Big Bother: why did that reality-tv show become such a phenomenon?

Toni Johnson-Woods, St Lucia: UQP, 2002, 237 Pages, Paperback, Photographs, $19.95: Reviewed by Kate Douglas in the August 2002 issue.

A lot has been said and written about the worldwide Big Brother phenomena and 'Reality Television' more generally. Significantly though, those who have no interest and seemingly little knowledge of this media marvel have generated much of the dialogue. Within this context, Toni Johnson-Woods' Big Bother offers a refreshingly rigorous, and often reverent, work of research that is concerned with the production and reception of series one of Australian Big Brother. Big Brother has been a constant presence in popular media and talkback since it began in the Netherlands in 1999. Its popularity is testified by the numerous companion books and videos published (in the UK especially). Jean Ritchie ... read more.
 

Blood, Sweat and Welfare: a history of white bosses and Aboriginal pastoral workers

Mary Anne Jebb, Nedlands: UWA Press, 2002, 376 Pages, Paperback, B&w Illus, $34.95: Reviewed by Shirleene Robinson in the August 2002 issue.

Mary Anne Jebb's book, Blood, Sweat and Welfare, an historical examination of Aboriginal workers in Western Australia's pastoral industry, was released earlier this year to considerable critical acclaim. It has already won both the 2001 Western Australian History Foundation Award and an Australian Historical Association Centenary of Federation Award. Australia's premier historian of race relations, Henry Reynolds, has even referred to it as 'one of the best books currently available about race relations on the pastoral frontier'. Given the heady praise that preceded this book, I was most anxious to read and review it. In my opinion, Blood, Sweat and Welfare more than deserves the lavish ... read more.
 

CY O'Connor: His life and legacy

AG Evans, Nedlands: UWA Press, 2001, 287pages, Hardback, $54.95: Reviewed by Leonora Ritter in the August 2002 issue.

This book tells the story of a man whose genius, achievements, character flaws and melodramatic death combine to create an epic saga. C Y O'Connor's work changed landscapes forever. He died before his greatest work, the pipeline that brought water 560 kilometres (according to the dust jacket or 650 kilometres according to the UWA media release) to the Western Australian goldfields, was successfully completed. C Y O'Connor was a legendary colonial civil engineer whose triumphs in New Zealand and Australia also included the railway across New Zealand's Southern Alps, Greymouth Port and Fremantle Harbour. His tragic suicide gave him notoriety and remains an enigma that attracts attention and ... read more.
 

Fatal Collisions: The South Australian Frontier and the Violence of Memory

Robert Foster Rick Hosking and Amanda Nettelbeck, Kent Town: Wakefield Press, 2001, 168 Pages, Paperback, $24.95: Reviewed by Strephyn Mappin in the August 2002 issue.

In an age when spin doctoring has become a matter of course and truth is as malleable as plasticine, it is interesting to read a work that investigates the way certain truths have been mythologised in South Australian history. Concerning the treatment of the indigenous population during colonial times, Fatal Collisions demonstrates how fact and fiction can become inexorably intertwined over time, creating lasting impressions that are not just wrong but intentionally biased. The work is as much about how white 'culture' liked to (and in some cases still does) view itself, as it is about the truths of the incidents themselves. Impeccably researched and referenced, Fatal Collisions takes six ... read more.
 

Girt by Sea: Australia, the Refugees and the Politics of Fear

Mungo MacCallum, Melbourne: Black Inc, 2002, 106 Pages, Paperback, $14.95: Reviewed by Geoff Parkes in the August 2002 issue.

As our defence forces face another investigation into their government-ordained duty of 'protecting our borders', serial media man Peter Howard is arrested claiming he was abandoned by asylum seekers in the South Australian desert and John Howard's image, imprinted over a background of protesting detainees, adorns the covers of European dailies. Mungo MacCallum's 'Girt By Sea' is, at the very least, exquisitely timed. It is also a well-argued, convincingly pursued indictment of John Howard and his fellow Liberals and of the Australian people willing to swallow the inflammatory squirts of a party desperate to remain in power, and the story of a group of helpless people on a sinking ship who ... read more.
 

