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…
THE NEW HATE: A history of fear and loathing on the populist right. By Arthur Goldwag, Scribe, 368pp Reviewed: 10 March 2012 Recently I’ve noticed more Australians voicing their disgust at the verbal violence and personal nastiness that pervade our…
PLANET WORD The story of language from the earliest grunts to Twitter and beyond. By J.P. Davidson Michael Joseph, 445pp Reviewed: 19 November 2011 If you are the sort of person who reads book reviews, you will probably find this…
SHANGHAI FURY Australian Heroes of Revolutionary China. By Peter Thompson Heinemann, 530pp. Reviewed: 22 October 2011 You might think that the last century and a half of Chinese history has already been probed from every conceivable angle, but Peter Thompson…
MI6 The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 by Keith Jeffery Bloomsbury. 810pp. Reviewed: 12 February, 2011 Secret agents have fascinated us since story-telling began. We get excited about the moral ambiguities of Wikileaks and of political propaganda. Practices…
MACBETH A True Story By Fiona Watson Quercus, 320pp. Reviewed: 12 June, 2010 The tension between history and drama is part of our response to either genre. We scan history for dramatic human elements that resonate with choices that may…
A HISTORY OF DIPLOMACY By Jeremy Black Reaktion Books, 312pp. Reviewed: 15 May, 2010 Perhaps the first recorded “diplomatic incident” occurred in Eden, when Adam acted on advice from Eve, based upon credible representations by the Serpent (on behalf of…
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…
DELETE The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age By Victor Mayer-Schönberger, Princeton University Press, 237pp. FUTURE FILES A History of the Next 50 Years By Richard Watson, Scribe Publications, 302pp Reviewed: 21 November 2009 I’d venture that most readers…
ON THE ORIGIN OF STORIES Evolution, Cognition and Fiction By Brian Boyd, Harvard University Press, 540pp. Reviewed: 24 October 2009 Why do we bother with stories? Why do humans invest so much energy in making, sharing and consuming narratives that…
