130,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

On Indignation

Series: On Series
3.66 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 73 ratings, 7 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 Indignation by Don Watson dives into the complex world of human emotions, specifically focusing on indignation, a feeling prevalent in modern society. Through an exploration of literature, politics, and culture, Watson dissects how indignation manifests and its role in shaping public discourse. The book offers insightful commentary on the emotion's impact on personal and collective experience without revealing individual storylines.
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$1999
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

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?

This book may appeal to you if you enjoy exploring social and political commentary through a critical lens, focusing on the complexities and nuances of anger in contemporary society. It offers a compelling analysis of how indignation shapes public discourse, making it fascinating for those interested in cultural insights and intellectual reflections.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

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

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 money and security than with offering them vengeance. He exploited the anger we feel when we are slighted or taken for granted, turning the politics of a sophisticated democracy into something more like a blood feud. He promised to restore dignity, slay enemies, and re-make the world according to old rites and customs. He stirred indignation into tribal rage and rode it into the White House.

It was a scam, of course, but wherever there is indignation, stupidity and lies abound.

Indignation is both seductive and contagious, and transforms society and politics. Don Watson's essay is penetrating, astringent, witty and disturbing. It must be read, carefully. BARRY JONES

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 Travel
    Tony Wheeler is 'the trailblazing patron saint of the world's backpackers and adventure travellers'. New York Times En route to his next destination, Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler looks at the world's biggest business: travel. An unashamed travel addict, Wheeler writes about the joys of escaping home, satiating wanderlust, and why the bird's-eye view from the window seat is best....
    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 Patriotism
    How has militarisation come to define Australian valour? Why has the long shadow of World War I dominated our sense of patriotism? On Patriotism explores what it really means to love and serve your country. Paul Daley contemplates ways to escape the cultural binds that tie us to Anzac, British settlement, and flag-waving. 'Straight from the heart and deeply informed....
    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 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 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 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 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 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 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

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780733644214

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 01 March 2020

Country: Australia

Imprint: Hachette Australia

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 12.0mm

Width: 150.0mm

Height: 110.0mm

Weight: 70g

Pages: 88

About the Author

Don Watson is the author of many books, including the bestselling and critically acclaimed Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM, Death Sentence, Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Caledonia Australis, American Journeys and The Bush. In addition to books and essays, he writes films and gives talks on writing and language.

Also by Don Watson

View all
  • Caledonia Australis
    After their military defeat in 1745, the Scottish Highlanders suffered a worse humiliation. They were displaced from their ancestral lands and became curiosities: objects of romantic nostalgia, charity, scorn, anthropology - and emigration. This is a tale of their dispossession. It also tells the rout of another people, the Kurnai of Gippsland in south-eastern Australia. Prominent among those who did...
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Watsonia
    A definitive anthology that captures the masterful Don Watson at his bestβ€”powerful, insightful and funny. No other writer has journeyed further into the soul of Australia and returned to tell the tale ... Watsonia collects the fruits of a writing life. It covers everything from Australian bush humour to America gone berserk; from Don Bradman to Oscar Wilde; from Animal...
    Hardback
    $5900
    Elsewhere:
    $6500
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Watson's Dictionary Of Weasel Words
    The brilliant and bestselling companion volume to Don Watson's Death Sentence. The prime minister speaks of core and non-core election promises, your boss asks you to commit to an involuntary career event (you're fired), and hospitals refer to negative patient outcomes (you're dead). How to fight back? This book is a heavy weapon against politicians, managers, and all those whose...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Passion of Private White
    From the bestselling author of The Bush, the story of a fifty-year relationship between a Vietnam veteran and an isolated clan in north-east Arnhem Land – a unique window into Australia’s deep past and precarious present, by one of our master storytellers. Longlisted for the 2023 Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award The Passion of Private White describes the...
    Hardback
    $5000
    Elsewhere:
    $5500
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Bush
    While most of us live in cities clinging to the coastal fringe, our sense of what an Australian is, or should be, is drawn from the vast and varied inland called the bush. But what do we mean by 'the bush', and how has it shaped us? Starting with his forebears' battle to drive back nature and eke a living...
    Paperback
    $2700
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • High Noon
    Is the United States disintegrating? Don Watson offers a report from the United States that catches the madness and theatre of an election like no other. This is a historically informed, mordant account of Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and a country approaching democratic high noon. From Los Angeles to New York, from Detroit to Kalamazoo, Watson observes America in all...
    Paperback
    $3500
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Story of Australia: For the Young (And the Curious)
    A modern classic- Don Watson's history of Australia for children of the twenty-first century History told so well it gives us a better idea of who we are - and who we are likely to become. Don Watson's The Story of Australia is a modern history of our nation that integrates new understandings about Indigenous Australia and looks to the...
    Hardback
    $4800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Worst Words
    Don Watson, with his trademark wit and wisdom, says enough already! The English language is complex and evolving, and can win minds, hearts, and nations. Why don't we try using it? What is cluster deployment, and how can you be sure to engage multiple stakeholders through your strategic delivery channel? What’s the difference between backcasting and backfilling, and could it...
    Paperback
    $3700
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Death Sentence
    Part diatribe, part cool reflection on the state of Australia's public language, Don Watson's Death Sentence is scathing, funny and brilliant. '... in public life the language has never been held in less regard. It withers in the dungeons of the technocratic mind. It is butchered by the media. In politics it lacks all qualifications for the main game.' Almost...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Shortest History of the United States of America
    Paperback
    $3500
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Recollections Of A Bleeding Heart 10th Anniversary Edition
    If he had never become Prime Minister, Paul Keating's place in Australian history would still have been assured. He was the Treasurer who deregulated the economy; the weaver of Labor's modern story; its heavy weapon in the parliament. He was also the great enigma – a self-educated boy from Sydney's working class and a defining element of the head-kicking Labor...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • American Journeys
    Award winning. Bestselling. A superb book about Don Watson's journeys around America. Featured as one of Newsweek's 50 'What to Read Now and Why' titles. Only in Americaβ€”the most powerful democracy on earth, home to the best and worst of everythingβ€”are the most extreme contradictions possible. In a series of journeys, acclaimed author Don Watson set out to explore the...
    Paperback
    Sold Out

