In This Issue
September 2011 in brief
THE NATION REVIEWED “As Abbott and an emboldened carbon lobby paint Gillard’s plan as economic Armageddon, environmentalists are cheering...
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The Nation Reviewed
The Climate Movement: Australia’s Patrons of Climate Change Activism
Guy Pearse
It’s a far cry from 2009 when the environmental movement split over the so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). The Australian...
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The Nation Reviewed
Riding High: The Toyota HiLux and the Tradie’s New World
Don Watson
Climb into a Toyota HiLux and at once you feel “the commanding outlook”. It’s just as the brochure says. Nissan Navara lacks very little in...
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The Nation Reviewed
Order is Everything: The State Library of Victoria’s Card Catalogue
Robyn Annear
In a lumber-room off a catacumbal corridor slumbers the State Library of Victoria’s old card catalogue (‘catalogue’ not ‘catalogues’:...
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The Nation Reviewed
Triple Zero’s Emergency: Why Dialling ‘000’ May Not Save Your Life
Christine Kenneally
A few years ago in Terrey Hills, NSW, a man stumbled upon the collapsed body of a jogger who had had a heart attack. He called triple zero...
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The Monthly Essays
The Porn Ultimatum: The Dehumanising Effects of Smut
Cordelia Fine
It was certainly no simple task trying to make sense of these starkly different pictures of porn and its effects. The most important...
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The Monthly Essays
Booze Territory: The Crisis of Alcoholism
Anna Krien
“2 pm,” comes the answer. “Oh,” I nod. I’m about to get back into my car when I realise the woman is talking about the bottle shop. “You...
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The Monthly Essays
Knight in Shining Armani: Geoffrey Robertson’s Life in the Law
Paola Totaro
Robertson has 13 books under his belt, among them The Tyrannicide Brief (2005), the story of John Cooke, the lawyer who prosecuted King...
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The Monthly Essays
How We Lost the War: Afghanistan a Decade on from September 11
Sally Neighbour
"The vast majority of the Taliban hadn't been driven anywhere," says Lieven. "They went back to their villages to wait and see what...
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Television, Arts & Letters
The Kid Grows Up: Meeting Alex Dimitriades
Peter Robb
Nearing 40, a man’s body begins to die. The body knows this. So does the mind, though it can take a long time before the mind knows what it...
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Books, Arts & Letters
The Magic of Exile: Anna Funder’s 'All That I Am'
David Marr
To those who fled the Nazis in the middle of the 1930s, the British gave only temporary protection. Their visas stipulated “no political...
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Film, Arts & Letters
Shakespeare in Australia: Fred Schepisi’s 'The Eye of the Storm'
Peter Conrad
It’s fortunate that Australia’s new capital was called Canberra not Shakespeare, as a few Empire loyalists proposed at the time of...
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Art, Arts & Letters
Republic of Art: 'The Mad Square: Modernity in German Art 1910–37'
Sebastian Smee
You can look at French art of the 1870s and momentarily forget about the Franco–Prussian War and the Paris Commune. You can study the...
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Books, Noted
'Sarah Thornhill' By Kate Grenville
Delia Falconer
Each of the three books in Kate Grenville’s loose trilogy – The Secret River (2005), The Lieutenant (2008) and now Sarah Thornhill – is an...
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Books, Noted
'Her Father’s Daughter' By Alice Pung
Brenda Walker
Alice Pung’s first book, Unpolished Gem (2006), was the work of a young, amusing and astute writer. While Her Father’s Daughter again makes...
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Encounters
Helmut Newton and Alice Springs
One day in 1947, a rising Melbourne stage actress walked into a small Flinders Lane photography studio, looking to pick up some extra cash...
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Mike Hopkins
Annabel Crabb illustrates much that is wrong with the Australian media (‘Prime Minister, Interrupted’, August). She examines everybody’s...
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Thomas Ryan
After reading Benjamin Law’s ‘Gourmet Gore’ (August) I now realise that if I decide to kill, say, a dog, koala, panda bear or a whale, I...
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James Boyce
Philip Harvey’s assertion that Malcolm Turnbull’s review of my book, 1835, was “full of the oldest clichés and howlers about early...
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Lars Norberg
I love Chris Grosz’s illustrations to Shane Maloney’s fascinating ‘Encounters’, but the pedant in me wonders if there would have been a...
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Craig Ellis
It was telling that Cordelia Fine’s essay (“The Porn Ultimatum”, September) was published under your cover line “Porn Wars”. The latter was...
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