Melbourne University Press
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.
... (read more)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.
... (read more)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.
... (read more)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.
... (read more)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' by Eamon Evans, Peter Rose, Dianne Schallmeiner, and Aviva Tuffield
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.
... (read more)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.
... (read more)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.
... (read more)Braham Dabscheck reviews 'Australia's Own Cold War: The waterfront under Menzies' by Tom Sheridan
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.
... (read more)