100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

Overnight NZ-wide delivery on in-stock orders πŸš€

On Charlatans

Series: On Series
3.8 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 40 ratings, 5 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
On Charlatans by Chris Bowen delves into the world of political deception, exploring the tactics and impact of those who manipulate public opinion for personal gain. The book provides a critical analysis of how charlatans thrive in modern politics, examining historical and contemporary examples to illustrate their influence on society and governance. It's a thought-provoking read that sheds light on the intersection of politics, media, and public trust.
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK Please add to wishlist to be notified when back in stock

Sorry, we're currently out of stock of On Charlatans. Please add to your Wishlist and we'll send you an email as soon as it's back in stock.

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you're intrigued by political dynamics and the intricate world of deception and manipulation. It offers a fascinating exploration of charlatanism in the political arena, shedding light on how these figures influence both policy and public perception. If you're captivated by the interplay between power and deceit, this read will provide insightful commentary on current affairs.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Politics around the world is being turned on its head and the fakes, the fraudsters and the snake-oil merchants are winning. Why?

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Why do we continue to vote for politicians who say 'I don't hold a hose, mate' or who advocate that we drink bleach to fight COVID-19?

On Charlatans by Chris Bowen, who was set to be Treasurer had Labour won the 2019 federal election, is a reflection on what went wrong and why charlatans are gaining power in politics.

For charlatans, the road to political success is paved with dishonesty, disunity, fake news, and empty promises. Selling themselves as a new and different alternative to traditional politicians, charlatans have decimated centre-left political parties around the world but offer no solutions to the concerns of ordinary people who they trick into voting for them.

Between Trump's disastrous final weeks in the White House, the United Kingdom's total COVID-19 meltdown under Boris, and the three-word slogans driving Scotty from Marketing's policies, Chris Bowen's dissection of the politics of charlatanism and his stirring call to defeat it has never been more urgent.

Series: On Series

View all
  • On Hope
    As extreme weather becomes the norm, scientists agree that our climate is changing. But it seems too many of our leaders aren't listening to the science and are failing to act. In On Hope, one of the lead organisers of the Australian Climate Strike, 17-year-old Daisy Jeffrey, shows how ordinary people are fighting back and demanding we address climate change...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Identity
    Why does identity demand a choice between black and white? Tribalism, nationalism, and sectarianism are dividing the world into us and them. Are we hard-wired for hate? Stan Grant argues that it is time to leave identity behind and to embrace cosmopolitanism. On Identity is a meditation on hope and community. 'Love is always the answer, it is said. Not...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Quiet
    Internationally bestselling author Nikki Gemmell writes on the power of quiet in today's shouty world. Quiet comes as a shock in these troubled times. Quietism means 'devotional contemplation and abandonment of the will ... a calm acceptance of things as they are'. Gemmell makes the case for why quiet is steadily gaining ground in this noisy age: why we need...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Secrets
    On June 4, Federal Police raided the home of Walkley award-winning journalist Annika Smethurst, changing her life forever. Police claim they were investigating the publication of classified information, her employer called it a 'dangerous act of intimidation', Smethurst believes she was simply doing her job. Smethurst became the accidental poster woman for press freedom as politicians debated the merits of...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Rape
    It's time to rethink rape. Centuries of different approaches to rape - as inflicted by men on women - have got us nowhere. Rape statistics remain intractable: one woman in five will experience sexual violence. Very few rapes find their way into court. The crucial issue is consent, thought by some to be easy to establish and by others impossible....
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Sleep
    ON SLEEP is the story of our love-hate relationship with slumber. Part-time insomniac Fleur Anderson ponders the big questions: Why can't I sleep? Do politicians and other high-fliers ever admit they too are exhausted? Do they get enough sleep to make sensible decisions? Where is society heading, and why did I have that glass of cab sav?
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Artists
    If we denounce the artist, then what becomes of the work that remains? The #MeToo movement is overturning a clichΓ© that has forgiven bad behaviour for years: to be creative is to be prone to eccentricity, madness, addiction, and excess. No longer can artists be excused from the standards of conduct that apply to us all. On Artists delves into...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Indignation
    Corrosive, mad and frequently fatal, indignation is a great destructive force in human affairs, and just as often a wellspring of mirth and merriment. Don Watson traces this seemingly ineradicable emotion in a journey that takes us, via his forebears, Flaubert and The Sopranos, from the Old Testament to Donald Trump. Trump's pitch had less to do with offering voters...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Reckoning
    What happens when the usual political tactics of deflect and dodge are no longer enough? A reckoning. The Guardian's political reporter Amy Remeikis has spoken before about being a survivor of sexual assault, but Brittany Higgins going public with her story ripped the curtain back not just on political attempts to deal with real-world issues, but also how unsafe women...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Fairness
    Most of us believe in fairness. Why then do we have creeping inequality in the land of the fair go? The answer lies in stagnant wage rises, gender pay inequity, insecure work, and the lack of real opportunities for all while corporations are still consuming large profits and executives claim record bonuses. Sally McManus confronts these truths every day. In...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Digestion
    In the kitchen, via the garden, I am often torn between theory and praxis, when surely the latter is all that matters here. Yet the largest bench, the one dividing the dining area from the kitchen itself, is never used for culinary preparation. It is this surface which many Australian kitchens, including mine, feel they need, the one piled with...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Freedom
    They're labelled as selfish, as 'deliberately barren', and sometimes as crazy old cat ladies, but increasingly women are choosing to be childfree. Over the next few decades, couples without children are set to outnumber those who have them. On Freedom by Tory Shepherd looks at how women's freedom to choose motherhood is reshaping their own lives as well as society....
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780733645235

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 23 February 2021

Country: Australia

Imprint: Hachette Australia

Illustration: Full mono

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 14.0mm

Width: 108.0mm

Height: 148.0mm

Weight: 86g

Pages: 144

About the Author

Chris Bowen entered parliament in 2004 and has held a wide range of portfolios, including serving as Treasurer, Minister for Human Services, Minister for Immigration, Minister for Financial Services, Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Competition Policy, Minister for Small Business and Minister for Tertiary Education.

