Bookshelf

Book Review – The Australians at Geneva: Internationalist Diplomacy in the Interwar Years

Book Review – The Australians at Geneva: Internationalist Diplomacy in the Interwar Years

Joan Beaumont reviews James Cotton’s The Australians at Geneva: Internationalist Diplomacy in the Interwar Years, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2022). ISBN 9780522878998 (paperback) 9780522879001 (e-book).   The League of Nations has been something of a poor relation in the historiography of Australian foreign policy. Traditionally, it has been tarred with its utter failure to check […]

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Book Review – Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm

Book Review – Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm

Matthew Allen reviews Alan Atkinson’s Elizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm (Kensington, NSW: NewSouth, 2022).   Alan Atkinson has been writing about the Macarthurs, on and off, throughout his academic life. His MA thesis focussed on John and the family’s role in the early colony, his PhD on James’ political career, while Camden […]
Book Review – The Australian History Industry

Book Review – The Australian History Industry

Deborah Lee-Talbot reviews Paul Ashton and Paula Hamilton, The Australian History Industry, (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2022).   The Australian History Industry is an ambitious book that covers the intersecting and often competing sectors that produce the various elements of this nation’s history. This book builds on earlier volumes that touch on this topic, […]
Q&A with Marion Stell, author of The Bodyline Fix

Q&A with Marion Stell, author of The Bodyline Fix

Jacquelyn Baker interviews Marion Stell about her recent book, The Bodyline Fix: How Women Saved Cricket (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2022). The book details the first international women’s Test cricket series between Australia and England in 1934-35, which followed the controversial Bodyline men’s series in 1932-33.   Congratulations on the publication of this […]
Book Review – Suva Stories: A history of the capital of Fiji

Book Review – Suva Stories: A history of the capital of Fiji

Anna Kent reviews Nicholas Halter (Ed), Suva Stories: A history of the capital of Fiji, ANU Press 2022.   Suva Stories is an appropriate name for this title, bringing as it does an eclectic mix of stories together to tell many histories of Suva, the capital of Fiji, from a variety of different social, economic, […]
Absolute Danism?

Absolute Danism?

James C. Murphy reviews Sumeyya Ilanbey, Daniel Andrews: The Revealing Biography of Australia’s Most Powerful Premier (Allen & Unwin, 2022), 312pp.   After his father’s business literally exploded, Daniel Andrews’ family was left with next to nothing. Bob Andrews had invested everything in his Glenroy milk bar. It was left in ruins after the supermarket […]
Q&A with Lyndon Megarrity, author of Robert Philp and the Politics of Development

Q&A with Lyndon Megarrity, author of Robert Philp and the Politics of Development

Stephen Wilks interviews Lyndon Megarrity, author of Robert Philp and the Politics of Development (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Press, 2022)   Congratulations, Lyndon, on your new book. Let’s start with the essential facts – who exactly was Robert Philp and what is he known for? The Scottish-born Robert Philp is known primarily as the co-founder […]
Book Review – Emperors in Lilliput: Clem Christesen of Meanjin and Stephen Murray-Smith of Overland

Book Review – Emperors in Lilliput: Clem Christesen of Meanjin and Stephen Murray-Smith of Overland

Richard Trembath reviews     Jim Davidson, Emperors in Lilliput: Clem Christesen of Meanjin and Stephen Murray-Smith of Overland, (Melbourne: The Miegunyah Press, 2022).   I don’t want to go back to the days of Tony Abbott, but I have always thought that anybody who attempts a biography deserves at least a minor order of knighthood.  […]
Book Review – Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, Australia’s first filmmaking team

Book Review – Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, Australia’s first filmmaking team

Sharon Connolly reviews Mandy Sayer, Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, Australia’s first filmmaking team (NewSouth Publishing, 2022).   Mandy Sayer’s Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters makes the long wait for a book about the Australian filmmaking team worthwhile.  It’s a sparkling account of the sisters’ lives, well researched and timely. Their cinematic careers were brief and peaked […]
Book Review – My Giddy Aunt and her Sister Comedians

Book Review – My Giddy Aunt and her Sister Comedians

Lyndon Megarrity reviews Sharon Connolly, My Giddy Aunt and her Sister Comedians, Upswell Publishing, Perth, 2022.   This is a family history revolving around three lively performers with a talent to amuse: the versatile professional whistler, saxophonist, singer, comic and all-round entertainer Gladys Connolly, her equally talented and driven brother Keith, as well as his […]