Chris McConville

Chris McConville reviews ‘Kisch in Australia: The untold story’ by Heidi Zogbaum

December 2004–January 2005, no. 267 • 01 December 2004

An unfamiliar character from a strange land is barred from setting foot on mainland Australia. Desperate to land, he leaps from ship to shore, breaking his right leg in the process. A conservative attorney-general desperate to protect our borders, pursues this man, now on crutches, through the courts. The charismatic stranger wins his court case and holds the government up to ridicule. Shadowed un ... (read more)

Chris McConville reviews ‘The Great Labor Schism: A retrospective’ edited by Brian Costar, Peter Love and Paul Strangio

June–July 2005, no. 272 • 01 June 2005

Fresh from celebrating one glorious misadventure in Australia’s radical history, the labour movement now confronts a more awkward anniversary. The recent 150th year celebration of the Eureka Stockade brought with it a certain self-congratulatory afterglow. Less sanguine recollections will no doubt colour the fiftieth anniversary of the great ALP Split of 1955. This catastrophe had its origins in ... (read more)

Chris McConville reviews ‘Jack Lang and the Great Depression’ by Frank Cain

September 2005, no. 274 • 01 September 2005

Jack Lang was born to a poor watchmaker’s family in Sydney in 1876. He was twice premier of NSW and founder of two breakaway Labor parties. Lang lives on in the popular imagination as that hapless figure at the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, upstaged when the sword-wielding Captain de Groot of the right-wing New Guard rode in and slashed Lang’s official opening ribbon. De Groot ... (read more)

Chris McConville reviews ‘John Wren: A life reconsidered’ by James Griffin

April 2004, no. 260 • 01 April 2004

The last institution of old Collingwood, the Collingwood Football Club, is poised to take flight from yuppified terraces in the former industrial suburb or new headquarters, on the site of what was once John Wren’s motordrome, Olympic Park. Now is a perfect moment in which to read this intriguing story of the one-time patron of Collingwood’s football, politics and gambling – Its masculine wo ... (read more)

Chris McConville reviews 'Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History' edited by Raymond Evans and Carole Ferrier and 'Radical Melbourne 2: The Enemy Within' by Jeff Sparrow and Jill Sparrow

August 2004, no. 263 • 01 August 2004

Brisbane’s unruly rioters and Melbourne’s enemies within continue the Vulgar Press’s excellent series of city guides. By interpreting familiar places in Melbourne and Brisbane from within a tradition of left-wing activism, the guides emphasise a different environmental heritage. Where city planning seems bent on transforming daily life into those sanitised displays that can garner tourist do ... (read more)