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Dennis Altman
Dennis Altman is a Vice Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University. His most recent books are God Save the Queen (Scribe, 2021) and Death in the Sauna (Clouds of Magellan, 2023).
Thanks to Alison Broinowski and Scribe, we now have an Australian booklet that seeks to make sense of the recent war in Iraq and of Australia’s participation in the war. Whatever shortcomings the book has – and shortcomings are inevitable when the slow art of book publishing seeks to keep up with contemporary events – its presence in the public arena is important, and both author and publish ... (read more)
The tragedy of Israel is that it wishes, simultaneously, to be a liberal democratic nation, one whose citizenship is defined by universal norms, and at the same time a Jewish state, where even Palestinians born within the borders of the country are denied full equality. I still remember my unease when I visited Israel many years ago at being asked when I, a secular Jew, intended to ‘come home’ ... (read more)
Don Aitken was born in 1937, Hugh Stretton in 1924. They have both had distinguished academic careers, making important contributions to the development of Australian social science, and at various points have been prominent in public debate. Both of these books might be seen as reflections on the current state of Australia, about which the younger Aitken is clearly more optimistic than is Stretto ... (read more)
‘Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.’
Mark Twain
Last year I turned eighty. Vacillating between denial and celebration, I decided, with some trepidation, on the latter. It was thirty years since I had last had a big birthday party: this one needed to be special. I consoled myself that, old as I am, I am still you ... (read more)
Despite the rhetoric of globalisation, it is impossible to buy an airline ticket online in the United States with a credit card issued abroad. When I needed a ticket from Boston to Washington last year, and after numerous unsuccessful arguments with airline websites and 1800 numbers, I dropped into the local Harvard travel agency. There was a welcome familiarity in discovering that it was a branch ... (read more)
Chalmers Johnson, who began his career in the US Navy and became a consultant to the CIA, is one of the most respected American experts on East Asia and international affairs. Over the past few years, he has emerged as a significant academic critic of the Bush administration, and what he sees as a dangerously reckless escalation of US imperialism and militarism.
Until a few years ago, only leftis ... (read more)
In a recent column in the Australian, George Megalogenis looked back to Arthur Fadden’s budget of 1952 as a possible comparison with the current financial situation. Few political scientists, let alone journalists, display this sort of historical memory. In 2006, Megalogenis published The Longest Decade, an account of the combined years of Paul Keating and Howard, based upon extensive interviews ... (read more)
How does one review a serious academic study of 950 pages that covers two thousand years of political history? In this case I shall be upfront and declare that I am only reviewing part of Keane’s thesis, and will leave it to historians to discuss the remainder of his book. If I concentrate on the last 300 pages, this is because they contain more than enough material for even the keenest reader, ... (read more)
Pressure is mounting on the Albanese government to recognise Palestine as a state. Following a resolution moved by Penny Wong, this became ALP party policy in 2021, and it will almost certainly be reaffirmed at this year’s party conference in August. Former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has written a powerful defence of the policy, which has been assailed, predictably, by the Israel lobby.
Supp ... (read more)