Afghanistan. In recent years, it has also been more willing to promote peace and democracy in its Pacific and Asian neighbors. This fourth edition of Historical Dictionary of Australia covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Australia.

In post-Cold War international relations, strategic partnerships are an emerging and distinct analytical and political category critical in understanding the dynamics of contemporary strategic cooperation between states and International Organizations. However, the idea of strategic partnerships has remained under-theorized and overshadowed by the alliance theory. Addressing this clear-cut gap in the International Relations/Foreign Policy Analysis literature, this book originally endeavors to theorize and empirically test the analytical model of strategic partnerships as a new form of sustainable international cooperation in times of globalized interdependence and turbulence.

This pioneering study provides a critical appraisal of pop star Kylie Minogue. It argues that a study of this mononymous global pop icon and celebrity – as “Kylie,” she takes her place alongside Cher, Madonna and Beyoncé in the pop pantheon – is long overdue. Written by academics, music practitioners, and fans, this book argues that Minogue's persona, performances and reception provide new critical insights into contemporary pop music culture, digital media, and celebrity. It further argues that dismissals of Kylie underestimate her accomplishments as a pop artist and singer-songwriter and undermine fans of pop music who form deep, affective bonds with performers, songs and albums. Contributors draw on current perspectives in pop music studies, feminism, celebrity studies, fandom, and queer studies, a range revealing that to interpret Kylie is to engage compelling cultural frameworks. Across four parts (Pop Girlhood, Global Kylie, Dance Music, and Queer and Online Fandoms) the book demonstrates how Minogue herself makes important interventions into contemporary popular culture, with her career providing a micro-history of pop music, its myriad cultural meanings, and its fan practices. With this collection, Kylie Minogue studies has arrived.

Soft Power Politics- Past and Present: Football and Baseball on the Western Pacific Rim illustrates the momentous expanse and moment of sport in the Asia Pacific region and through these essays dealing with two of the most prodigious global team sports confronts various cultural clashes that Samuel Huntington would ensure the end of civilisation. They also demonstrate the power sport has to change the world and to inspire and unite people globally. All who sail under the flag ofSport as ingenuous as it may seem to the host of cynics that abounds, believe that dialogues that emerge from arguments included in this text represent communication of the highest order and have the potential to produce the cohesion that can close some of those cracks that Huntington said would open up along, what he called the fault lines between civilisations.This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

This rare interdisciplinary combination of research into neighbourhood dynamics and effects attempts to unravel the complex relationship between disadvantaged neighbourhoods and the life outcomes of the residents who live therein. It seeks to overcome the notorious difficulties of establishing an empirical causal relationship between living in a disadvantaged area and the poorer health and well-being often found in such places. There remains a widespread belief in neighbourhood effects: that living in a poorer area can adversely affect residents’ life chances. These chapters caution that neighbourhood effects cannot be fully understood without a profound understanding of the changes to, and selective mobility into and out of, these areas. Featuring fresh research findings from a number of countries and data sources, including from the UK, Australia, Sweden and the USA, this book offers fresh perspectives on neighbourhood choice and dynamics, as well as new material for social scientists, geographers and policy makers alike. It enriches neighbourhood effects research with insights from the closely related, but currently largely separate, literature on neighbourhood dynamics.

This book, along with its audio recording, has been designed to help intermediate students of English understand spoken language as it is encountered in everyday situations in Australia.

This book examines the role of external powers in Latin America in the 21st century. Non-traditional partners have significantly increased their political and economic engagement with the continent. Five key questions arise: why has this surge taken place; when has it happened; in which regions and sectors is it mostly felt; what is the Latin American perspective; and what are the actual results? The book analyses 16 case studies: the United States, the European Union, China, Russia, Japan, Canada, India, Turkey, Iran, Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, the ASEAN countries, South Africa and Australia. The spectrum of existing explanations in the literature spans from neo-extractivism to South-South cooperation. This volume places them in context and proposes a more multifaceted approach, stressing a combination of systemic factors and internal dynamics both in Latin America and in the external partner countries. Geopolitics still matters and so do nation states, their interests and leaders. Ultimately, this surge in engagement has largely reproduced past patterns. Are new partners that different from the old ones?