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 […]
Democracies are fragile. Australians must act urgently to safeguard  ours

Democracies are fragile. Australians must act urgently to safeguard  ours

AAP/Lukas Coch Carolyn Holbrook, Deakin University The solicitor-general’s recent finding that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s furtive accrual of ministerial portfolios “fundamentally undermined” the principles of responsible government has drawn attention to the precarity of democracy. In seeking to safeguard our democracy, we must consider the extent to which Australians’ long-standing apathy about our democratic […]
Post Pandemic Positions: Australian NGOs and Education in a Century of Internationalism – Students, Experts and Friends

Post Pandemic Positions: Australian NGOs and Education in a Century of Internationalism – Students, Experts and Friends

An Academy for Social Sciences in Australia workshop Convened by David Lowe, Kate Darian-Smith, Jon Piccini and Melanie Oppenheimer Ten years after the 2012 White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century, it is time to assess what has become of some of the major components of the people-to-people aspect of Australia’s engagements in its […]
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, […]
Who is going to write the urgent histories of tomorrow?

Who is going to write the urgent histories of tomorrow?

By Lyndon Megarrity   In the midst of commemorating 90 years of broadcasting this year, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation announced that it was abolishing 58 specialist librarian and archivist roles, with journalists expected to play an increasing role in sourcing, collecting and cataloguing material.[1] It’s just the latest example of myopic managerialism that has become […]
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 […]
The Ongoing Crisis in Sri Lanka

The Ongoing Crisis in Sri Lanka

By Dr Niro Kandasamy   Sri Lankans have taken to the streets to protest the Rajapaksa government. As food supplies dwindle and tensions increase, the president refuses to step down. Sri Lanka is facing its worst economic crisis since independence. The country’s population of 22 million have endured months of severe shortages in food, fuel, […]