Jon Stratton is Professor of Cultural Studies at Curtin University, Perth, Australia. Jon has published widely in cultural studies, Jewish studies, popular music studies and Australian studies. Uncertain Lives updates his discussion of Australian multiculturalism in Race Daze: Australia in Identity Crisis (1998).'Stratton offers important critiques of the function of racism in everyday relations in Australia. In so doing, he canvasses an impressive array of sites and theories, inviting the reader into significant debates and urging them to appreciate the magnitude of these urgent ethical issues and their fundamental relationship to the workings of capital. More than a snapshot of a specific political landscape, however, Uncertain Lives provides a way into key theoretical debates circulating in the first decade of the 2000s, weaving complex theory into grounded debates. These critical interventions highlight the continuity current policy and law has with historical forms of racism and exclusion in Australia. As such, the insights developed in this book bring to the forefront the urgent need for our politicians to reflect upon the ethics of our policy positions.

While the book is brought together by the overriding concerns of race, culture and neoliberalism, each chapter also makes sense on its own, making it an ideal choice for inclusion on University courses concerned with the nexus of politics and race, immigration and exclusion, neoliberalism and punishment, or popular culture and racism.''- Elaine Kelly, 'Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies', (March 2013).This book provides an important critical analysis of the Howard era exploring the personal implications of economic fundamentalism in the everyday lived experiences of Australians. The collection would sit very well with other works seeking to examine the ways in which other groups, such as sole parents for example, were excluded within under the Howard regime. The book is very accessible and would make a good addition to an undergraduate and postgraduate reading list; in particular, the introduction provides a concise historical overview that would be ideal reading for second or third year undergraduates. Stratton's collection is highly relevant for students undertaking cultural studies, sociology, postcolonial studies, Indigenous studies, Australian studies, criminology, community and social psychology, arts and social science courses.- Merryn Smith, The Australian Community Psychologist, 25:2 (2013)."For thirty years, Jon Stratton has been the sharpest, most acute observer of cultural phenomena around.

This latest collection of his investigations into the racial contours of Australian neoliberalism is further testimony to the extraordinary contribution he has made to cultural studies around the globe."- Toby Miller, University of California, Riverside, USA; author of The Well-Tempered Self (1993), Technologies Of Truth (1998), Cultural Citizenship (2007) and Makeover Nation (2008)"In a context of global crises - political, economic and social - Stratton's book stages a series of compelling interventions that clarify the origins of these crises and their impact on the lives of both citizens and socially designated 'others.' At once analytical and impassioned, this is a landmark book offering a rigorous and inspired account of the destructive ways in which neoliberalism has critically transformed Australian society and culture."- Joseph Pugliese, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; author of Biometerics (2010); editor of Transmediterranean (2010).