September 2010 Volume LIV, No. 9
The Tenacity of the Liberal Intellectuals
Bart Cummings
Poxy History
The First Middle East Crisis
Why Muslims Hate Dogs
Anatomy of the Crime Novel
Contents
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The Last Intellectuals: Essays on Writers & Politics,by Peter Coleman;Quadrant […]
September 1, 2010
16 mins
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Horses are often riddles waiting to be worked out ... […]
September 1, 2010
1 mins
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Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, by Martin […]
September 1, 2010
20 mins
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For some time now, a horse has been catching a […]
September 1, 2010
22 mins
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Talking about Detective Fiction, by P.D. James; Faber & Faber, […]
September 1, 2010
10 mins
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50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists, edited by […]
September 1, 2010
19 mins
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Shelley Gare’s article “Death by Silence in the Writers’ Combat […]
September 1, 2010
9 mins
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Let me begin with the point I wish to establish. […]
September 1, 2010
19 mins
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Paris and the Norwegian city of Stavanger have both spelled […]
September 1, 2010
17 mins
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When we look at profligate governments, those in debt and […]
September 1, 2010
18 mins
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[Part 1 of “The Rise of Conservative Dissent in the […]
September 1, 2010
16 mins
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Much has been written about the demise of print journalism […]
September 1, 2010
45 mins
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In The Howard Era (Quadrant Books, 2009) I assessed the […]
September 1, 2010
36 mins
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During the first week of the 2010 election campaign the […]
September 1, 2010
22 mins
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How many articles start with the author realising, then lamenting, […]
September 1, 2010
12 mins
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Dangerous Dreamers: The Australian Anti-Democratic Left and Czechoslovak Agents, by […]
September 1, 2010
12 mins
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Mark Aarons’s book The Family Files is a red confession […]
September 1, 2010
6 mins
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The Aarons family were influential Australian communists over three or […]
September 1, 2010
16 mins
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The Drowsy Chaperone was at the Playhouse, Melbourne Arts Centre, […]
September 1, 2010
11 mins
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When somebody sits on top of a pole for an […]
August 31, 2010
7 mins
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It mottles in with paperbarks obscures the line between what’s […]
August 31, 2010
1 mins
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I knew that it was foolhardy the moment I swung […]
August 31, 2010
2 mins
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i.m. Anthony Hecht “Three flaws, but this comes very […]
August 31, 2010
1 mins
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I’ve seen them in a dining-room after the guests have […]
August 31, 2010
1 mins
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She left when she was only five too young to […]
August 31, 2010
2 mins
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Stone Variations He moved by night. He went alone. He […]
August 31, 2010
2 mins
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Out here the highway starts with reassurance but soon will […]
August 31, 2010
1 mins
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Busy Busy Busy Busy. Things are humming. Fresh Solutions are […]
August 31, 2010
2 mins
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The media relishes a military funeral. The last rites of […]
August 31, 2010
7 mins
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The Craftsman, by Richard Sennett; Penguin, 2009, 300 pages, $26.95.
If there is one guiding thought behind Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman, a long digressive series of reflections on his life’s work as a social critic, it is the maxim, “making is thinking”. This brings him directly into conflict with his old teacher, the philosopher Hannah Arendt, who erected a division between the world of animal needs—unreflecting work for beasts of burden—and the higher world of homo faber, of those who reflect on art and work, and even draw moral conclusions from it. That division started with Plato, who belittled cooking as a “knack”, something done without the full exercise of reason. As a pragmatist, Sennett believes this is a serious philosophical error with important ethical and political consequences. It isn’t only that it demeans those who do manual labour, it also suggests that thinking comes after making: it is a justification for the kind of politics which gives status to expert elites and technocrats (ours), and in which the word benchmark is nothing more than an empty signifier.August 31, 2010
8 mins
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Love Vintage, by Nicole Jenkins, with photography by Tira Lewis; Carter’s Publications, 2009, 232 pages, $49.95.
