Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

'The Natives are Happy': A.P. Elkin, A.O. Neville and Anthropological Research in Northwest Western Australia

Geoffrey Gray
Elkin ‘[succeeded] in obtaining information about the aborigines which is of very great scientific value and we realise that this has only been possible as a result of your kind co-operation’.1 I would like to express here my appreciation of the very real help Mr Neville afforded me when engaged in anthropological field work in Western Australia. The head of the appropriate Department can do much to help scientists in their work.2 Elkin’s recent visit to the Kimberley District obtained ‘ethnological information of very great scientific value’ which was ...
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Network Review of Books

Red Kangaroo of Gunnedah (2005)

Reviewed by John O'Leary in the January 2006 issue.
The treatment of indigenous peoples by colonial settlers is a subject of intense, ongoing debate. Nowhere is that debate sharper -- or feelings more deeply aroused -- than over the question of indigenous peoples' remains, and how they have been and should be treated. In New Zealand, Maori agitate for the return of mokamokai (preserved heads); in Australia, Aboriginal people petition for the repatriation of ancestral bones. The controversy is not confined to the institutions which collected these relics. As recent cases have shown, archaeologists in the field, in places such as Australia and ... read more.

A Turbulent Decade: Social protest movements and the labour movement, 1965-1975 (2005)

Reviewed by Maryrose Casey in the May 2006 issue.
The radical sixties exist in the popular imaginary as a quasi-mythical era of student riots, antiwar movements, free love and drugs, a time of 'social and political upheaval that shook the world'. (p ix) As an 'era', the period, usually from the early to mid 1960s to the early 1970s, is presented as a time of cultural revolution; the moment of birth of many aspects of contemporary society from Australian theatre and film to the beginnings of a less racist and sexist Australia. A Turbulent Decade: Social Protest Movements and the Labour Movement, 1965-1975 is a collection of reminiscences from ... read more.

Affluenza: When too much is never enough (2005)

Reviewed by Dean Durber in the October 2005 issue.
Undoubtedly, there is a growing desire among many in the community to consider and to discover alternative ways of living. I regularly hear people -- including myself -- express a wish to be able to live differently. In this sense, Affluenza is a timely addition to the debate. It is well placed within a culture that is boiling over with boredom of the excess. Perhaps this book will offer some people the changes they crave. Perhaps it will help lead to the creation of more fulfilling lives. Yet, there is something awkwardly utopian about the kind of world the authors of this book envision. ... read more.

The Long Game and Other Poems (2005)

Reviewed by Lucy Dougan in the July 2006 issue.
Susan Sontag once called John Berger 'our most citizenly essayist'. In the field of contemporary Australian poetry, this tag could well be applied to Bruce Beaver (1928-2004) who is, without a doubt, one of our most citizenly poets. In the shrinking market of Australian literary work his posthumously published collection The Long Game and other poems (UQP, 2004) bears witness to the absolute significance and value of a late life artist who has toughed it out. Beaver was a vocational poet who for much of his writing life was supported by his wife Brenda. If 'the long game' is life itself, ... read more.

Poetry and Philosophy from Homer to Rousseau: Romantic souls, realist lives (2005)

Reviewed by Susan Tridgell in the July 2005 issue.
Despite the presence of Rousseau in the title, this is not a book for those who are devoted to Romantic literature (or indeed for romantics more generally). The idealistic impulse of Romanticism, the wish to dedicate oneself wholly to a single idea (or another person) comes under sustained fire in this monograph. Remarkably, Haines manages to trace this Romantic notion back to what he sees as its origins in Plato. In some ways this book is an excoriation of the main lines of thought in Western literature and philosophy, a tale of complete cultural loss. Redeeming it from this ... read more.

What, No Baby? Why women are losing the freedom to mother, and how they can get it back (2005)

Reviewed by Sylvia Alston in the March 2005 issue.
The March edition of a 'monthly magazine for the young woman who wants it all' features a list of '30 things to be totally OK about'. One of them is 'Not wanting children' because, 'like sashimi, or a Bloody Mary, they're not everyone's cup of tea'. Such flippancy adds nothing to the serious debate about Australia's declining birth rate. On the other hand, in What, No Baby? Leslie Cannold debunks the myth that Australia's birth rate is falling because women are choosing to have careers rather than children. Cannold, a respected ethicist, researcher, writer, and social commentator, suggests ... read more.

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