The Year it All Fell Down

'A very readable, occasionally apocalyptic, almanac of ''interesting times.''' The Age 'He writes beautifully and his ability to pick out the human stories among the headlines is what makes the book worth reading.' Weekly Times '????? He...write[s] like an angel, albeit an avenging one with a taste for the salacious.' Good Reading In 2011, history was made and the future broken... One of our most incisive and eloquent observers, Bob Ellis has reviewed the occurrences of 2011 and found it to be a year as important as 1848. He and his collaborators, Damian Spruce and Stephen Ramsey, refresh and repopulate our memories with enormous events already half-forgotten, revealing their coherence and resonance. From the Arab Spring to the London riots and Occupy Wall Street; from the Christchurch earthquake and the Fukushima meltdown to the possible discovery of the Higgs-Boson 'God' particle; from the shooting of US Senator Gabby Giffords to her vote on the bill that saved America's economy; from Assange fighting extradition to the Murdoch empire on trial; from the last hours of Kim Jong-il and Vaclav Havel to the Breivik massacre in Norway and the executions of Gaddafi and bin Laden – the year 2011 was portentously charged. The shockwaves from these events – and more – continue to reverberate through the corridors of power and even the foundations of the planet. The Year It All Fell Down is a compulsively readable meditation on the state of our world and its future. 'The scope of world affairs covered is impressive. Ellis's prose is intelligent and often devastatingly acerbic.' Australian Book Review 'Ellis is a stormy petrel, but he's our wild child and he should be celebrated.' Weekend Australian