As the days get longer and the nights warmer, find yourself a cool place to lounge back and immerse yourself in some of the books we have picked out for our annual progressive summer reading list.
Here are our favourite books from 2024 to keep you entertained over the summer.
Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson deliver a bold reinterpretation of economics and history that will fundamentally change how you see the world.
Get your copy here.
Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling
Kate Raynor, our new Director for the Centre of Equitable Housing recommends this powerful book from Aboriginal lawyer, writer and filmmaker Larissa Behrendt, which explores the story of Eliza Fraser and how Aboriginal people – and indigenous people of other countries – have been portrayed in colonisers’ stories.
Originally published in 2016, Finding Eliza was re-published in 2024 as part of UQP’s First Nations Classics Series.
Get your copy here.
Working for the Brand
Josh Bornstein asks how our major corporations have come to exercise repressive control over the lives of their employees, and explores what can be done to repair the greatest threat to democracy – the out-of-control corporation.
Get your copy here.
Women Money Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality
From an experienced financial journalist, Women Money Power is the story of how women have fought for financial freedom, and the social and political hurdles that have kept them from equality.
Get your copy here.
This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain
Will Hutton’s passionate book shows how the right and left have gone wrong over the course of the last century – and how we can remake a better Britain.
Get your copy here.
The Shortest History of Economics: The Powerful Story of Economic Ideas and Forces that Shape Our World
From the agricultural revolution to the warming of our planet, Andrew Leigh tells the story of economics that ranges across centuries and continents, highlighting the diversity of the discipline.
Get your copy here.
Mean Streak
Award-winning journalist and writer Rick Morton’s latest work explores how Robodebt came to be and the catastrophic outcomes from this failure of public administration.
Both Emma Dawson and Margaret McKenzie recommend this gripping read.
Get your copy here.
After Neoliberalism
Economist and Professor at the University of Queensland, John Quiggan’s latest work explores Australian economic policy from the mid-1980s to the present day and concludes with some suggestions for the way forward, after neoliberalism.
Get your copy here.
The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality
Journalist Angela Saini explores the roots of what we call patriarchy, uncovering a complex history of how it first became embedded in societies and spread across the globe from prehistory into the present.
Get your copy here.
Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy
Recommended by our convener for the Centre of the Public Square, Peter Lewis, Plurality details how Audrey Tang, the first and former Minister of Digital Affairs of Taiwan, and her collaborators, including Glen Weyl, founder of RadicalxChange Foundation, built a digital democracy, using open government technology and digital tools.
Get your copy here.
