Book Reviews

Power and panic

2012-04-19T11:57:26+10:00

Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Political Powerby David McKnightAllen & UnwinSydney, 2012… more»

The great debate

2012-04-19T10:07:19+10:00

US President Harry S. Truman famously wished for a one-armed economist, someone who would not explain “on the one hand, on the other hand.” Truman never met John Maynard Keynes or Friedrich Hayek. … more»

Luck or pluck

2012-02-25T20:42:54+10:00

Too Much Luck. The Mining Boom and Australia’s Futureby Paul ClearyBlack Inc.Melbourne, 2011… more»

Turn on, tune in, and drop out

2012-02-25T20:33:14+10:00

Steve Jobs’ life was the stuff of fiction. An orphan, raised by working class parents in Mountain View, California, a college dropout, a devotee of Zen Buddhism, LSD, and vegan cuisine, Jobs ended up becoming the iconic American entrepreneur of his era, as well as the 42nd richest person on… more»

The oracle

2012-02-25T20:23:22+10:00

In 1957, George F. Kennan was invited to give the annual Reith lectures on the BBC. On six successive Sunday evenings, Kennan, who was a guest professor at Oxford, drove to the BBC’s London studios. “I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility,” Kennan recalled. “Half of England was listening to… more»

Campaign lit

2012-01-31T09:22:16+10:00

A Nation Like No Other: Why American Exceptionalism MattersBy Newt GingrichRegnery PublishingWashington DC 2011… more»

Fast flat world

2011-10-12T10:42:08+10:00

I must admit to being a fan of this type of book—a sweeping and self-confident examination of long periods of economic history. Given the need for generalisation and simplification, the end-result is often a take-it-or-leave-it option for the reader. I particularly admired Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms, which investigated… more»

Double Bloom

2011-10-12T10:33:51+10:00

Harold Bloom is a marvel of a critic who is also the kind of walking mystery who seems an absolutely familiar character of the literary and critical worlds, a ham in search of his shadow. The explanation of the Bloom phenomenon and the fact that he is, since the death of… more»

A celebration of restraint

2011-10-12T10:12:03+10:00

In July 1956, the Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, which was run by a company controlled by Egypt’s former colonial masters, Britain and France. This sparked a chain of events that led to the brink of war. Meanwhile, the US president who could influence the course… more»

Worth noting

2011-10-12T09:33:20+10:00

An Unwinnable War: Australia in AfghanistanBy Karen MiddletonMelbourne University PressMelbourne 2011… more»

Wily panda, wary eagle

2011-08-20T16:32:20+10:00

When it comes to the crowded book genre of US-China relations, crude distinctions are made between the "panda huggers" and the "China bashers". Aaron Friedberg is a highly regarded professor from Princeton University and author of two books on British and American strategic and diplomatic history. Although first and foremost… more»

From Mother England to Uncle Sam

2011-08-20T15:44:37+10:00

"Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom" is probably the most famous and most plangent sentence in Australian history. We are not a rhetorical people, so it doesn't have much competition. But these few words, almost alone, embody… more»

Goodbye to all that?

2011-08-20T14:52:11+10:00

The belief in the decline of the West is once more on the ascent. The United States, so the argument goes, is on the skids. Profligacy abroad and at home has transformed it into an international mendicant. When it comes to Europe, the picture is similarly gloomy. A once prosperous… more»

Worth noting

2011-08-20T11:06:50+10:00

There Goes The Neighbourhood. Australia and the Rise of AsiaBy Michael WesleyNew SouthSydney, 2011… more»

Hard line

2011-05-04T09:04:10+10:00

It is widely assumed Dick Cheney and Bill Kristol think alike on American foreign policy. After all, the former US Vice-President and Weekly Standard editor represent what is widely known as "neo-conservativism". Both were leading supporters of the Bush doctrine of preventive war, democracy promotion and US unilateralism. Both, too,… more»

What lies beneath

2011-05-03T09:05:59+10:00

Professor John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago examines an important and intriguing topic in Why Leaders Lie. From the outset, he lets readers know that some of the results of his research are unexpected and even counterintuitive. Perhaps his most startling conclusion is that leaders of states and… more»

Murder by inflation

2011-05-02T09:07:00+10:00

In December 1918, Anna Eisenmenger took her War Bonds to a bank in Vienna, intending to cash them in. Making her way through a frenzied crowd, she found her banker, who delivered a rude surprise: had she bought Swiss francs instead, "you would not now have lost three-fourths of your… more»

Well-meaning warrior

2011-05-01T09:08:23+10:00

It was September 2007 at Kirribilli House. My wife and I were enjoying pre-dinner drinks with John Howard and George W. Bush, his wife, Laura and Condi Rice. Suddenly, to my alarm, my wife Nicky turned to the President and said, "Tell me, Mr President, what's it like being the… more»

Rush Limbaugh and the radical right

2010-11-02T08:47:14+10:00

Rush Limbaugh: An Army Of OneBy Zev ChafetsSentinelNew York, 2010… more»

The big climb

2010-11-01T08:46:14+10:00

The rare and fortunate individual reading Christopher Hitchens for  the first time could be forgiven for thinking that the English-born American citizen comes from a privileged background. Published at the beginning of his seventh decade, the writer's memoir corrects this impression by recording an ordinary childhood as the elder son… more»