Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Network Scholars

The Australian Democrats

Andrew Bartlett
From the Democrats' perspective, the 2001 election had many parallels with the 1998 election. This includes a turbulent 12 months leading up to the poll right through to a result that was similar to 1998 in most respects. In my chapter of the preceding volume of this election series on the 1998 election I started out by highlighting the difficult situation the Democrats faced at the start of that election year.While there were many differences in the political landscape at the start of 2001, one similarity was a range of headlines predicting the demise of the Democrats and an anticipated ...
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Network Review of Books

History, Historians and Autobiography (2005)

Reviewed by Susan Tridgell in the July 2005 issue.
It's a rare and delightful experience to read a perfect book. This is especially the case with academic books -- even the most impressive normally generates a wish to argue with it. Yet Jeremy Popkin, despite being a newcomer to the field of life writing (he is well-known as a historian) has managed to achieve this miracle. The only 'but' he manages to generate in my mind is to write so fascinatingly about his chosen subject -- the autobiographies of historians -- that I felt immediately impelled to go and read even the autobiographies he warns are dull.This is one of the central and ... read more.

Russian Anzacs in Australian History (2005)

Reviewed by Robert Crawford in the June 2005 issue.
Elena GovorRussian Anzacs in Australian History UNSW Press2005310pp.ISBN 0-86840-856-5As number of ex-Diggers dwindles, an inverse growth in interest has developed in the story of Anzac. Elena Govor's recent addition to this growing body of work, Russian Anzacs in Australian History, joins John F. Williams' German Anzacs and the First World War in revealing a neglected side of the national legend. As the title suggests, Govor's study is an examination of the 969 men from the Russian Empire who enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force. Relaying this forgotten chapter in Australian ... read more.

Politics, Patronage and Public Works: The administration of New South Wales, Vol 1, 1842-1900 (2005)

Reviewed by Amanda Day in the April 2006 issue.
Consolidating the history of NSW colonial government administration is a formidable and lengthy task. It is evident in Politics, Patronage and Public Works: the Administration of New South Wales, Volume 1, 1842-1900 that Hilary Golder has achieved success in combining primary sources, solid argument and direct, concise writing and produced a highly readable account of colonial administrations. The theme that is consistently argued and supported in this text is the long-term effects that the government had in the colony and how power was wielded in a systemic and controlled manner. It is an ... read more.

The Latham Diaries (2005)

Reviewed by David Ritter in the February 2006 issue.
Mark Latham was elected to Federal Parliament in March 1996 as the Australian Labor Party member for Werriwa, serving a term as a backbench member in the Keating administration. When Labor lost office in 1996, Latham was promoted to the front bench of the Beazley-led opposition, a position he held until retiring to the backbenches on his own motion between the 1998 and 2001 elections, at both of which the ALP were defeated. When Simon Crean became Federal leader in 2001, Latham was invited back to the front bench, serving in various positions until the incumbent resigned in late 2003. In ... read more.

Blur: Friendly Street Poets 29 (2005)

Reviewed by Natasha Lester in the September 2005 issue.
Underlying it all, however, is an undeniable strength: the determination to live and love at all costs; this is why human beings need poetry (p x)This is the challenge that Amelia Walker and Shen, editors of Blur, the latest Friendly Street Poets' anthology, have set themselves. So do they and the collection deliver? For the most part, yes. Blur is full of spirit; it resonates with poetic voices striving to capture every facet of the world in which we find ourselves living. Friendly Street was formed in 1975 in South Australia and is the forum for one of Australia's longest running live ... read more.

God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics (2005)

Reviewed by Ann Jensen in the March 2005 issue.
The picture of John Howard's Methodist boyhood has been embossed on the Australian imagination as a tool for analysis of both his social conservatism and economic policy. The image of the PM teaching Sunday School in Earlwood has been irresistible to the media, given the titillating proximity to Margaret Thatcher's Methodist girlhood. Methodism explains away Howard's 'picket fence' family values, and makes his user-pay economics a benign expression of the Protestant work ethic. Yet as Wesleyan wowser I long suspected that Earlwood offered John an insipid version of what we embraced: for ... read more.

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