8 April 2014
The Labour politician turned radical in mid-career and ended up a revered figure. His remarkable story can also reveal Britain to itself, says David Hayes
Books & arts
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
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
18 February 2014
Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement made stunning gains at Italy’s last election, writes James Panichi. But as the controversy over its guiding…
Books & arts
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
Essays & reportage
14 January 2014
As the Cold War intensified in the mid fifties, Australia saw a special role for itself in disseminating information and propaganda in Southeast Asia, writes Alan Fewster
Books & arts
8 January 2014
Kay Saunders reviews Joan Beaumont’s account of Australia’s first world war
Books & arts
17 December 2013
As two Australian books show, the European Enlightenment rested partly on a global traffic of persons between widely separated spaces
Essays & reportage
16 December 2013
The cyclones of the late 1960s and early 1970s didn’t shape the Whitlam government as much as gentler breezes of the 1950s and early 1960s
Books & arts
9 December 2013
Klaus Neumann reviews two books that put displaced people at the heart of contemporary history
Books & arts
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
15 November 2013
Three biographies reveal twentieth-century Australians in the thick of things, writes Frank Bongiorno
Essays & reportage
31 October 2013
Uzbekistan is still writing and rewriting its own history, reports a recently returned R.J.B. Bosworth
International
10 October 2013
David G. Marr describes the genesis of his new book, a detailed look at a turning point in modern Vietnamese history
Books & arts
3 October 2013
John Besemeres reviews a remarkable book and recounts the career of its equally remarkable author
Essays & reportage
2 September 2013
A cross-dressing MI6 agent and a shadowy British anti-communist propaganda outfit were key players in the development of Australia’s cold war “soft diplomacy” program
Essays & reportage
25 July 2013
The looming centenary of the landing at Gallipoli is a reminder of unfinished business between settler and Indigenous Australia after a decade of incomplete reconciliation
From the archive
17 July 2013
This 1954 documentary has “a kind of radiance” that captivated audiences around the world
Books & arts
2 July 2013
A new account of Poland’s experience of the second world war helps fill a blank page in our historical consciousness, writes John Besemeres
Essays & reportage
29 June 2013
As managing editor of the Melbourne Herald, Keith Murdoch battled employers, sensation-mongering and overly large headlines in a remarkable series of notes to his senior…
Books & arts
18 June 2013
What explains our fascination with the buried Neapolitan town?
Books & arts
2 May 2013
Henry Reynolds reviews a new account of exploration on two continents
Books & arts
28 April 2013
Sylvia Lawson reviews John Hughes’s documentary about the poet Judith Wright, and Pablo Larraín’s No
28 April 2013
The renowned director’s new film, which uses the socialist mood of 1945 to assail the world Margaret Thatcher created, is bad history and worse politics, says David Hayes
Books & arts
28 April 2013
Duncan Hewitt reviews two witty new books about China’s faultlines and prospects
National affairs
24 April 2013
The State Library of New South Wales’s breathtaking trove of photographs from the 1870s
Books & arts
18 April 2013
Rome’s greatest orator has a message for the current generation of political leaders, says Brett Evans
Books & arts
19 March 2013
Sylvia Lawson on the ABC’s triumphant return to the Opera House
National affairs
5 March 2013
Like Australia, Britain decided to make it harder for new arrivals to become citizens. Kerry Ryan looks at the mixed results
Books & arts
27 February 2013
New cinema releases reviewed by Sylvia Lawson