Books published by NewSouth Publishing

In the late 1960s Sydney was one of the most prosperous places on earth and one of the most corrupt. A large proportion of the population was engaged in illegal gambling and other activities that made colourful characters such as Lennie McPherson wealthy and, to many, folk heroes. Sydney Noir revisits this dark yet fascinating chapter of Sydney's history.

Wage inequality between men and women seems one of the intractables of our age. Women are told they need to back themselves more, stop marginalising themselves, negotiate better, speak up, support each other, strike a balance between work and home. This searing book argues that insisting that women fix themselves won't fix the system, the system built by men.

In this lively collection, renowned writers including Paul Daley, Mark McKenna, Peter Stanley, Carolyn Holbrook, Mark Dapin, Carmen Lawrence, Frank Bongiorno and Larissa Behrendt explore not only the militarisation of Australian history but the alternative narratives swamped under the khaki wash - Indigenous history, frontier conflict, multiculturalism, the myth of egalitarianism, and economics.

The book is exploratory: What do I believe? What am I unsure about? Is religious belief reasonable? Written by Gerard Windsor, it's entertaining, stimulating and full of anecdote, history, forays into art and literature, and even a bit of gossip. Interlaced with twelve inspirational, edifying, moving cameos of true-life moments of grace, this is Windsor's take on religion.

170,000 Displaced Persons arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952 - the first non-Anglo-Celtic mass migrants.Australia's first immigration minister, Arthur Calwell, scoured post-war Europe for refugees, Displaced Persons he characterised as 'Beautiful Balts'. Amid the hierarchies of the White Australia Policy, the tensions of the Cold War and the national need for labour, these people would transform not only Australia's immigration policy, but the country itself. Beautiful Balts tells the extraordinary story of these Displaced Persons. It traces their journey from the chaotic camps of Europe after World War II to a new life in a land of opportunity where prejudice, parochialism, and strident anti-communism were rife. Drawing from archives, oral history interviews and literature generated by the Displaced Persons themselves, Persian investigates who they really were, why Australia wanted them and what they experienced.

The legend of Kate Leigh, Sydney's famed brothel madam, sly grog seller and drug dealer, has loomed large in every account of Sydney's criminal history from the 1920s to the 1960s. But she has never had a biography of her own. Novelist and historian Leigh Straw teases out the full story of how this wayward Reformatory girl made a fortune in eastern Sydney and became a leading underworld figure.

Award-winning filmmaker and historian Rachel Landers wrestles with the evidence to unravel this complex cold case in forensic detail, exposing corruption, conspiracy theories and political intrigue - and a prime suspect.

Where do thousands of people in wigs, jumpsuits and fake Priscilla eyelashes go each January to swelter in 42-degree heat as they celebrate The King? Parkes, 365 kilometres west of Sydney, for the annual Parkes Elvis Festival. Written by two long-time fans of the festival, Outback Elvis introduces the local characters, the lookalikes, the impersonators and the tribute artists.

No-one in the Australian government or army could have predicted that in the 25 years following the end of the Cold War army personnel would be deployed to Rwanda, Cambodia, Somalia, Bougainville, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Solomon Islands. In a constructive critique of the modern Australian Army, On Ops examines the transformation that has taken place since 1999.

An honest and deeply personal story of how a privileged white woman deals with the realisation that the children she grew up with were part of the Stolen Generation. A Tear in the Soul is a frank, beautifully written account of Amanda Webster's personal journey towards the realisation that she, like generations of Australians, grew up with a distorted and idealised version of the past.