Book Review – My Father’s Shadow

Book Review – My Father’s Shadow

Professor Emerita Joan Beaumont reviews Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo’s My Father’s Shadow: A Memoir, (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2023). ISBN 9781922979186   Samuel Goldbloom (1919-1999) was a prominent figure in Australian left-wing politics during the Cold War decades. A professed socialist, he was also a covert and deeply loyal member of the Communist Party. Other radicals […]
Book Reviews – Revealing Secrets and The Factory

Book Reviews – Revealing Secrets and The Factory

Peter Edwards reviews John Blaxland and Clare Birgin’s Revealing Secrets: An Unofficial History of Australian Signals Intelligence & The Advent of Cyber (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2023) and John Fahey’s The Factory: The Official History of the Australian Signals Directorate, Volume 1, 1947 to 1972 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2023).   The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), […]
Q&A with Jordana Silverstein, author of Cruel Care: A History of Children at Our Borders

Q&A with Jordana Silverstein, author of Cruel Care: A History of Children at Our Borders

Jacquelyn Baker interviews Jordana Silverstein about her book, Cruel Care: A History of Children at Our Borders (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2023).   Congratulations on the publication of Cruel Care, Jordy! I learnt so much about the history of Australia’s immigration policies and found it difficult to put down. The back cover of your book […]
Book Review – Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country

Book Review – Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country

James Watson reviews Ryan Cropp’s Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country (Collingwood: La Trobe University Press, 2023)   Did Donald Horne have anything meaningful to say? It’s a harsh question of a man who wrote more than two dozen books, edited multiple literary journals at once, and published countless articles, essays, and reviews; […]
Book Review – Everything you need to know about the Voice

Book Review – Everything you need to know about the Voice

Tim Rowse reviews Megan Davis and George Williams’s Everything you need to know about the Voice (NewSouth Publishing 2023).   This book is a sequel to the authors’ Everything you need to know about the Uluru Statement from the Heart (2021). The ‘Voice’ sequel includes much that was in the ‘Statement’ book: a history of […]
Book Review – Media Monsters: The Transformation of Australia’s Newspaper Empires

Book Review – Media Monsters: The Transformation of Australia’s Newspaper Empires

Lyndon Megarrity reviews Sally Young’s Media Monsters: The Transformation of Australia’s Newspaper Empires, (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2023).   The underlying theme of this fine publication is “Perception becomes reality”. Whereas twenty-first century journalists and media moguls have created a self-fulfilling prophecy by repeatedly talking down newspapers as “a dying medium”, newspaper owners between 1941 and […]
Book Review – Here Be Monsters: Is Technology Reducing Our Humanity?

Book Review – Here Be Monsters: Is Technology Reducing Our Humanity?

Joshua Black reviews Richard King, Here Be Monsters: Is Technology Reducing Our Humanity? (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2023).   “I don’t know how to rearrange society to make it just and sustainable” says author, critic and poet Richard King in the final chapter of his new philosophical treatise Here Be Monsters: Is Technology Reducing Our […]
Book Review – The Morrison Government: Governing Through Crisis, 2019–2022: Australian Commonwealth Administration Series

Book Review – The Morrison Government: Governing Through Crisis, 2019–2022: Australian Commonwealth Administration Series

Lyndon Megarrity reviews Brendan McCaffrie, Michelle Grattan and Chris Wallace’s (eds) The Morrison Government: Governing Through Crisis, 2019–2022: Australian Commonwealth Administration Series, (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2023), pp. viii +304.   The Morrison Government: Governing Through Crisis, 2019–2022 is the fourteenth volume in the Australian Commonwealth Administration series of publications. This series brings together the contributions […]
Book Review – The Red Witch: A biography of Katherine Susannah Prichard

Book Review – The Red Witch: A biography of Katherine Susannah Prichard

Joan Beaumont reviews Nathan Hobby’s The Red Witch: A biography of Katherine Susannah Prichard, Melbourne University Publishing, 2022, 451 pp. ISBN 9780522877380   By any measure Katherine Susannah Prichard (KSP) was a remarkable woman, full of contradictions. Most notably, she was a renowned and prolific author. After starting her career as a journalist in Melbourne, […]
Book Review – Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia

Book Review – Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia

Anthony O’Donnell reviews Daniel Mulino’s Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia, La Trobe University Press, 2022 i + xii; 372pp   What do we talk about when we talk about ‘the Australian welfare state’? For some, it’s almost a contradiction in terms. We have a minimalist, means-tested, flat-rate system of income supports that […]
Book Review – Wizards of Oz: How Oliphant and Florey Helped Win the War and Shape the Modern World

Book Review – Wizards of Oz: How Oliphant and Florey Helped Win the War and Shape the Modern World

Peter Hobbins reviews Brett Mason’s Wizards of Oz: How Oliphant and Florey Helped Win the War and Shape the Modern World (Sydney: NewSouth, 2022), ISBN 9781742237459 (PB), $34.99.   Dyadic biographies are – quite literally – many-headed beasts. Attempting to integrate the personalities and trajectories of two historical protagonists runs the risk of forced comparisons, […]
Q&A with Michelle Arrow, editor of Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution

Q&A with Michelle Arrow, editor of Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution

Jacquelyn Baker interviews Michelle Arrow, editor of Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2023).   Congratulations on the publication of this book, Michelle! It is, in part, the product of the Women and Politics Conference, which was held at Old Parliament House in 2019. Can you explain to our readers why the […]