Today, the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden is internationally known for its outstanding archaeological collections. Yet its origins lie in an insignificant assortment of artefacts used for study by Leiden University. How did this transformation come about? Ruurd Halbertsma has delved into the archives to show that the appointment of Caspar Reuvens as Professor of Archaeology in 1818 wa…
SARS (Acute Respiratory Syndrome) first presented itself to the global medical community as a case of atypical pneumonia in one small Chinese village in November 2002. Three months later the mysterious illness rapidly spread and appeared in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Toronto and then Singapore. The high fatality rate and sheer speed at which this disease spread prompted the World Health Organization t…
Homer's stories of Troy are part of the foundations of Western culture. What's less well known is that they also inspired Ottoman-Turkish cultural traditions. Yet even with all the historical and archaeological research into Homer and Troy, most scholars today rely heavily on Western sources, giving Ottoman work in the field short shrift. This book helps right that balance, exploring Ottoman-Tu…
High-Tech Trash: Glitch, Noise, and Aesthetic Failure maps an archaeology of failure in a culture seemingly ill-equipped to deal with it. To better understand failure, Kane argues, we must abstract from our subjective, personal disappointments and see them as meaningful symbols of a broader human struggle. By connecting twenty-first century digital aesthetics to critical issues in the history o…
From modest beginnings in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has become the premier regional institution in Southeast Asia. The 10 members are pursuing cooperation to develop the ‘ASEAN Community’ and also sponsor wider dialogues that involve the major powers. Australia has been interested in ASEAN since its inauguration and was the first country to establish a multila…
Public service cutbacks have increased reliance on consultants. But new legislation and rules governing the procurement of services from consultants are scattered over different legislative instruments. The first edition of this book attracted a record number of online hits. Busy public sector managers now have available to them an updated version that integrates an easy-to-follow, step-by-step…
This collection of essays had its origins in a one-day workshop held in August 2015 at The Australian National University. Jointly convened by Dr John Butcher (ANZSOG) and Professor David Gilchrist (Curtin Not-for-profit Initiative) the purpose of the workshop was to bring together academic researchers, policy practitioners and thought leaders to address a variety of emerging issues facing poli…
This open access book presents five different approaches to reading breath in literature, in response to texts from a range of historical, geographical and cultural environments. Breath, for all its ubiquity in literary texts, has received little attention as a transhistorical literary device. Drawing together scholars of Medieval Romance, Early Modern Drama, Fin de Siècle Aesthetics, American…
Learning from agri-environment schemes in Australia is a book about the birds and the beef — more specifically it is about the billions of dollars that governments pay farmers around the world each year to protect and restore biodiversity. After more than two decades of these schemes in Australia, what have we learnt? Are we getting the most out of these investments, and how should we do thin…
Australian goldminers were among the first white men to have sustained contact with Papua New Guineans. Some Papua New Guineans welcomed them, worked for them, traded with them and learnt their skills and soon were mining on their own account. Others met them with hostility, either by direct confrontation or by stealthy ambush. Many of the indigenous people and some miners were killed. The min…