Nicole Jenkins defines vintage clothing as anything designed and made between about the 1920s, that is, after the First World War, and the early 1970s, “when post WWII baby boomers radically changed the way fashion was made and worn”. Antique clothing is seen as more structured and fragile, and may not have survived in wearable condition, and certainly not as fashion, after the First World War. The fashion from the late seventies on is categorised as “retro”, with a keen interest from the teenage daughters of the Baby Boomers.Nicole Jenkins’s focus is on the desirability and wearability of vintage clothing. While it is easy enough to skim through the clothing racks in op shops, it can be very hard to find quality garments with designer labels which are in good, wearable condition. She makes a distinction between antique clothing, which, because of poor, fragile condition, may perhaps only be suitable for a museum, and the sturdier, simpler styles of between the wars and up to the late sixties. Another important factor she examines is sizing. Antique clothing was made for shorter, slighter women. Not many of us could boast a stature of 1.5 metres with a 48-centimetre waist.
August 31, 2010
9 mins
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Hitch 22, by Christopher Hitchens; Allen & Unwin, 2010, 352 pages, $35.
I came late to the strange charms of Christopher Hitchens, being drawn to his performance in the lead-up to the second Iraq War as curmudgeon-in-chief, sourly defending the importance of taking military action. He was learned, persuasive, and revelled in his persona as pantomime villain on mostly late-night television debate. In this role, Hitchens would prove to be, next to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, probably the most persuasive force in support of the conflict, at a time when it appeared far from inevitable.
Hitchens had, of course, by this stage completed his transformation from petition-waving Trotskyite student to neo-conservative warrior of the Right. The story of this evolution is the spine that runs through Hitchens’s autobiography Hitch 22. The book has been keenly awaited, not least because of the raging culture war that has arisen over Hitchens himself. This debate, reminiscent of Australia’s own concerning Malcolm Fraser, is about just who, or what, has changed. Has the Left moved away from Hitchens or has Hitchens moved from the Left? More critically, what is the place of the Left in the post-Cold War world, particularly in the face of the threat posed by radical Islam? Hitchens himself embodies these debates and contradictions and, true to form, clearly revels in being placed at the centre of it all.
August 31, 2010
7 mins
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Nomad: A Personal Journey through the Clash of Civilizations, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali;
HarperCollins, 2010, 304 pages, $35.
Few have experienced a more precipitous learning curve than Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Somalia’s most famous (or notorious, depending on your perspective) emigrant has completed a second autobiography, Nomad, at the relatively young age of forty. If her life continues to be as eventful as it has been until now—and her round-the-clock security regime does its job properly—we may see many more memoirs penned by the brave and articulate Hirsi Ali.
During her childhood Hirsi Ali found herself living not only in Somalia but also Kenya, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia, mostly because her father was a leading political opponent of Somalia’s then dictator, President Barre. The tribal world depicted by Hirsi Ali is tough and brutal. Nomad begins with the difficult lives endured by her closest relations, including her mother, father, brother and half-sister, but unlike her previous memoir, Infidel, we now follow them to the present. Though cut off from her family and the “web of values” that inform them, Hirsi Ali tries to re-establish familial connections. Sadly, the barriers—cultural, religious and geographic—prove insurmountable. Her description of the secret (and heart-wrenching) reunion with her dying father in 2008 says it all.
August 31, 2010
6 mins
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Every year in Merrimba the conditions were just right for […]
August 31, 2010
7 mins
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“Hi, Julian—over here!” I looked up from pushing my trolley […]
August 31, 2010
8 mins
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It would seem that Australian director Claire McCarthy’s new film […]
August 31, 2010
13 mins
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A while ago after finally unpacking several hundreds of my […]
August 31, 2010
6 mins
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Many people find the idea of religious freedom confusing and […]
August 31, 2010
14 mins
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In 1930, J.M. Keynes made some startling predictions in “Economic […]
August 31, 2010
4 mins
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Poland’s presidential elections which concluded on July 4 were brought […]
August 31, 2010
34 mins
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Death by Silence SIR: The brilliant article by Shelley Gare, […]
August 31, 2010
24 mins