Affluenza: When too much is never enough

Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss, Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, 2005, 224 Pages, Paperback, $24.95: 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. Moreover, the changes they advocate are not always about what we might become in the future; rather, ... read more.
 

Australian Literature in Contexts

Jaroslav Kusnir, Slovakia: University of Presov, 2004, 224 Pages, Paperback, : Reviewed by David Crouch in the October 2005 issue.

Australian Literature in Contexts by Jaroslav Kušnír, Associate Professor at the University of Prešov, Slovakia, is part of the research project 'Foreign Literatures in the Slovak Context'. The book itself is a curious thing, cheaply printed in Slovakia with a design like an ephemeral travel brochure from the '80s; it is only really interesting as a strange textual object. It does however give a rare look into an outsider's imperfect perspective on aspects of Australian literature. At first glance it seems to be little more than a collection of notes on Australian literature. The final chapter is more original, it surveys an interesting history of the reception of Australian literature in ... read more.
 

Civil Passions: Selected Writings

Martin Krygier, Melbourne: Black Inc, 2005, 304 Pages, Paperback, $34.95: Reviewed by Matthew Lamb in the October 2005 issue.

In Martin Krygier's Civil Passions, Black Inc. have produced yet another interesting and important collection of Australian essays. Drawn from articles published in journals, here and overseas, as well as most of what constituted the 1997 ABC Boyer Lectures, this selection comprises an interesting overview of Krygier's thinking about public affairs, regarding Australia and communist and post-communist Europe, especially his parent's homeland, Poland. I found it especially instructive, while reading Krygier's work, to compare it with the work of Robert Manne, whose recent collection of essays and articles, Left Right Left (2005), has also recently come off the Black Inc. presses. ... read more.
 

Civil Rights: How Indigenous Australians won formal equality

John Chesterman, St Lucia: UQP, 2005, 358 Pages, Paperback, : Reviewed by Ravi De Costa in the October 2005 issue.

A number of Australian historians working on indigenous topics have recently re-examined the 1950s and early 1960s in an effort to consider the consequences of this gilded age specifically for indigenous Australians. Sue Taffe's excellent Black and white together examined the cooperative politics of FCAATSI's heyday. Marilyn Lake's biography of Faith Bandler emphasised the importance of the era and another central figure in the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, Jack Horner, has recently provided a pithy memoir of the period called Seeking racial justice. Now these are joined by the culmination of John Chesterman's research into the achievement of ... read more.
 

Contesting Assimilation

Tim Rowse ed, Perth: API Network, 2005, 352 Pages, Paperback, $34.95: Reviewed by Emma Kowal in the October 2005 issue.

In Tim Rowse's introduction to his edited collection Contesting Assimilation, he shows why 'assimilation' has been a most useful device for contemporary commentators of all political shades: its vagueness. While the most common periodisation is 1940-1970, stated starting dates vary from the establishment of the first Native Institution for Aboriginal Children at Parramatta in 1814 (p 27) to the establishment of the Australian Council of Native Welfare in 1951. As to its ending date, Indigenous advocates are quick to point out that the colonists have never left and they still suffer from assimilationist pressures, while assimilation advocates argue that contemporary Indigenous achievements in ... read more.
 

Hans Heysen: Into the light

Jane Hylton and John Neylon, Kent Town: Wakefield Press, 2004, 88 Pages, Paperback, $39.95: Reviewed by Tony Smith in the October 2005 issue.

The work of artist Hans Heysen encourages exploration of the difficult question of what it is to be Australian. This is important given the recent unfortunate tendency for opinion leaders to decry opponents as 'unAustralian', implying that there is an orthodox notion about what is quintessentially Australian. The cultural warriors who use this approach foster intolerance and promote a shallow, jingoistic view of nationalism. Hans Heysen: Into the Light reminds the reader that a mature view of Australian nationalism is a work in progress and one that requires sensitivity rather than the blunt instrument of partisan advantage. Heysen was born in Germany in 1887 and died in South Australia in ... read more.
 

Jews and Australian Politics

Geoffrey Brahm Levey and Philip Mendes eds, Brighton: Sussex, 2004, 262 Pages, Paperback, $49.95: Reviewed by Marion Spies in the October 2005 issue.

This book contains 13 new pieces about the prominence of Jewish individuals and groups in Australian politics. Additionally, there is an introduction by the editors, a commentary on Jewish politics serving as a conclusion (by Peter Y Medding), and an appendix, listing Jewish parlamentarians (by Hilary L Rubinstein). The book is divided into three parts, 'identifying the Jewish community', 'partisanship and ideologies', and 'issues and controversies'. Most of the essays are written by well-known Jewish-Australian academics, as one would usually say. But for this collection, there is a better choice of words than the term Jewish-Australian, ie, 'Jewish people, Australian branch', (p 188) as ... read more.
 

