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Melbourne University Press

Christopher Brennan: A critical biography by Axel Clark

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October 1980, no. 25
David English reviews 'Christopher Brennan: A critical biography' by Axel Clark

Axel Clark’s is the first full-length biography of Christopher Brennan, and its publication has drawn attention to what was a lamentable deficiency in Australian literary studies.

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Big-noting: The heroic theme in Australian war writing by Robin Gerster

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August 1988, no. 103
Sue Murray reviews 'Big-noting: the heroic theme in Australian war writing' by Robin Gerster

At a time when critics are becoming increasingly interested in Australia’s war literature, Robin Gerster turns to it for an understanding of how national legends are created and perpetuated.

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August in Kabul: America’s last days in Afghanistan by Andrew Quilty

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September 2022, no. 446
Kieran Pender reviews 'August in Kabul: America’s last days in Afghanistan' by Andrew Quilty

This book will at times quite literally take your breath away. A deeply reported account of the fall of Afghanistan’s capital, August in Kabul tells the harrowing stories of those who escaped and those who were left behind in the maelstrom of those two weeks between the arrival of the Taliban on 15 August 2021 and the final US flight to depart – at one minute to midnight on 30 August. Compelling, vivid, and distressing all at once, it is a damning indictment of the Taliban’s wanton cruelty and of the domestic and foreign policy failures that allowed them to return. It is an impressive book-length début by one of Australia’s pre-eminent photojournalists.

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Australia at the Crossroads: Reflections of an outsider by B. A. Santamaria

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August 1988, no. 103
James Griffin reviews 'Australia at the Crossroads' by B. A. Santamaria

B.A. Santamaria is given to self-dramatization. His autobiography (1981) was subtitled Against the tide but he was not metaphorically explicit as to whether the tide was going out or coming in. For myself I do not want to think of Santamaria behaving with Canute-like megalomania; I prefer to envisage him backstroking towards shore with a rear-vision snorkel, spouting against the undertow of inevitable social change, and praying for some apocalyptic dumper to preserve him from the future agoraphobic shock of an ever-widening ocean.

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An interview with Ken Ruthven

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May 1993, no. 150

A new series called Interpretations, published by Melbourne University Press, aims to provide up-to-date introductions to recent theories and critical practices in the humanities and social sciences. Series Editor, Ken Ruthven, answers some questions about the role and reception of critical writing.

 

Does the brief introduction to the series, which says it ...

Summer Reading

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December 2001–January 2002, no. 237

ART

Contemporary Aboriginal Art: A guide to the rebirth of an ancient culture

by Susan McCulloch

Allen & Unwin, 248 pp, $39.95 pb

1 86508 305 4

Contemporary Aboriginal Art (first published in 1999) contains a wealth of information for those interested in the history, practice, and culture of Aboriginal art. By its very nature, Aboriginal art is constantly changing and evolving, and, in this revised edition, Susan McCulloch details new developments in already well-established communities, and the emergence of some entirely new movements. McCulloch, visual arts writer for The Australian, has travelled extensively to the Kimberley, Central Australia, Arnhem Land and Far North Queensland, and her book provides first-hand accounts of Aboriginal artists and the works they are creating.

Beautifully illustrated, Contemporary Aboriginal Art also contains a comprehensive directory of art centres and galleries, a buyer’s guide, and a listing of recommended readings.

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Colonial Casualties, Chinese in Early Victoria by Kathryn Cronin

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September 1983, no. 54
Frank Strahan reviews 'Colonial Casualties, Chinese in Early Victoria' by Kathryn Cronin

The bias in settlement and exploitation of nineteenth-century Australia was essentially English. These Antipodes were classed as a wide white land, for the Anglo-Saxon. A Scot or a Welshman could have a place. They were Celts, and classed as ‘British’, close to the centre of England’s Empire, the greatest ever seen.

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Daniel Mannix: Priest and Patriot by Michael Gilchrist

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July 1983, no. 52
Edmund Campion reviews 'Daniel Mannix: Priest and Patriot' by Michael Gilchrist, 'The Demon of Discord' by Margaret M. Pawsey, and 'St. Bede’s College and its McCristal Origins 1896–1982' by Leo Gamble

What major figure in Australian history, apart from Ned Kelly, has had more biographies than Archbishop Daniel Mannix? Librarians can give a decisive answer to this far from rhetorical question. Certainly, Mannix looms large in serious Australian historiography. There are personal studies by Captain Bryan (1919), E.J. Brady (1934), Frank Murphy (1948 and 1972), Niall Brennan (1964), and Walter Ebsworth (1977), and B.A. Santamaria’s short, weighty lecture of 1977. As well, the Mannix shelf is crammed with books like Michael McKernan’s Australian Churches at War, Gerard Henderson’s Mr. Santamaria and the Bishops, Patrick O’Farrell’s The Catholic Church and Community in Australia, and B.A. Santamaria’s Against the Tide – in all of which Mannix is a dominating force. There is no lack of information about the archbishop.

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Australia's Own Cold War: The waterfront under Menzies by Tom Sheridan

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April 2007, no. 290
Braham Dabscheck reviews 'Australia's Own Cold War: The waterfront under Menzies' by Tom Sheridan
The most recent cause célèbre of Australian industrial relations was the 1998 waterfront dispute, when the Howard government failed to destroy the Maritime Union of Australia. The Australian waterfront has been a continuing site of struggle since the famous industrial disputes of the 1890s. Tom Sheridan’s Australia’s Own Cold War: The Waterfront Under Menzies helps to remind us of the intense and bitter nature of industrial relations in that industry. Readers will find themselves making comparisons with the 1998 dispute and with other major events which have occurred in Australia’s political history. ... (read more)

Young Soeharto: The making of a soldier, 1921–1945 by David Jenkins

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April 2022, no. 441
David Reeve reviews 'Young Soeharto: The making of a soldier, 1921–1945' by David Jenkins

At last we have it – the much-anticipated first volume of the definitive biography of President Soeharto (1921–2008). It is the culminating work in the distinguished career of Australian journalist David Jenkins. This startling volume, covering the years 1921–45, will appeal to the general reader and the Indonesia specialist. It has been described as ‘truly extraordinary’ by the late Benedict Anderson, the prominent Indonesia scholar.

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