Goodbye Bussamarai: The Mandandanji Land War, Southern Queensland 1842-1852

Patrick Collins, St Lucia: UQP, 2002, 305 Pages, Paperback, $34.00: Reviewed by Jack Bowers in the August 2002 issue.

The Mandandanji land war occurred across the land of the Barunggan, Mandandanji, Bigambul and Yiman peoples, about 300 kilometres west of Brisbane. From the first white explorations into the area, until a few months after the Yamboucal massacre, Patrick Collins sketches the historical, cultural and political complexities of a decade of what we still feel uncomfortable about calling war. The title, though interesting, is a little misleading. Bussamarai (pronounced bussa-murray) was an influential Mandandanji warrior who led a coalition of different tribes against the white people. Collins asserts that the Aboriginal identities known in documents as Bussamarai, Old Man, Old Billy, Eaglehawk ... read more.
 

Henry Handel Richardson: The Getting of Wisdom

Clive Probyn and Bruce Steele eds, St Lucia: UQP, 2001, 280 Pages, Paperback, $80.00: Reviewed by Leonora Ritter in the August 2002 issue.

I must open with a confession. I am an Australian historian with an interest in biography, not a specialist in Australian literature. This complicates the already challenging task of reviewing this edition of the Australian classic, The Getting of Wisdom, a work whose previous incarnations have been reviewed by such notables as Germaine Greer, who described it as Henry Handel Richardson's 'only great book'. This particular previously unpublished version of The Getting of Wisdom is one of a series, the Academy Editions of Australian Literature, produced with the intent of providing 'reliable reading texts and contextual annotation based on rigorous scholarship and thorough textual ... read more.
 

Herrnhut: Australia's first utopian commune

William J Metcalf and Elizabeth Huf, Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2002, 202 Pages, Paperback, $29.95: Reviewed by Paul A Pickering in the August 2002 issue.

The road to Utopia is a hard one, or at least that is the only conclusion that can be drawn from Elizabeth Huf and William J Metcalf's account of 'Herrnhut', a quasi-religious 'utopian' commune established in western Victoria in 1852. Actually the book details the inter-connected histories of both Herrnhut and the Hill Plain Commune that was established near Benalla in 1875. Huf and Metcalf have collected an impressive amount of information about these little known social experiments and their enigmatic principals, Johann Friedrich Krumnow and Maria Heller (a quest that was aided by the unpublished work of a previous historian), but these are not happy tales. Both Herrnhut and Hill Plain ... read more.
 

Keeper of the Faith: a biography of Jim Cairns

Paul Stangio, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002, 500 Pages, Hardback, $49.95: Reviewed by Philip Mendes in the August 2002 issue.

For many of the baby boomers who grew up in the 1960s, Jim Cairns was a hero who inspired significant social change and action. But for later generations he is at best an eccentric old man struggling to sell his quirky books in rundown markets. Paul Strangio's comprehensive biography attempts to reconcile these two contradictory interpretations and to explain the enigma that is Jim Cairns. Strangio offers a detailed analysis of Cairns' formative influences. He notes Cairns' difficult family upbringing including abandonment by his father, and regular physical and emotional separation from his mother. From an early age, Cairns was nurtured on an intellectual rather than affectionate basis. ... read more.
 

Ladies Who Lunge: Celebrating Difficult Women

Tara Brabazon, Kensington: UNSW Press, 2002, 224 Pages, Paperback, $29.95: Reviewed by Julie Ustinoff in the August 2002 issue.

At the risk of sounding trite, Tara Brabazon's Ladies Who Lunge needed to be written. Her humorous evaluation of 'contemporary masculinity ---- and the women who poke, probe and provoke it', gives vent to the frustrations of women who are dissatisfied with the limitations of modern feminist theory and activity. As Brabazon sees it, the majority of today's young women relate more readily to the strong and often 'difficult' females of popular culture than they do to the intellectual theorizing of feminists such as Germaine Greer or Betty Friedan. According to the author, this connection between women and the surreal should be a major cause of concern for anyone interested in furthering ... read more.
 

Masculinities and Culture

John Beynon, Buckingham: Open University Press, 2002, 191 Pages, Paperback, $45.00: Reviewed by David Crawford in the August 2002 issue.

