Sylvia Lawson

Sylvia Lawson reviews four books

February 2004, no. 258 • 01 February 2004

It had to be the black metaphor of the season. On Boxing Day, Radio National ran a short, sharp-edged conversation on Australia’s changing relations with the Pacific island-states. One contributor, Professor William Maley, said that the Australian government’s bribery of the destitute statelet of Nauru made him think of ‘the caddish squire seeking out the most wretched prostitute in the vill ... (read more)

Sylvia Lawson reviews 'Memo for a Saner World' by Bob Brown

August 2004, no. 263 • 01 August 2004

Bob Brown tells us the worst: ‘Half of the planet’s forest and woodlands are already gone’; every year, forest areas twice the size of Tasmania vanish from the map. At the same time, ‘There is a thin green line round the world’ – more than seventy Green parties contend for votes everywhere from Scotland to Mexico, Mongolia to Kenya. Jacques Chirac is trying to change the French constit ... (read more)

Sylvia Lawson reviews 'Building a Masterpiece: The Sydney Opera House' edited by Anne Watson

December 2006–January 2007, no. 287 • 01 December 2006

Don’t be fooled by this book’s splendid appearance; it’s not to be left on the coffee table. It is an excellent compendium of cultural, political and social history, complementing Philip Drew’s The Masterpiece (2001) and Françoise Fromonot’s superb study, Joern Utzon et l’Opéra de Sydney (1998).  It also establishes Anne Watson as a distinguished historian, both in her own contr ... (read more)

Sylvia Lawson reviews 'Do Not Disturb: Is the media failing Australia?' edited by Robert Manne

October 2005, no. 275 • 01 October 2005

Rupert Murdoch is the Napoleon of our times. He has gone on conquering largely because certain governments – Bob Hawke’s among them, in early 1987 – have persistently acquiesced, changing or moderating regulations as his battle plans required. It was once possible to view him as bound, in George Munster’s phrases, ‘on a random walk … [on which] despite the ever greater accumulation of ... (read more)

Sylvia Lawson reviews 'Australians: A historical library' edited by Alan Gilbert and K.S. Inglis

May 1988, no. 100 • 01 May 1988

As an ‘imagined community’, Australia ‘imagined imagining needs more that community’, most strenuous imagining than most. Post-colonial? Not really – we are recolonized over and over. Wall Street shivers, the Australian dollar gets pneumonia; Japan revises its shopping-list, and our coal industry verges on collapse. Britain’s hold began to loosen after World War II, but our cultural co ... (read more)