Politics

The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad by Tariq Ali

October 2011, no. 335

Tariq Ali, proclaims the Guardian, ‘has been a leading figure of the international left since the 60s’. If his latest book is the best the left can muster, I fear that its chances of influencing political debate are minimal – and, even worse, undesirable.

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On China by Henry Kissinger

by Bruce Grant •

September 2011, no. 334

Bruce Grant reviews 'On China' by Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger has never seemed at home in the United States, although he has served in its highest councils and received its richest rewards. When I was one of his students at Harvard, we called him Henry, to distinguish him from professorial luminaries such as Galbraith, Riesman, and Schlesinger. He did not fit the insistent reasonableness of the Harvard faculty. His guttural voice, anxiety to please, mischievous, self-deprecating humour, and fearsome views on nuclear warfare made him an almost unbelievable figure of playful profundity.

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Heroes & Villains by Nick Dyrenfurth & A Little History of the Australian Labor Party by Nick Dyrenfurth and Frank Bongiorno

by Stuart Macintyre •

September 2011, no. 334

Stuart Macintyre reviews 'Heroes & Villains: The Rise and Fall of the Early Australian Labor Party' by Nick Dyrenfurth and 'A Little History of the Australian Labor Party' by Nick Dyrenfurth and Frank Bongiorno

The heroes and villains in Nick Dyrenfurth’s account of the early Labor Party are the cartoon figures in the labour press that he uses to explore its political rhetoric. The heroes are sturdy working men, sometimes in bush garb, sometimes industrial labourers. The villains take various forms: serpents, harpies, bloodsucking insects, menacing aliens, but above all the Fat Man, the swollen, grotesque embodiment of capitalist greed. Dyrenfurth observes that Mr Fat is a far more ubiquitous device in Australian radical iconography than its counterparts elsewhere. British cartoons used a variety of villains: aristocratic loafers, rapacious landlords, ruthless sweaters, mendacious press barons. Those in the United States were less likely to personify capitalism with a generic capitalist villain than to depict combines and trusts.

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Sideshow: Dumbing Down Democracy by Lindsay Tanner

by Gideon Haigh •

June 2011, no. 332

Bill Clinton discouraged politicians from picking fights with people who bought their ink by the barrel. Mindful of that advice, Lindsay Tanner has waited until the end of a career dedicated to the ‘serious craft of politics’ to remonstrate with the fourth estate about its fundamental unseriousness in reporting the democratic process ...

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The Decline and Fall of the American Republic by Bruce Ackerman

by Alison Broinowski •

June 2011, no. 332

As people around the world watch events in the United States, many will agree that it is indeed an exceptional, if conflicted, nation. The sole superpower, with the world’s largest economy and the most powerful military ever known, is hugely in debt, and struggles agonisingly just to produce a federal budget ...

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The Lure of Politics: Geoff Gallop’s Government 2001–2006 by Lesley van Schoubroeck

by Clement Macintyre •

February 2011, no. 328

A few months after the 2010 federal election, Geoff Gallop delivered the annual Hawke Lecture at the University of South Australia. In an address focused upon political engagement, he canvassed some possible reforms to the Australian political system. Among a number of other proposals ...

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Culture Crisis: Anthropology and Politics in Aboriginal Australia edited by Jon Altman and Melinda Hinkson

by David Trigger •

February 2011, no. 328

Anthropology’s significant contribution to both academic and applied research focused on Indigenous Australia has intensified over the last four decades. Among Aboriginal people and anthropologists themselves, debates have occurred as to the discipline’s earlier alignments with colonialism ...

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Disconnected by Andrew Leigh

by Anthony Moran •

March 2011, no. 329

Since the mid 1990s, when Robert Putnam lionised the concept in his famous essay ‘Bowling Alone’, writing on ‘social capital’ has proliferated. It caught the eye of politicians, including then United States President Bill Clinton, and for a while it seemed that everyone was lamenting its decline ...

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The Art of Great Speeches and Why We Remember Them by Dennis Glover

by Joel Deane •

March 2011, no. 329

At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds ...

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Churchill’s Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made by Richard Toye

by Robin Prior •

March 2011, no. 329

Empires are out of fashion. The idea of one people ruling over another has had its day. The mention of any empire – with the possible exception of the Roman one, for which people still have a certain fondness – will almost invariably meet with deprecating comments, even derision ...

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