Books by Dennis Altman

An avowed republican investigates the unexpected durability and potential benefits of constitutional monarchies.When he was deposed in Egypt in 1952, King Farouk predicted that there would be five monarchs left at the end of the century: the kings of hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades, and England. To date, his prediction has proved wrong, and while the twentieth century saw the collapse of monarchies across Europe, many democratic societies have retained them.God Save the Queen is the first book to look at constitutional monarchies globally, and is particularly relevant given the pro-democracy movement in Thailand and recent scandals around the British and Spanish royal families. Is monarchy merely a feudal relic that should be abolished, or does the division between ceremonial and actual power act as a brake on authoritarian politicians? And what is the role of monarchy in the independent countries of the Commonwealth that have retained the Queen as head of state?This book suggests that monarchy deserves neither the adulation of the right nor the dismissal of the left. In an era of autocratic populism, does constitutional monarchy provide some safeguards against the megalomania of political leaders? Is a President Boris potentially more dangerous than a Prime Minister Boris?

From the author of the groundbreaking 1971 classic Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation comes a new work reflecting on all that has changed over the past four decades. In The End of the Homosexual? - part memoir/part politics - Dennis Altman connects what has happened within the changing queer world over the past forty years to larger social, political and cultural trends. This is a case study of both local and global change, yet one told from personal experience. Written engagingly, this timely new book explores the idea that major changes in the understanding of sexual and gender diversity reflect larger social and cultural shifts. For example, the internet has changed patterns of sexual behaviour as widely as did the contraceptive pill forty years ago. In both cases the changes were neither foreseen nor intended, and in both cases the impact of new technologies partly depended on political and ideological controls. Homosexuality has become a faultline for debates about western influence, and human rights. In this riveting and personally revealing work, Altman reflects on decades of cultural and political change and considers the future of sexuality: is this the end of the homosexual that gay liberationists predicted forty years ago?

The claim that 'LGBT rights are human rights' encounters fierce opposition in many parts of the world, as governments and religious leaders have used resistance to 'LGBT rights' to cast themselves as defenders of traditional values against neo-colonial interference and western decadence.

* A major new examination of the ways in which Vidal's writings on history, politics, sex and religion throw into focus our understandings of the United States. * Ranges widely - from Vidal's defence of homosexuality in his earliest works to his most recent writings on the war in Iraq.

This volume tackles the issues of globalization and sexuality. Looking at how pleasures of the body are framed, shaped and commercialized in the new global economy, the book explores the impact on gender relations, politics, the ways in which we imagine our own sense of self, and other issues.

This book provides a global overview of the role of the community sector, examining in detail the origins and activities of community organizations in Europe, the Americas, Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific.

Much emphasis is placed on direct care and services to people infected with AIDS and for those affected by this disease. This book focuses on the mobilization of community-based organizations in the struggle against HIV/AIDS and their contribution to the global effort.