Latest Articles
We are encouraged to rely more and more on government officials to do for us what we could equally well do for ourselves—and, maybe more importantly, not to do what might help us solve our own problems.
Sep 08 2024
10 mins
If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.
Sep 06 2024
5 mins
From Wartorn Europe to Australia
A retired schoolteacher from Adelaide with a PhD from Flinders University, Peter Brune is a brilliant scholar who has published eight books about Australian military history. When I was one of the judges, his 2014 Second World War history Descent into Hell was shortlisted for the 2015 Prime Minister’s Prize for Non-Fiction. As with most of his work, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph has been edited by the extremely capable Neil Thomas. Unusually, Thomas also played a key role in its publication and is involved in its promotion.
This scrupulously researched book, which focuses on the “first wave” of immigrants after the Second World War, is based on more than forty lengthy, often heart-rending interviews with former “displaced persons” that Brune conducted between 1999 and 2022.
After the war, large numbers of displaced persons came to Australia to escape the horrors of war-torn Europe. Under our Mass Resettlement Scheme, they came from Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine,…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins
