Val Wake

ABR welcomes letters from our readers. Correspondents should note that letters may be edited. Letters and emails must reach us by the middle of the current month, and must include a telephone number for verification.

Barry Jones on the ODNB

Dear Editor,

I read Angus Trumble’s review of The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ABR, March 2005) with close interest and some envy. It was probably inevitable that he should concentrate on entries with Australian relationships. He comments that all deceased Australian prime ministers are there, except Scullin and Page. In fact, Fadden and Forde are also missing.

Bauman’s point of departure

Dear Editor,

Boris Frankel bursts in through open doors. He gives Zygmunt Bauman and me stick for speaking our truths (ABR, October 2001). Viewed in its own terms, what remains of the Left in Australia is in a bad way because it has failed (1) to clarify its ethics, norms and values and (2) to develop alternative visions and policies upon them; because (3) there is no popular bearer or social movement available to carry these invisible ends; and (4) because there is no evidence of popular support for a new society, present unhappiness and misery notwithstanding. If this is not modern, what is it? (If the Soviet and Nazi experiences were not modern, what were they?)