Guy Rundle

Guy Rundle reviews ‘Global Civil Society?’ by John Keane

September 2003, no. 254 • 01 September 2003

With the world apparently going to hell in a handbasket, the flood of contributions to ideas of global governance shows no sign of abating. There is something dizzying about immersing oneself in such far-reaching and ultimately – necessarily – optimistic works about the possibility of a just global civil order at a time when the most basic liberal democratic rights and freedoms are being trade ... (read more)

Guy Rundle reviews 'Australian Republicanism: A reader' edited by Mark McKenna and Wayne Hudson

December 2003–January 2004, no. 257 • 01 December 2003

Was there ever an uglier duckling than Australian republicanism? It’s a movement whose end is vital to anyone who believes that a people should attempt to extend the control over their own destiny, but which, of itself, fails to inspire the slightest excitement in anyone for whom politics is a living, breathing thing. Even more suspicious are those for whom republicanism is an exciting cause. Th ... (read more)

Guy Rundle reviews 'Faking Literature' by K. K. Ruthven

August 2001, no. 233 • 01 August 2001

Nothing divides people as much as the idea that history is a text and, in many cases, a fiction. It’s the sort of notion – more or less accepted by academics in the Humanities – that really annoys ‘among the barbarians’ public intellectuals. Point out that history is written by the victors, that much of what we think of as gospel was written decades after the event from secondary sources ... (read more)

Guy Rundle reviews 'Remaking Men: The revolution in masculinity' by David Tacey

December 1997–January 1998, no. 197 • 08 June 2022

Whatever happened to the men’s movement? Was it only a few years ago that we all gathered in the Dandenongs to bang drums, fashion spears, and – I quote from a flier advertising one such event – hug all night in ‘greased cuddle piles’. Now the tribes of management consultants, computer programmers and, well, wimps have retreated from view (to the chagrin of stand-up comedians everywhere) ... (read more)

Guy Rundle reviews 'What Did You Learn Today?' by Mark Latham

April 2001, no. 229 • 01 April 2001

In the midst of transition to the information economy, there is a need for thinking about learning in ways that will help us to reconstruct the education system, while enhancing its critical and reflective role, and improving equality of opportunity. This new book by Mark Latham, a Labor MHR, isn’t it, though at first glance many will think it might be. Consciously or otherwise, it’s a substan ... (read more)

Guy Rundle reviews 'Looking for Leadership: Australia in the Howard Years' by Donald Horne

September 2001, no. 234 • 01 September 2001

London 1999. I’m in a draughty slum in Hackney, the poor part of the East End, shared with a mini-UN of students, squatters, drifters and a junior investment banker. Feeding five-pound notes into the gas meter, keeping an eye out the window for the television licence detector van, we’re doing what everyone who comes to cool Britannia does most evenings – watching the BBC ‘cos we can’t af ... (read more)