Until the late 2010s, there was a widespread view that China’s rapid growth and even its political and economic model would make China the number-one power in the world by 2030. But Xi Jinping has pulled back from the reforms of Deng Xiaoping and China is facing growing problems: slowing growth, ballooning debt, endemic corruption, mass dissent, demographic decline and institutional sclerosis. Xi Jinping is preparing China for war, militarizing China’s foreign policy. The central argument of this book, when first published, was that just such developments might well occur.

The beautiful introductory poem, 'Temple ritual' establishes a range of emotional and sensual notes that resound through the whole of The Three Graces. It is suffused with richly evocative linguistic music and imagery, complemented at times with occasional background rhyming, always striking the right notes. The book as a whole represents a remarkable artistic achievement, without peer in the canon of Australian poetry. The rich cross-weave of historical, literary and philosophical allusions creates a resonant gravitas, immersing the reader in a multi-dimensional depth of meaning. This holds for the richly autobiographical narrative in Part I, the delicate reticences and ironies of Part II and the stunning erotic poetry of Part III, which constitutes almost a history of desire itself. - Rod Moran, poet and literary editor

Only a generation after the end of the Cold War and the apparent triumph of democratic capitalism, we have come to realize that just such democratic capitalism is floundering world-wide, several new kinds of enemies of it have arisen and there looms ahead of us a fresh struggle for our laws and liberties.

Worldwide, the great religious traditions have failed to evolve to maintain their contemporary relevance for adherents. Old religious formulae and practices and moral stances have remained static and steadily lost their meaning, let alone constructive inspiration. Religious leaders are paralysed, or are leading their followers in resistance to modern realities. Only rare prophetic figures within religious traditions attempt to facilitate movement into contemporary human, social and cultural relevance. So within this general religious malaise what might it mean to be a Christian in our time?

This book consists of an essay, a credo, twelve poems and 205 aphorisms.

The essay provides a personal, scholarly reflection on where Paul Monk started, forty years ago, when he left his ancestral religion behind and where he was at the point when this book was being composed. 

The poems are a private articulation of felt life and a set of attempts to generate a lifeworld of his own. The aphorisms are improvisations on the themes opened up by the verse and are intended to define or point to something, a sketch of reality and meaning.

'Opinions and Reflections' is an edited selection of the work of a public intellectual with a distinctive independence of mind and a wide-ranging erudition.

Covering a generation of writing, it begins with reflections, in 1990, on the collapse of the Soviet bloc and concludes with observations, in 2015, on cosmology and intelligent design. In between, in over 120 pieces, there are incisive pieces on everything from North Korea to cancer and from Charles de Gaulle to J. R. R. Tolkien.

Darkness Over Love began as a private offering to a small circle of friends. It has now been made available to the public for two reasons.

A decade ago, I declared that he was working on a novel called Darkness over Love: A Complete Fiction. That remained a work in progress for five years. Then serious illness threatened to abort the project. To avert that, an unfinished book was published, under the title Darkness over Love: A Writer's Workbook, including a very long essay about the experience of trying my hand at narrative fiction. I have not, since then, been able to return to work on the story. But the fragments tantalize me still.

The West in a Nutshell is a book of reflective essays by Australian author Paul Monk. He subjects the world’s mystery and beauty to scrutinizing study.

The essays invite the reader to ponder the riches of Western civilisation and they present a distillation of those ideas that are most enduring and powerful in the Western intellectual tradition.

This compact, physically beautiful book consists of twelve love poems in the form of Shakespearean style sonnets. Between them they tell an authentic and passionate love story, drawing on the full resources of the Western cultural tradition in terms of poetry, myth and theatre. Each is superbly illustrated by the late Jorg Schmeisser and accompanied by an erudite commentary by the poet on both the sources of his imagery and the unfolding psychology and erotic character of the love story the poems relate.