FLINDERS: The Man who Mapped Australia, by Rob Mundle, Hachette, 386pp. One could niggle that Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) did not “map Australia”, but he was the first known European to circumnavigate the coasts of both the mainland and Tasmania, completing…
AN UNWINNABLE WAR: Australia in Afghanistan. By Karen Middleton Melbourne University Press, 382pp. Reviewed: 1 October 2011 In tracing the politics of Australia’s military involvement in Afghanistan, this book says more about Australia than about Afghanistan. From John Howard’s emotional…
THE AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT AND AUSTRALIA’S ROLE . Edited by Amin Saikal. Melbourne University Press. 210pp. Reviewed: 30 July 2011 Why are Australians fighting, killing and dying in Afghanistan? Surveys of Australian opinion suggest a confusion that crosses party lines, just…
CABLES FROM KABUL The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign. By Sherard Cowper-Coles. Harper Press.312pp. INFERNAL TRIANGLE Conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and The Levant – Eyewitness reports from the September 11 decade. By Paul McGeough. Allen and Unwin. 338pp.…
CHANGING STATIONS The Story of Australian Commercial Radio By Bridget Griffen-Foley, University of New South Wales Press, 530pp. Reviewed: 19 December 2009 In 1935, conservative magnate Sir Keith Murdoch fought to restrict access of a new, popular communications medium to…
EVER, MANNING Selected Letters of Manning Clark 1938-1991 edited by Roslyn Russell, Allen and Unwin, 552pp Reviewed: 9 August 2008 Manning Clark was a catalytic figure in the formation of Australian self-image, whose quest to construct a coherent sense of…
RIGHTS AND REDEMPTION History, Law and Indigenous People By Anne Curthoys, Ann Genovese and Alexander Reilly, UNSW Press, 277pp Reviewed: 5 July 2008 This is a scholarly but very readable examination of the ways in which Australia’s legal system has…
