Soldier atrocities are shaped by our society, culture, and political fabric. Preventing them will require a comprehensive rethinking of policies, attitudes, and approaches to war.
Tim Rowse concludes that Paul Daley’s new novel, inspired by true events in Arnhem Land, is fluent and skilfully paced – but doesn’t risk complicating the critical narrative of our colonial history.
The cost of the Australian biometric passport and the rigour involved in obtaining one can be traced to our participation in an international passport system that evolved over the last century.
In 1881, a Pacific Islander woman brought here to work on a sugar cane plantation ran away. She was violently retrieved by her employer. Her story sheds moving light on a dark history of exploitation.
In 1895 the Wynne Prize was proposed as an award for a ‘landscape painting of Australian scenery’. Today it is more likely to be given to an Indigenous artist’s explanation of Country.
The British atomic tests at Emu Field in South Australia pre-dated Maralinga by three years. Largely forgotten, they remind us the costs of harmful political decisions are borne by the most powerless.
Kate Grenville suggests we read Elizabeth Macarthur’s letters as ‘a wonderful piece of fiction, sustained over sixty years’. They were exercises in doubleness, concealment, and delicious irony.
Two books on historical gay hate crimes – the murder of George Duncan in Adelaide, 1972, and army officer Warwick Meale in Townsville, 1942 – aim to create positive change by revealing past injustice.
Scott Morrison’s pitch to voters that the election is about “you” is a potentially powerful one. But Labor has one available that is even better: it’s about “us”.
The First Astronomers shares the extensive star knowledge of First Peoples worldwide, stretching back millennia to reclaim so-called Western discoveries and highlight the strength of oral traditions.