Review – Skin Deep: The Inside Story of our Outer Selves

Review – Skin Deep: The Inside Story of our Outer Selves

Thomas J. Kehoe reviews Phillipa McGuinness, Skin Deep: The Inside Story of our Outer Selves, Vintage, Sydney, 2022.   Phillipa McGuinness is an excellent writer and storyteller and in Skin Deep she takes the reader on a journey through the multifaceted dimensions of experience and the permutations of meaning associated with our skin. Skin is […]
Review – An Uncommon Hangman: The Life and Deaths of Robert ‘Nosey Bob’ Howard

Review – An Uncommon Hangman: The Life and Deaths of Robert ‘Nosey Bob’ Howard

Alana Piper reviews Rachel Franks, An Uncommon Hangman: The Life and Deaths of Robert ‘Nosey Bob’ Howard (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing 2022). 9781742237343. 432pp. RRP $34.99.   In this compelling biography, Rachel Franks explores the life of Robert Howard, New South Wales’ (NSW) longest-serving hangman, who performed the role diligently throughout the colony (later state) from […]
Q&A with Anna Clark, author of Making Australian History

Q&A with Anna Clark, author of Making Australian History

Carolyn Holbrook interviews Anna Clark, author of Making Australian History (Sydney: Vintage, 2022)   Congratulations on the publication of this fascinating, thought-provoking and highly readable history of Australian history-making. The book eschews a linear narrative in favour of categories of analysis, such as ‘Silence’, ‘Distance’, ‘Time’, ‘Imagination’ and ‘Contact’. Can you tell us how you […]
Review – Sneaky Little Revolutions: Selected Essays of Charmian Clift.

Review – Sneaky Little Revolutions: Selected Essays of Charmian Clift.

Jacquelyn Baker reviews Nadia Wheatley (ed), Sneaky Little Revolutions: Selected Essays of Charmian Clift (Sydney: NewSouth, 2022).   When I was an undergraduate student, I was enrolled in a unit called Australian Literature. The three novels that were discussed in this subject were Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career (1901), Tim Winton’s Breath (2008) and Christos […]
Speech by Emeritus Professor Graeme Davison at the Melbourne launch of The Work of History: Writing for Stuart Macintyre

Speech by Emeritus Professor Graeme Davison at the Melbourne launch of The Work of History: Writing for Stuart Macintyre

Melbourne Athenaeum Library, 15 July 2022 The Work of History: Writing for Stuart Macintyre, edited by Peter Beilharz and Sian Supski,Melbourne University Press. Many words– true and heartfelt words– have already been spoken and written about Stuart and his remarkable legacy.  Among them, I particularly remember those spoken by his daughter Mary on the day […]
Q&A with Claire E.F. Wright, author of Australian Economic History (ANU Press, 2022)

Q&A with Claire E.F. Wright, author of Australian Economic History (ANU Press, 2022)

Lyndon Megarrity interviews Claire E.F. Wright about her new book Australian Economic History (ANU Press, 2022)   Your book on the history of Australian economic history has a strong focus on local, national and global academic networks among staff at Australian tertiary institutions. What inspired you to take this approach to your work? I’ve had […]
Book Review – Liberalism and its Discontents

Book Review – Liberalism and its Discontents

Joshua Black reviews Francis Fukuyama’s Liberalism and its Discontents (Profile; 2022).   It is particularly timely to be reading and thinking about contemporary liberalism. The United States Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, the re-emergence of high inflation, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have given liberal intellectuals pause for thought. Against this backdrop, […]
Book Review – The Art of Coalition: The Howard Government Experience, 1996-2007

Book Review – The Art of Coalition: The Howard Government Experience, 1996-2007

David Lovell & Andrew Blyth, The Art of Coalition: The Howard Government Experience, 1996-2007 (Sydney: NewSouth, 2022).  Review by Zachary Gorman.   The Art of Coalition: The Howard Government Experience, 1996-2007 edited by David Lovell and Andrew Blyth is a timely contribution to both Australian political science and Australian political history. Coalition relations were often […]
Book Review – The Secrets of Emu Field: Britain’s Forgotten Atomic Tests in Australia

Book Review – The Secrets of Emu Field: Britain’s Forgotten Atomic Tests in Australia

Elizabeth Tynan, The Secrets of Emu Field: Britain’s Forgotten Atomic Tests in Australia, NewSouth, 384pp, $34.99. Book Review by Honae Cuffe.   In The Secrets of Emu Field: Britain’s Forgotten Atomic Tests in Australia, historian Elizabeth Tynan reveals the story of Britain’s burgeoning atomic capabilities, Australia’s own ambitions, and the Aboriginal communities who were harmed […]
Review – Australia’s Great Depression: how a nation shattered by the Great War survived the worst economic crisis it has ever faced

Review – Australia’s Great Depression: how a nation shattered by the Great War survived the worst economic crisis it has ever faced

Joan Beaumont, Australia’s Great Depression: how a nation shattered by the Great War survived the worst economic crisis it has ever faced, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2022. Review by Janet McCalman.   This is the first general history of Australia’s Great Depression that embraces city and the bush, all states and territories, politics, economics, and […]
Book Review – The Genesis of a Policy Defining and Defending Australia’s National Interest in the Asia-Pacific, 1921–57

Book Review – The Genesis of a Policy Defining and Defending Australia’s National Interest in the Asia-Pacific, 1921–57

The Genesis of a Policy – Honae Cuffe, ANU Press, Canberra, 2021 Review by Anna Kent   In the midst of an election campaign, with some nuanced foreign policy debate breaking through into the mainstream media, it is wonderful to read a book that challenges the conventional view on foreign policy history. Honae Cuffe’s book […]