Book Review – Preparing a Nation? The New Deal in the Villages of Papua New Guinea

Rosita Henry reviews Brad Underhill’s Preparing a Nation? The New Deal in the Villages of Papua New Guinea, (Canberra: ANU Press, 2024). I find most policy histories rather dry reading, so was a little reluctant to review this book when approached, but I have no regrets! I found the book compelling to read and […]

Book Review – Rex Patterson: A Voice for the North

Sybil Nolan reviews Lyndon Megarrity’s Rex Patterson: A Voice for the North (Connor Court Publishing, 2024) Gough Whitlam made the early 1970s an exciting time to be an idealistic teenager in country Queensland. Whenever his large head loomed into view on our small black-and-white TV at home, we waited for him to say something […]

Book Review – Repeat: A Warning from History

Wayne Bradshaw reviews Dennis Glover’s Repeat: A Warning from History (Black Inc, 2024) Dennis Glover’s new book, Repeat: A Warning from History, is the latest work to take its place in the committed tradition of polemical writing against the resurgence of a worldview that Umberto Eco called ‘Ur-Fascism’ in his 1997 essay of the […]

Book Review – Campus: Building Modern Australian Universities

Andrew G. Bonnell reviews Andrew Saniga and Robert Freestone’s (eds) Campus: Building Modern Australian Universities, (Crawley, WA: UWA Publishing, 2023). There is a growing literature on the history of Australian universities, albeit one that is uneven in quality, with some recent commemorative works closer to public relations puffery than scholarly history. In this literature, […]

Q&A with Rose Butler and Eve Vincent, authors of Love Across Class

Jacquelyn Baker interviews Rose Butler and Eve Vincent about their book Love Across Class (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2024). Congratulation on the publication of your book, Rose and Eve! I found it to be an insightful and thought-provoking read that sparked conversations about class with my partner. This is not just a book about […]

‘Survival sex’, ‘mob justice’ and more: the first independent study of abuse in the Australian Defence Force is damning

Mia Martin Hobbs, Deakin University “Participants expected the costs of war, but they were not prepared for the costs of service,” explain Ben Wadham and James Connor in their new book, the first independent study of military institutional abuse in the Australian Defence Force. Warrior, Soldier, Brigand draws on interviews with nearly 70 survivors and […]

Book Review – The Chinese in Papua New Guinea: Past, Present and Future

Claire Lowrie reviews Anna Hayes, Rosita Henry and Michael Wood’s (eds) The Chinese in Papua New Guinea: Past, Present and Future, (Canberra: ANU Press, 2024) China’s increasing engagement with countries across the Pacific region is cause for concern amongst policy makers in Australia and the US. It is also the subject of regular, and […]

Book Review – Uncertainty and Emotion in the 1900 Sydney Plague

Richard Trembath reviews Philippa Nicole Barr’s Uncertainty and Emotion in the 1900 Sydney Plague*, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024). ISSN 2632-1068 (online) I was unaware of the Cambridge Element series until I accepted the offer of reviewing this recent addition to their program. Having taught for many years in university courses based on the […]

Book Review – Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia

Richard Trembath reviews Evan Smith, Jayne Persian and Vashti Jane Fox (eds), Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia* (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2023), 266 pages including footnotes, introduction and index. Australian writer Dennis Glover states in the Guardian (25 August 2024) that ‘we are entering a new age of savagery and organised […]

Book Review – Liberalism as a way of life

Georgina Downer reviews Alexander Lefebvre’s Liberalism as a way of life, (NewSouth, 2024) The term ‘liberal’ is likely to inspire admiration or loathing depending on the company you keep. It’s also likely to be understood differently by everyone you ask. The definition eludes us; there are national distinctions such as the differences between North […]

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