Dr. Kevin Baker takes an historical look at civil and military unrest in Australasia from the earliest times of European colonization to the riots at Cronulla in 2005, where the intensity and aftermath took Australia by surprise. In the process he examines many insurrections and relates them to an ongoing, but diminishing, number of direct challenges to authority. These include goldfield disturbances, the Melbourne police strike, prison and detention center riots, the New Zealand naval mutiny of 1947, a number of naval and military attempts to challenge and buck authority, and attempted political assassinations. Baker also takes the reader through a careful examination of the key terms - sedition, riot, mutiny - which are examined in legal terms and in relation to larger ethical issues and ongoing debates that can be traced back to the beginnings of Western civilization. But while sedition has been very much in the news recently, Baker argues that Australians and New Zealanders have in fact lost a lot of the rebellious spirit that was more common in the nation-building years.