Native Title in Australia: an Ethnographic Perspective

Peter Sutton, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 280 Pages, Hardcover, $89.95: Reviewed by Christine Cheater in the October 2005 issue.

According to Peter Sutton the Native Title Act of 1993 is an attempt to recognise customary rights by translating them into legal terms. Proving Native Title involves a process of cultural translation where rights to land are established through a procedure in which '...evidence about indigenous cultural understandings and practices comes under legal scrutiny and is tested, usually by non-indigenous professionals'. (p 1) Non-indigenous professionals include anthropologists, lawyers, historians and administrators. It is these men and women who are the intended readers of Sutton's book, which addresses the ethnographic dimensions of native title. Under the 1993 Commonwealth Native Title Act ... read more.
 

On Holidays: A history of getting away in Australia

Richard White, North Melbourne: Pluto Press, 2005, 234 Pages, Paperback, $32.95: Reviewed by Catie Gilchrist in the October 2005 issue.

I read On Holidays whilst enjoying a holiday myself in sunny Port Douglas. In the introduction it is suggested that, 'guilt has dogged the holiday throughout its history'. (p xv) There was not much guilt racing through my mind as I sat by the sea, 'warm sand between the toes' (p xvi) reading this lively and engaging history of the Australian holiday. In charting the history of the holiday from its late eighteenth century beginnings and through to today's extensive travel industry, On Holidays documents a fascinating story. What was once a common luxury of the privileged few had become, by the mid twentieth century available to all. The central proposition of this book is that the Australian ... read more.
 

Peopling the Cleland Hills: Aboriginal history in western Central Australia, 1850-1980

M A Smith, Canberra: Aboriginal History Monograph, 2005, 104 Pages, Paperback, $25.00: Reviewed by Jeannie Herbert in the October 2005 issue.

A fascinating record of the history of a little known area of Australia, Peopling the Cleland Hills does just that -- introduces us to the people who have inhabited the landscape, throughout the period of colonial contact. While the author is a renowned archaeologist, he seeks in this publication to broaden his reach, 'to explore the links between people and place, by- on the one hand -- following the fortunes of Aboriginal people associated with the area and -- on the other -- by following the events shaping its cultural and natural landscapes ... bringing together archaeology, anthropology and history'. (p 2) In providing an 'historical and ethnographic context' (p 3) Smith enables an ... read more.
 

Remnants

Nigel Featherstone, Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2005, 252 Pages, Paperback, $29.95: Reviewed by Tony Smith in the October 2005 issue.

In telling stories of specific individuals in unique situations, novelists illumine important aspects of the general human condition. Nigel Featherstone does this very well in Remnants, a novel that relates directly the post-retirement discoveries of successful Sydney barrister Mitchell Granville, while prompting the reader to consider serious broader questions about all lives, their origins, purposes, justifications and relations. Following the death of his beloved wife Irma, Granville has resigned himself to living out the rest of his days in Bellstay Green, the rural seat of his establishment family, with just the caretakers for company. The future, like Granville, looks staid and ... read more.
 

Someone Else's Country: A fearless, funny and profoundly moving Australian story

Peter Docker, Fremantle: Curtin University Books, 2005, 416 Pages, Paperback, $24.95: Reviewed by Jeannie Herbert in the October 2005 issue.

Fast moving, full of action and energy, Someone Else's Country enables the reader to get a 'taste of life' as it really is for many Indigenous Australians. The author has chosen to structure the book using short chapters and a sparse, almost staccato style of writing, providing a series of brief glimpses into modern Aboriginal lifestyles. The ease of reading enables the reader to make rapid progress into the book. Initially there is an impression of skimming across the surface of life, not unlike the way in which many of us increasingly live our lives -- our knowledge of others being gleaned from the impressions we form during brief, often unrelated, interactions. Interestingly, having ... read more.
 

Sounding the Alarm: Remote area nurses and Aboriginals at risk

Jennifer Cramer, Nedlands: UWA Press, 2005, 266 Pages, Paperback, $38.95: Reviewed by Stephanie Lindsay-Thompson in the October 2005 issue.

Sounding the Alarm is a disturbing case study of unsafe nursing practices in the delivery of health services from a 'nursing post' at Warburton to Ngaanyatjarra communities in the Western Desert region of Western Australia. Some 2,300 Ngaanyatjarra people live in eleven widely separated communities scattered across 9.8 million hectares of their own lands. Warburton, the operational centre for the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, is 930 km distant from the nearest hospital and medical services, at Kalgoorlie, and four hours by air from Alice Springs. This book draws on Jennifer Cramer's research for her (1998) PhD thesis, which included twelve months spent at Warburton. The findings from this case ... read more.
 

