Latest Articles
From a perspective of some eighty years it is possible to misunderstand or underestimate the intensity of the fears—but also the hopes and aspirations—of the British people as they faced up to another colossal existential challenge, less than a full generation after what, it was now suddenly clear, had only been the first world war.
Sep 10 2024
11 mins
The Republican presidential contender is an acquired taste. Given the alternative, it's a taste persnickety conservatives should make the effort to acquire
Sep 09 2024
4 mins
From Brisbane to Bucharest
Betrayals
by Ian Callinan
Boolarong Press, 2012, 348 pages, $24.95
To have heard Ian Callinan cross-examine when he was one of the nation’s leading silks or to have seen him sitting in judgment as a member of the High Court of Australia, no reader could have expected, even in his retirement, that he was susceptible to romance. But indeed, Betrayals, his seventh novel, is a love story. It is much else besides—a spy thriller, a study of politics and the public service, the world of academia and glimpses of war.
But the abiding theme that courses through the novel is the love of Tim Fallon and Cecily Towne. Fallon is the bright son of an Ipswich coalminer, who lives at home, catching the train each day to Toowong to study at the University of Queensland. Cecily Towne is the brilliant and beautiful only child of a successful Brisbane stockbroker, Richard Towne, and his formidable wife, Ruth, who has directed all her ambitious attention towards her daughter. The depth of prejudice and…
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
