Dalrymple’s book is an exercise in thoughtful restraint. It provides an updated overview of the evolution of Australian foreign policy. In this respect, "Continental Drift" is a worthy successor to Sir Alan Watt’s seminal ...

This is a welcome addition to the historical literature about Indonesia. Aimed at new readers with limited or no knowledge of Indonesia, and written in an informal and accessible style, it makes an interesting contrast ...

The Tasmanian Tiger or thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) continues to stalk the Tasmanian imagination. Miasmas resembling it figure in reports from tourists and bushwalkers, who happen upon the slinking apparition in the ...

Jordie Albiston's latest collection opens with a remarkable poem about a woman falling from the Empire State Building and falling, at the same time, through the story of her life. Some poems work in a more limited way, as ...

A fascination with the kinds of abodes we humans inhabit, and dream about, is the central theme around which Mark Wakely has spun his wide-ranging observations, anecdotes and personal stories. The topic lends itself to as ...

In "Paradise Mislaid", Anne Whitehead captivated readers with a nicely judged blend of elements. Here was a documentary that interwove two travellers' tales, each with the resonance of quest narratives. Those 'peculiar ...

Lina Bryant's painting "The Babe is Wise" captures the 'insouciant chic' of the New Woman in 1940: independent and self-assured, the subject stares at the viewer from beneath a sharply angled hat. A portrait of the artist's ...

As I read this book, serious questions were being asked about the honour of three governments: the British, the US and our own. Did they all lie so as to justify war against Iraq? Honour still matters, even at a time when ...

Oh Dennis! For four decades, we've had to forgive your indiscretions and blemishes. We’ve done so willingly, because you were not only the fast bowler of a generation, but of that generation’s milestones. For many Australians, ...