Martha Augoustinos and Katherine J. Reynolds have edited an intellectually substantial collection of essays on a timely topic. The ease with which the perception of group difference can be cultivated and transformed into the perception of a threat, as seen in the rise of One Nation and, more recently, in the Australian community’s response to asylum seekers, sharpens the need for such a collection. It is not enough for those of us concerned by the inherent racism of the government’s policies, and the public approval of them, to point out either its irrational character or its inhumanity. If our opposition is to be effective, we need to understand the mechanics of racism. This book so thoroughly explores and elucidates those mechanisms, from the level of individual personality to politics, that I began to suspect the government front bench of using it as a guidebook. More seriously, I marvelled at its effective use of the interplay between social and political structures, policies and individual psychology in order to secure political advantage. John Duckitt’s ‘Reducing Prejudice: An Historical and Multi-Level Approach’ presents an overview of strategies and policies found to be effective in countering racism so precisely opposed to the policies and practices now in place in Australia that those policies and practices take on the appearance of a photographic negative.