Latest Articles
A Sydney-based academic and columnist for the Nine rags sets out to explain the US to Australians. It's not a pretty picture
Sep 20 2024
8 mins
The philospher began with the conviction 'the only human activity that seems to have any importance' is the great cosmic 'why?'
Sep 20 2024
24 mins
In the Senate, a very queer notion of free speech
Sep 20 2024
2 mins
Christmas Books: John Izzard
Joy of the year was re-reading Jane Gardam’s 2006 novel Old Filth (Abacus) based on Sir Edward Feathers QC, then to read the follow-up, The Man in the Wooden Hat (2009).
The wonderfully illustrated book, The Roots of Civilisation (Pier 9) by John Newton is about the best Christmas book gift you could find for a book-loving friend while Harvey Sachs has written a stunning account of Beethoven in The Ninth—Beethoven and the World of 1824 (Faber & Faber, 2010).
Leo Damrosch does a great job with Tocqueville’s Discovery of America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010) as does Geoffrey Luck in his review of the book in the November Quadrant.
The Rational Optimist (Fourth Estate) by Matt Ridley will ensure a brighter Christmas for those weary of the dying-planet industry.
Other holiday reading: Christopher Hitchens’s Hitch-22 (Allen and Unwin), John Howard’s Lazarus Rising (Harper Collins) and Roger Scruton’s Beauty (Oxford University Press).
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
