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
The Man Who Bested Rommel (and Lionel Murphy)
An Unqualified Success: The Extraordinary Life of Allan Percy Fleming
by Peter Golding
Rosenberg Publishing, 2013, 344 pages, $34.95
Nearly seventy years have passed since the guns of the Second World War fell silent and its atom bombs were put back in their silos (ready in good serviceable shape in case they were needed again soon).
Between 1939 and 1945, the deeds of the Australian men and women waging the global struggle compiled what appears to be an inexhaustible data-bank of the experience of a nation at full wartime stretch. Nowadays, almost every month seems to be producing some fresh drawing on this great deposit, as some new volume is published, or as some new tale is told: the clash of great armies, the valour of small heroic groups like the crew of a single bomber, the fortitude and comradeship of tormented prisoners of war, the ribald gaiety of mates on leave—all shades of human feeling are there.
In the last few months, two particularly distinguished additions…
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