This work is an impressive synthesis of much literature and research on masculinity from diverse disciplines: sociology, social psychology, literary and women's studies, British history, popular culture, criminology, anthropology, cultural and media studies. It is a wide-ranging solid work of intellectual depth. Beynon, an academic from Wales, approaches masculinity from the perspective of cultural studies. Beynon states that his aim is to demonstrate the diversity of men's lives and masculinity and its experience. Masculinities, is a term widely used in academe, but rarely elsewhere. For Beynon, masculinities refers to varieties of masculine styles. Its potential significance lies in its ... read more.
 

Michael Dransfield: A Retrospective

Michael Dransfield selected by John Kinsella, St Lucia: UQP, 2002, 92 Page, Paperback, $19.95: Reviewed by Tim Metcalf in the August 2002 issue.

I came to Dransfield with a suspicious mind. I had read some of his poems here and there, and put him in my basket for drug-taking darlings of 'the set'. Here he kept company with Jim Morrison of 'The Doors' and the early Robert Adamson. These young men were allowed liberties in their personal lives and in their writing for the sake of their entertainment value as much as for the scent of the muse they exuded. Adamson alone lived and matured to the clarity of 'The Clean Dark'. Dransfield, I am now certain, was on that same path to a consistently fine poetry. It has long been my habit not to read introductions to poetry and fiction of any time or place. I hope any suspicions of revisionist ... read more.
 

Ned Kelly

John Molony, Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, 2001, 247 Pages, Paperback, $34.95: Reviewed by Graham Seal in the August 2002 issue.

John Molony's Ned Kelly, reissued twenty-one years after its original publication in 1980, demonstrates the changes that have occurred in Australian historical and biographical writing. When first published many were unsure what to make of a work by a historian that imagined the thoughts, motivations and inner churnings of Australia's bushranging icon, as well as those of a large and colourful supporting cast. Was it proper history? Was it biography? Was it creative writing? As we can now see with the benefit of hindsight, it was a bit of all those things. This life of Ned Kelly is an early example of 'faction', the creative reworking of historical detail using the styles and techniques of ... read more.
 

Night of Warehouses: Poems 1978-2000

Stephen Oliver, Wellington: Headworx, 2001, 191 Pages, Paperback, $21.95: Reviewed by Tim Metcalf in the August 2002 issue.

The five books from which this selection was made, and the thirty-three pages of new poems, ensure a hearty feast for fans of Oliver and those fascinated by the evolution of poetry in the Antipodes. There is from the outset an emphasis on a 'transtasman' poetic. Set largely in the harbour cities of Auckland and Sydney, the antics of light dominate the images that Oliver so skilfully evokes. From book one he demonstrates an assured and integrated poetic:This time of year the clouds could be happening while the days spin you/me different waysOliver treads precisely, careful not to trip over anybody's feelings. His own are suppressed in the 'post-modern' structures typical of the late ... read more.
 

Parachute Silk

Gina Mercer, North Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 2001, 210 Pages, Paperback, $24.95: Reviewed by Iris Lowe in the August 2002 issue.

In this first novel by accomplished poet Gina Mercer, the reader is drawn into the personal worlds of forty-somethings Molly and Finn through their candid and eloquent letters to each other. There is an abundance to enjoy here and as a writer Mercer is both generous and passionate. Through the eyes of two long-term friends, Mercer explores a wide range of issues. What's more, she is not afraid to challenge stereotypes or cherished myths. Here are women of substance, painfully grappling with the contradictions and tensions of their lives and relationships. Finn, now in a monogamous heterosexual relationship, reminisces about past women lovers in her letters to Molly who has always been ... read more.
 

Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: a portrait of Paul Keating PM

Don Watson, Sydney: Random House, 2002, Hardback, $45.00: Reviewed by Martin Leet in the August 2002 issue.

On New Year's Day 1992, Don Watson promised himself that he would have no more to do with politics. As somewhat of a 'bleeding heart', he had reached such depths of despair about the Labor side of Australian politics that he found himself admiring the energy and conviction in John Hewson's Fightback! manifesto. At first, then, he declined the offer to be a speechwriter for Paul Keating, who had just become the new prime minister. After meeting Keating, however, and seeing the 'sadness' and 'melancholy' in his 'famous brown eyes', Watson says he 'liked him and knew at once that I wanted the job'. Watson remained Keating's speech writer until the election defeat in 1996 and this book is based ... read more.
 

