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
How Islam Saved the West
Islam gave the West a gift—its liberty. It was not a direct gift, nor deliberately bestowed, nor understood for what it was when given. Yet it was quite real. Islam made this gift not by what it produced but by what it prevented: the emergence of “comprehensive empire” in the Western world.
Empires uniting enormous tracts of territory have dominated the history of most regions of the civilised world. The most striking case, East Asia, has experienced imperial rule for approximately 1600 of the past 2200 years. The Middle East—today’s Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq—has been within the bounds of one or another empire for about 1500 of the last 2600 years. India (or, more precisely, its core Gangetic Plain) has been part of an empire for about 1600 out of last 2300 years. Western and Mediterranean Europe, by contrast, has been ruled this way for only approximately 500 of the past 2200 years, and not since, memorably, 476. Russia aside, the rest of Europe…
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