He served as Interim Leader of the Labor Party and Acting Leader of the Opposition following the 2013 federal election and served as Shadow Treasurer. He is now the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy.

Chris is the author of two other books: Hearts & Minds (2013) and The Money Men (2015).

He lives in his electorate with his wife, Rebecca, children, Grace and Max, and labradors, Ollie and Toby.

Also by Chris Bowen

View all
  • Labor People
    How much do you know about the history of Australia's oldest political party, the Australian Labor Party? You know the big names: Curtin, Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke and Keating. But what about the names behind the big names? The unsung and overlooked True Believers who have been the backbone of the Labor Party for one hundred and thirty years? In Labor...
    Paperback
    $3499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

More from Politics & Current Affairs

View all
  • New Release
    One Last Question, Prime Minister
    From Muldoon to Luxon, untold stories from the House of Parliament Barry Soper has spent close to five decades questioning New Zealand's prime ministers.From the imposing, larger-than-life characters of Rob Muldoon and David Lange, to the golden age of Helen Clark and John Key, and the post-Covid era of Jacinda Ardern and the 'Chrises', Soper's insight and nose for a...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (6)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Regime Change
    From the two reporters who have covered him more closely than perhaps anyone else over the past decade comes this definitive portrait of Donald Trump in the White House and the first year of his second presidency. Based on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented reporting from deep within the administration’s most closely guarded rooms, Regime Change takes the reader into...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $4299
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    A Different Kind of Power
    #1 New Zealand bestseller #1 Amazon bestseller #2 Audible bestseller #3 New York Times bestseller #3 Sunday Times bestseller #4 Australian bestseller From the former prime minister of New Zealand, then the world’s youngest female head of government and just the second to give birth in office, comes a deeply personal memoir chronicling her extraordinary rise and offering inspiration to...
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Different Kind of Power
    Ockham Winner
    A Different Kind of Power
    What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she commanded global respect for her empathetic leadership that put people first. This is the remarkable story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made...
    Hardback
    $4799
    Elsewhere:
    $5999
    (7)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Signed Copy
    Go Hard or Go Home
    From the front bench to rock bottom:Β Go Hard or Go HomeΒ is Kiri Allan's fearless memoir of ambition, disruption and survival in NZ politics and beyond. Kiri Allan's six-year political career spanned some of the most challenging times in recent history. Events a government might encounter once in a generation stacked up: a terrorist attack, a volcanic eruption, destructive and deadly...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    Pre-order
    Out 4 Aug 2026
  • New Release
    Suicidal Empathy
    The bestselling author of The Parasitic Mind shows why empathy in politics leads to civilizational collapse. What happens when a society elevates victimhood to a virtue and decides that punishment is cruel? You get the disease Dr. Gad Saad calls suicidal empathy. And the West may be terminally infected. In his new book, Suicidal Empathy, Saad unleashes a blistering critique...
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World
    From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Shameless, Brian Tyler Cohen explores how Republicans have abused power, how Democrats have refused to exercise power when they held it, and how progressives should wield power if they are fortunate enough to win a free and fair election in a post-Trump world. The Day After: How to Wield Power in...
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Careless People
    Shocking and darkly funny, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to the decisions that are shaping our world and the people who make them. Welcome to Facebook. Sarah Wynn-Williams, a young diplomat from New Zealand, pitched for her dream job. She saw Facebook's potential and knew it could change the world for the better. But, when she got there...
    Paperback
    $2800
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Discipline
    Silence is complicity, but how do we confront the cost of speaking up? Sydney, May 2021. Ashraf is an academic whose career and personal life are in freefall. Hannah is a young journalist struggling to honour the voices of her community. When a Year 12 Al-Bayinnah College student is arrested for protesting a university's ties to an Israeli weapons manufacturer,...
    Paperback
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Shattered Lands
    'A sparkling debut by an outstanding young historian' – PETER FRANKOPAN 'This book is a revelation … both original and important' – MISHAL HUSAIN A history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it. As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and...
    Paperback
    $3699
    Elsewhere:
    $4500
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Handmaid's Tale
    The bestselling dystopian classic that became a cultural phenomenon and inspired an award-winning TV series. THE SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER Go back to where it all began with the dystopian novel behind the award-winning TV series. 'As relevant today as it was when Atwood wrote it.' Guardian I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no...
    Paperback
    $2000
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • This Way Up
    The debut book from the YouTube sensation and all-round cartographical nerds, The Map Men! In their long-awaited debut, YouTube’s Map Men bring their highly infectious enthusiasm for everything map-related to the printed page for the very first time, in a brilliantly entertaining and eye-catching tome. Packed with humour and fascinating facts, This Way Up takes a deep dive into the...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.