Sexual Politics and Greedy Institutions: Union Women, Commitments and Conflicts in Public and in Private

Suzanne Franzway, Annandale: Pluto Press, 2002, 186 Pages, Paperback, $34.95: Reviewed by Julie Ustinoff in the August 2002 issue.

For anyone who has ever looked at one of the few females who hold a prominent position in the Australian trade union movement and thought, she must be tough -- Franzway's book will convince you that you are right. Unions are tough environments in which to work, and they are even tougher environments in which to succeed, especially for women. Much of this harshness derives from what Suzanne Franzway argues is the status of unions as 'greedy' institutions; so named because of the high demands they make upon officials in terms of commitment, loyalty, time, and energy. For women though, active union involvement is often impossible, or severely restricted, because they already face the demands of ... read more.
 

The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Radical Destiny in Australia

Warwick Anderson, Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2002, 364 Pp, 235 X 154 Mm, 25 B/w Illustrations & 4 Maps, Paperback, $34.95: Reviewed by Sue Bond in the August 2002 issue.

Warwick Anderson's book The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia led to Adelaide University apologising to Aboriginal peoples for the 'barbarous' experiments some of its scientists performed in the 1930s. As Anderson describes, there was intense interest at that time in the 'half-caste' and how they might adapt to European civilisation. The Harvard-Adelaide half-caste study involved Norman Tindale and Joseph Birdsell visiting several areas in Adelaide, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland, and measuring the physiology and anatomy of Aboriginal peoples, including blood groups and genealogies, often giving lollies and cigarettes as bribes. It is ... read more.
 

The Devil and James McAuley

Cassandra Pybus, Qld: UQP, 2001, 332 Pages, Paperback, $28.00: Reviewed by Geoff Parkes in the August 2002 issue.

At a time when our prime minister has been merrily showing the skills of an obsequious lapper, it is interesting perhaps to reflect on where exactly Mr Howard and Co learnt their talents and to consider the type of leadership that exposed Honest John and mates to the benefits of maintaining such a cosy relationship with our North American 'neighbours'. And so we journey to the 1940s and 50s, where Johnny, a budding blossom, no doubt would have looked on in awe at James McAuley, close friend and comrade to the wunderkind of Australian shadow-life, B A Santamaria. Cassandra Pybus' now revised edition draws us back into the dimly lit world of Catholic anti-communists, the CIA-funded Quadrant, ... read more.
 

The Media and Communications in Australia

Stuart Cunningham and Graeme Turner ed, St Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 2002, 400 Pages, Paperback, $45.00: Reviewed by Ron Blaber in the August 2002 issue.

Stuart Cunningham and Graeme Turner's new collection represents a transformation of their The Media in Australia: Industries, Texts, Audiences. Both are teaching texts and both seek to address the complexities of the relationship between industry development and practice, policy formulation, social formations, textual understandings, and the formation of 'new' academic and research disciplines. The collection avoids the simple approach of amending/revising the previous edition. Rather it approaches the initial brief in a considered manner given the rapid transformations of the disciplines and industries under consideration. Reflecting the emergence of new disciplinary fields and creative ... read more.
 

The Tears of Strangers: A Memoir

Stan Grant, Pymble: Harper Collins, 2002, 270 Pages, Paperback, $29.95: Reviewed by Tony Smith in the August 2002 issue.

While many memoirs by prominent people tend to be subjective attempts to give retrospective justification to the shortcomings of their authors, Stan Grant's testimony is honest and objective. His explanation of the personal dilemma facing an Aboriginal man successful in white society is perceptive, powerful and disturbing. Grant owes his high public profile to a career as a reporter on television current affairs programs, but his writing avoids the cynicism that characterises such programs. The Tears of Strangers is no 'grip and grin' celebration of the famous folk Grant interviewed, nor a complaint about his recent treatment by employers and press. The seventeen photographs are all family ... read more.