More from Arts & Culture

View all
  • Dylan's Pick
    Bold Types
    A tribute to 32 truly independent bookshops throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, from north of Auckland down to Dunedin, and coast to coast. Jane Ussher's photographs show every bookstore in its unique nature - including behind the counter, smoko rooms, the mess which tells the hardworking story behind the joy of matching books with customers. Jemma Moreira's careful editing has crafted...
    Hardback
    $5999
    Elsewhere:
    $7000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    I’ll Believe in Anything
    From Jacob Tierney, the creator ofΒ Heated Rivalry, in partnership with Brendan Brady and AccentΒ Aigu, comesΒ I’llΒ Believe in Anything, an official and complete collection of annotated scripts for the biggest cultural sensation of the year, with all new exclusive behind-the-scenes content.Based on Rachel Reid’s blockbuster Game Changers book series,Β Heated RivalryΒ premiered on Crave and HBO in late 2025 andΒ immediatelyΒ took the world by storm.Β I’ll...
    Hardback
    $5499
    Elsewhere:
    $6000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Home Again
    Join rock-legend, former Shihad frontman and lead singer of The Adults, Jon Toogood in this unflinching and no-holds-barred memoirΒ Home Again.This is more than a rock story.Β Toogood looks back on a 37-year career that helped define New Zealand rock music, and the personal cost that came with it.Β From a music-obsessed childhood in Wellington to the deafening roar of international stages, this...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Odyssey
    Composed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage and family; about travellers, hospitality, and the yearning for home. This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative....
    By Homer
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3599
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Iliad
    When Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017β€”revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was "fresh, unpretentious and lean" (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)β€”critics lauded it as "a revelation" (Susan Chira, New York Times) and "a cultural landmark" (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an...
    By Homer
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Birdlands Birdlands
    New Release
    Birdlands
    A rare, intimate journey into the wild islands where Aotearoa's birds live beyond the reach of most human lives. In the most remote outposts of Aotearoa, our islands are populated not with people, but with birds. From the storm-lashed Subantarctic Islands in the deep south to the scattered volcanic islands of Tikapa Moana/Hauraki Gulf in the north, Birdlands offers a...
    Hardback
    $4199
    Elsewhere:
    $5000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Disney Moana: The Official Cookbook
    Embark on a culinary adventure with Moana of Motunui with Pacific recipes inspired by Moana and Moana 2! After a long day of sailing to see how far you’ll go or keeping the demigod Maui out of trouble with Te Fiti, catch a break with the delicious dishes in Moana: The Official Cookbook! Featuring more than 50 recipes spanning the...
    Hardback
    $4499
    Elsewhere:
    $5299
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Split Enz
    New Release
    Split Enz
    'My favourite band. Ever! And certainly the best dressed.' Sam Neill Split Enz were never designed to fit. Emerging from art school mischief in early-1970s New Zealand, they turned pop into surreal theatre: costume, character and melody colliding in a rock band that refused to behave like one. At the centre of that vision was Noel Crombieβ€”percussionist, performer and the...
    Hardback
    $5199
    Elsewhere:
    $6500
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Artist's Way
    The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron is a transformative guidebook that has captivated millions, including luminaries such as Elizabeth Gilbert and Tim Ferriss. With its profound ability to inspire and elevate, this book invites readers to embark on an enriching creative journey, fostering a deeper connection to one's artistic process and sense of purpose. The heart of Cameron's groundbreaking programme...
    Paperback
    $3700
    Elsewhere:
    $4500
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • This Angry Pen of Mine
    This Angry Pen of Mine by Layne Staley invites you to dive into the untold creative world of Layne Staley, the legendary voice behind Alice in Chains. This extraordinary collection showcases his handwritten lyrics, deeply personal poetry, stunning original artwork, rare photos, fan tributes, and so much more. Step into the world of Layne Staley like never before. For the...
    Hardback
    $7299
    Elsewhere:
    $8999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • A Life in Lyrics
    Freddie Mercury was one of the greatest showmen of the twentieth century. With his unparalleled voice and searing on-stage energy, he was a great pretender, a killer queen and a champion of the world. But behind the glamour lived a musician and lyricist talented beyond measure, and the creative force behind one of the most culturally significant and musically diverse...
    Hardback
    $5000
    Elsewhere:
    $6500
    Pre-order
    Out
  • Starside
    Enter the enchanting and deadly world of Starside, where swords have magic and power isn’t inherited – it’s claimed, from No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Alex Aster.Hundreds of years ago, a brutal war split a land in two. Starside is the realm of magic and immortals – the descendants of the gods, living in a power-rich paradise. Stormside...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3899
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

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.