Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

'Victors' and 'Victims'?: Men, Women, Modernism and Art in Australia

Jane E Hunt
It is relatively easy to misread the history of artistic modernism in Australia. Glance at a handful of key sources, and they all seem to tell the story of a battle: in the years between the two world wars the Australian art establishment was run by a band of big bad traditionalists — art historian Bernard Smith likens them to the priests of Leviticus — who were at first irritated and later seriously threatened by a bunch of critical young innovators. The story of the emergence of modern art in Australia seems to be about the victory of the innovators. It is something of an ...
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Network Review of Books

The Man from the Sunrise Side (2001)

Reviewed by Christine Choo in the July 2003 issue.
Oomarri, where Ambrose Mungala Chalarimeri was born, is an indescribably beautiful place on the King George River in the far north of Western Australia. It is only possible to reach there, the Sunrise Side, by helicopter or light plane or by driving long hours deep into the bush along unmarked dirt tracks. This is the country to which Ambrose Chalarimeri belongs and which he claims as his birthright. The Man from the Sunrise Side is the story of Chalarimeri, a remarkable man, who was taken to Kalumburu Mission (formerly Drysdale River Mission) when he was a child of six. He and his infant ... read more.

The Engine Room of Government (2001)

Reviewed by Paul Reynolds in the July 2002 issue.
By its nature this is a specialist work which deals very thoroughly with the subject addressed. As a piece of administrative history it fills a void in introducing readers to the most powerful department in the Queensland public service. While most observers would be conversant with the work of line departments and many statutory authorities, the Premiers Department remains something of a mystery. As all premiers, irrespective of party, bring their own style and emphasis to their office, so must their department adapt to a new incumbent and serve him or her in accordance with the demands ... read more.

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (2001)

Reviewed by Noel Pearson in the September 2001 issue.
This is a very interesting book setting out a compelling theory on how the great majority of the world's population (the poor in the Third World and in the former communist states) are locked out of the ability to participate in and benefit from the key processes of capitalism: the ability to form capital. Hernando de Soto is active across the Third World working from the Institute of Liberty and Democracy in Lima, Peru in his words, the quest to create a non-discriminatory market system where the law helps everyone to have an opportunity to prosper. Though the communist states have ... read more.

Eleven: The Greatest Eleven of the 20th Century (2001)

Reviewed by Warwick Franks in the December 2002 issue.
One of the idle pleasures of following sport is to indulge in the harmlessly futile exercise of selecting best teams. It's harmless because it's a pleasant way of passing the time but futile because of its subjectivity and the vastness of its scope. Cricket devotees in particular draw on the game's Victorian heritage in their mania for classifying, labelling and ordering the impact and skill of the great names of the game. Add a touch of the Elizabethan notion of the great chain of being and mix with millennial fever and we can understand where these books have their origin. Roland Perry's ... read more.

The Life of Riley (2001)

Reviewed by Iris Lowe in the Aug/Sep 2003 issue.
I must admit only passing familiarity with the achievements of Sam Riley. The sleeve notes promised the story of Lin Riley's search for her birth mother - 'a story of three generations and how Lin's journey into her mother's life would change the lives of Lin and her daughter Sam forever'. The fact that Sam Riley was an Olympic athlete and world record holder was incidental. Sam Riley writes the preface, giving her impressions of her mother, a central figure in her life. In the first chapter Lin Riley establishes the birth of Sam in 1972 as the key turning point in her life, the one which ... read more.

Sounds from the Stables: A history of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (2001)

Reviewed by Joanna Besley in the June 2002 issue.
In the introduction to her engaging history of the Sydney Conservatorium, Diane Collins makes a thought-provoking statement: 'Music has been disgracefully neglected in most conventional histories of Australia' she declares, arguing that Australian historical scholarship is 'substantially diminished' by the neglect of 'aural history and culture'. This idea of aural history is intriguing -- what might this history be like and is this account, the first published history of Sydney's Conservatorium, a taste of the aural history that Collins advocates? More than just an historical account of the ... read more.

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