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books
Books & arts
The God of big things
Janna Thompson
1 April 2014
In
Culture and the Death of God
Terry Eagleton explores the persistence of religious ideas in political life and culture
Books & arts
Unpredictable to whom, and in what way?
Ben Eltham
28 March 2014
Not only is he an anti-Chomskyan, Philip Lieberman is also an enemy of evolutionary biology and pop neuroscience, writes
Ben Eltham
Books & arts
The social life of Muslim women’s rights
Shakira Hussein
19 March 2014
Lila Abu-Lughod set out to discover “why the emerging Western common sense about Muslim women did not capture what I knew from experience and from reading history.”…
Books & arts
An unknown, an interloper, a feminist
Sybil Nolan
5 March 2014
Books
| Eilean Giblin touched much that was formative in twentieth-century Australia
Books & arts
A “self-fulfilling, rolling disaster”?
Dean Ashenden
5 March 2014
A new narrative for Australian schooling would accept diversity and competition, but competition for achievement rather than for students or money, writes
Dean Ashenden
Books & arts
Digging into the resource curse
Michael Gilding
5 March 2014
The life stories of four mining magnates illuminate where Australia’s economy is headed, writes
Michael Gilding
. The political and social effects could be profound
Books & arts
Rights and desires
Susan Powell
4 March 2014
Susan Powell
traces the dramatically changing landscape of adoption in Australia
Books & arts
Between pernicious nationalism and watery liberalism
Janna Thompson
25 February 2014
In her latest book political philosopher Martha Nussbaum looks at what drives people apart and how we can bridge those divides, writes
Janna Thompson
Books & arts
What it feels like to be a doctor
Frank Bowden
24 February 2014
We need our doctors to
feel
, writes
Frank Bowden
, but not so much that they stop thinking
Books & arts
Red in tooth and claw
Brett Evans
21 February 2014
Politics is hard and democracy is messy.
Brett Evans
reviews two new books that help explain why it doesn’t all end in disaster
Books & arts
A short look at Medicare’s long history
Gwendolyn Gray Jamieson
20 February 2014
Gwendolyn Gray Jamieson
reviews an account of the genesis and chequered career of Labor’s national health insurance scheme
Books & arts
The land of living dangerously
Sara Dowse
13 February 2014
Would bending be the bravest option for Israel, asks
Sara Dowse
Books & arts
Too much talent
Andrew Ford
11 February 2014
A new collection of letters traces the life of the “outrageously gifted” composer of
West Side Story
, writes
Andrew Ford
Books & arts
Picnics and politics
Kate Bagnall
24 January 2014
Chinese-Australian community leaders created a new perception of the Chinese in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, writes
Kate Bagnall
Books & arts
New news is better than no news
Scott Bridges
22 January 2014
A new book encourages a different way of thinking about “news" and how it’s presented on television, writes
Scott Bridges
Books & arts
Grey zone
Gabrielle Appleby
17 January 2014
Whistleblowers fill a gap left by legislatures and the courts. How can they be protected without creating an accountability vacuum, asks
Gabrielle Appleby
Books & arts
Books grow out of other books; or Favourites revisited
Brian McFarlane
16 January 2014
Jane Austen, P.G. Wodehouse and Ian Fleming provide the inspiration for four new novels, reviewed here by
Brian McFarlane
Books & arts
What kind of noise annoys an oyster?
Darren Tofts
14 January 2014
Melancholy and occasionally joyous, the story of two “squinty daughters” doesn’t quite justify the pictures, writes
Darren Tofts
Books & arts
The internationalist dream
Hilary Charlesworth
14 January 2014
Although they disagree on many points, Kofi Annan and Mark Mazower together illuminate the intricacies and rituals of international cooperation, writes
Hilary Charlesworth
Books & arts
A different kind of war
Kay Saunders
8 January 2014
Kay Saunders
reviews Joan Beaumont’s account of Australia’s first world war
Books & arts
“When I forget, I’m well. Remembering, even now, I just go crazy”
Klaus Neumann
23 December 2013
Does the equation that infuses the work of truth commissions – that more memory equals more reconciliation – always meet the needs of people affected by widespread…
Books & arts
Stumbling into existence
Eleanor Hogan
11 December 2013
Eleanor Hogan
reviews a careful and often illuminating history of a northwestern Australian town
Books & arts
Refugees making history
Klaus Neumann
9 December 2013
Klaus Neumann
reviews two books that put displaced people at the heart of contemporary history
Books & arts
In praise of ingenuity and tenacity
Peter Spearritt
5 December 2013
A new book shows how much Australia owes to canvas, writes
Peter Spearritt
Books & arts
Debunking Mawson
Tom Griffiths
3 December 2013
In his desire to find the evil in Douglas Mawson, David Day overlooks the awkward tenderness and vulnerability that may lie at the heart of this flawed and driven man, writes…
Books & arts
The revolutionary box
Brett Evans
2 December 2013
It’s not just sweatshop labour that keeps down the price of the stuff we buy, writes
Brett Evans
Books & arts
Consequences
Richard Johnstone
2 December 2013
Richard Johnstone
reviews Janet Lewis’s
The Trial of Sören Qvist
Books & arts
The ageless question
Sara Dowse
29 November 2013
Sara Dowse
reviews three new books about what it means to grow old
Books & arts
A rum rebellion
Stephen Mills
28 November 2013
How did an unelected campaign consultant come to exercise such influence over Labor’s 2013 campaign, asks
Stephen Mills
Books & arts
The very heart of history
Frank Bongiorno
15 November 2013
Three biographies reveal twentieth-century Australians in the thick of things, writes
Frank Bongiorno
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