Strata: Deserts Past, Present and Future. An Environmental Art Project about a Significant Cultural Place

Mandy Martin Libby Robin and Mike Smith, Mandurama: Mandy Martin, 2005, 54 Pages, Paperback, : Reviewed by Lynne Barwick in the October 2005 issue.

Strata was a project that consisted of an expedition, an art exhibition and a resulting publication that outlines its rationale, methodology and practice. The environmental artist Mandy Martin collaborated with archaeologist Mike Smith and environmental historian Libby Robin, along with pastoralist Guy Fitzhardinge and ecologist Jake Gillen. The group travelled to the Cleland Hills in the Northern Territory and were based at a rock shelter, Puritjarra, where Smith made significant archaeological finds in the 1980s proving 35,000 years of continuous desert dwelling. The publication documents the trip as well as the destination environment, with accounts from each of the participants from the ... read more.
 

Textual Spaces

Stephen Muecke, Perth: API Network, 2005, 194 Pages, Paperback, $34.95: Reviewed by Rhian Healy in the October 2005 issue.

How does one talk about Aboriginality? Is it best talked 'about' by academics? Or talked 'through' by Aboriginal people? In the end, does academic discourse represent Aboriginality, negotiate it, or perhaps, somehow, own it? Must it be discussed in English, or by using individual aboriginal languages or Aboriginal English? Through written languages, spoken languages, through physical depictions? Textual Spaces: Aboriginality and Cultural Studies discusses the implications of the use of language, especially in the politically loaded relationships between the speakers and those spoken about. Muecke addresses the idea of representation and asks us whose representation it is. Is it ... read more.
 

The Nick of Time: Politics, evolution and the untimely

Elizabeth Grosz, Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, 2004, 314 Pages, Paperback, $39.95: Reviewed by Angela Mitropoulos in the October 2005 issue.

Elizabeth Grosz's most recent book, The Nick of Time, sets out to explore the themes of corporeality, time and differentiation, by way of Bergson, Darwin and Nietzsche. Undoubtedly, these are important questions. Yet as much as I tried to read for what I might learn, be prompted to rethink or simply enjoy, I found myself by turns frustrated and disappointed by what seems to me to be a book which grants its own conditions of production, and epoche, an ontological status. In so doing, this time is rendered as homogeneous time, irrespective of and perhaps indifferent to, any differentiation beyond that of -- as Deleuze and Guattari might have put it -- the code. If this seems somewhat too ... read more.
 

The Tao of Shepherding

John Donnelly, Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2005, 410 Pages, Paperback, $29.95: Reviewed by Christine Choo in the October 2005 issue.

Chinese in Australia have been the subject of comment for almost as long as they have been in this country. The trickle of Chinese into Australia grew into a flood when gold was discovered in Eastern Australia. Sojourners came here both freely and as forced labour -- indentured coolie labour -- with the view to making money then returning to the home country where they could tell tales of the Gold Mountain where fortunes were to be made. The opportunity to escape poverty, famine, family troubles and debtors contributed to the push-factors in the movement of Chinese to countries like Australia in the nineteenth century. The Tao of Shepherding is set in the mid to late nineteenth century when ... read more.
 

Traumascapes: The power and fate of places transformed by tragedy

Maria Tumarkin, Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2005, 280 Pages, Paperback, $34.95: Reviewed by Eve Vincent in the October 2005 issue.

Maria Tumarkin travels to Shanksville, site of the failed September 11 attack. Here, the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 plunged into a Pennsylvanian field near a tiny rural community of just 245 residents. According to locals, visitors began turning up days after the crash. A spontaneous shrine reproduced itself, growing and changing as it is added to -- miniature flags, symbols of American cultural life (baseball bats) and spiritual offerings. 'Why did they come?' Tumarkin asks. It is not an idle, curious question, nor is it disingenuous -- posed only so that she can impress us with her answer. Traumascapes is an investigation into the power of places transformed by horror, grief and ... read more.
 

Yesterday's Tomorrows: The Powerhouse Museum and its Precursors 1880-2005

Graeme Davison and Kimberley Webber, Sydney: UNSW Press, 2005, 288 Pages, Paperback, $54.95: Reviewed by Daniel Herborn in the October 2005 issue.

For a century and a quarter, Sydney's Powerhouse Museum and itspredecessors have focused strongly on the future; the coming technology that would bring with it moral improvement, the industry promising to revitalise the Australian economy or the artistic trend that would restore pride in Australia's natural environment. It is fitting, then, to pause for breath at this juncture and to look back. The new essay collection 'Yesterday's Tomorrows' fills this role admirably. Editors Graeme Davison and Kimberley Webber have assembled an impressive multi-disciplinary team to tackle the history of these museums. The thematic approach means there is some overlapping material, but the results are ... read more.