We’ve collated a collection of gift ideas for Fathers who are wanting to learn more about how they can help shape a better world for future generations! To make a better future we’ll need to tackle personal, collective and systemic change; these books can help. Some philosophical, some instructional, but all insightful.

What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill

We are still five hundred million years away from the sterilisation of the Earth by the Sun, and one hundred trillion years away from the dying of the last stars. Leaving a shard of broken glass on the ground may harm someone tomorrow or one hundred thousand years hence. Our duty of care to each of those individuals is the same.

Yet future peoples are completely disenfranchised – they can’t lobby or vote for change. As we lock in today the global values and systems that will outlast us by eons, let’s not forget the many left to come whose quality of life is in our hands.

Provocations: New and Selected Writing by Jeff Sparrow

History gets made by actions, not by words alone. Yet these pages are filled with the kind of words that inspire action. By showing us that Australia has a history of slavery it needs to reckon with. That amidst the turmoil of catastrophic weather events, Christmas beetles are disappearing as we look the other way. That while war was once an anomaly in a world increasingly devoted to peace, no one believes that anymore.

Future Stories: A User’s Guide to the Future by David Christian

Drawing together science and history, philosophy and theology from a huge range of places and times, David Christian explores how we prepare for uncertain futures, including the future of human evolution, artificial intelligence, interstellar travel, and more. By linking the study of the past much more closely to the study of the future, we can begin to imagine what the world will look like in the next hundred years and consider solutions to the biggest challenges facing us all.

Fear of Black Consciousness by Lewis R. Gordon

Lewis Gordon, one of the leading scholars of Black Existentialism, has spent decades nurturing intellectual reflection as a vital component of ongoing activism for racial justice around the world. In this boldly original book, he delves into history, art, politics and popular culture to show how the process of racialisation – and its absence – affects not only how individuals and society perceive Black people but also how Black people perceive themselves.

Who Needs the ABC? by Patrick Mullins & Matthew Ricketson

Who Needs the ABC? charts how the best-trusted news organisation in Australia arrived at its current predicament: doing the most it ever has, with less than it needs, under a barrage of constant criticism.

This book examines the profound changes that have swept through the Australian media, technology, and political landscapes in the past decade, and explores the tense relationship between the ABC and governments of both stripes over the past 40 years.

Another Day in the Colony in the Colony by Chelsea Watego

A ground-breaking work – and a call to arms – that exposes the ongoing colonial violence experienced by First Nations people. In this collection of deeply insightful and powerful essays, Chelsea Watego examines the ongoing and daily racism faced by First Nations peoples in so-called Australia.

The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds by Jessica Nordell

Implicit bias leads us to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, age, body type anda host of other factors. It robs organizations of talent, science of breakthroughs, art of wisdom, politics of insight, individuals of their futures, and communities of justice.

But implicit bias is a problem that can be solved. In this landmark book, Nordell meets the people and organisations whose discoveries are set to change the world, and examines how we might begin to eliminate the biases that have settled in our societies, and even in our own minds.

The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century by Jamie Susskind

In The Digital Republic, Jamie Susskind explores how developments in AI, big data, social media and other technologies are having a profound effect on politics – and what that means for our societies. The Digital Republic is a call for political change, touching on the deepest issues of who we are and what we value most. He will take readers on a journey through a new system of ideas and governance – a digital republic – offering a vision of a world that is freer and fairer than our own.

Good Arguments by Bo Seo

Debating isn’t just about winning or losing an argument: it’s about information gathering, truth finding, lucidity, organisation, and persuasion. It’s about being able to engage with views you disagree with, without the argument turning toxic.

Good Arguments shares insights from the strategy, structure and history of debating to teach readers how they might better communicate with friends, family and colleagues.

The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan

To grasp sex in all its complexity – its deep ambivalences, its relationship to gender, class, race and power – we need to move beyond ‘yes and no’, wanted and unwanted. We need to interrogate the fraught relationships between discrimination and preference, pornography and freedom, rape and racial injustice, punishment and accountability, pleasure and power, capitalism and liberation. We need to rethink sex as a political phenomenon.

True Tracks by Terri Janke

True Tracks is a ground-breaking work that paves the way for respectful and ethical engagement with Indigenous knowledges and cultures. Combining real-world cases and personal stories, award-winning Meriam/Wuthathi lawyer Terri Janke draws on twenty years of professional experience to inform and inspire leaders across many industries.