May 2009
SOCIETY
Brian Burke & Nicolae Ceausescu
Everybody wanted to be Nicolae Ceausescu's friend - the United States, Britain, China and the premier of Western Australia. To the...
More ...SOCIETY
"Jasper Jones: A Novel" by Craig Silvey
Michael Williams
Publisher hyperbole can be off-putting - rarely more so than when it takes the overblown-comparison route. Wariness seems in order when...
More ...SOCIETY
"Bodies" by Susie Orbach
Celina Riberio
Politicians predict obesity epidemics bankrupting governments and mutating generations of people, parents Photoshop pictures of their...
More ...SOCIETY
In Search of a Songwriter
Robert Forster
It's lonesome out there on the prairie. There are eagles up in the sky, and birds, lots of birds, and lakes, and wolves, plenty of wolves,...
More ...SOCIETY
Castaway: Murray Bail’s "Fairweather"
Sebastian Smee
Starting out as an art critic for newspapers, in the early '90s, I remember well the way people talked about Murray Bail's 1981 monograph...
More ...SOCIETY
Turning a Mouse into an Elephant: "The Accidental Guerrilla" by David Kilcullen
Hugh White
Soldiers who are also scholars have always had a certain cachet, but since 1914, when major warfare became unrelentingly industrial,...
More ...SOCIETY
Purgatory: Matteo Garrone’s "Gomorrah"
Luke Davies
The specific nature of the sins committed by the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah has been the subject of much speculation. Contending...
More ...SOCIETY
Troy Revisited: Homer’s "Iliad" & David Malouf’s "Ransom"
Peter Conrad
Which of Homer's two narratives a writer chooses depends on the temper of the times. Romantic voyagers in the nineteenth century favoured...
More ...POLITICS
The Rudd Essay & the Global Financial Crisis
Charles R Morris
I appreciate the opportunity to comment on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's recent essay. I find myself in virtually complete agreement with his...
More ...POLITICS
The Rudd Essay & the Global Financial Crisis
Dean Baker
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has in his essay given us a bold statement about the nature of the current economic crisis, and laid out an...
More ...POLITICS
The Rudd Essay & the Global Financial Crisis
David Hale
The current global recession will be a more defining event than any other business cycle since the 1930s. As Prime Minister Kevin Rudd...
More ...POLITICS
The Rudd Essay & the Global Financial Crisis
Eric Hobsbawm
Kevin Rudd's essay makes two major contributions to the debate on the present world crisis of capitalism, which is now recognised to be the...
More ...SOCIETY
Into the Red: Haydn in the Outback
Nicolas Rothwell
“I suppose you think this is beautiful,” said Johnson, in a challenging voice.“Well,” I said, “it does have a certain primal quality.”We...
More ...POLITICS
The Rudd Essay & the Global Financial Crisis: Introduction
Robert Manne
The forum begins with Eric Hobsbawm, the author of the magisterial quartet The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire and...
More ...
SOCIETY
C90
Paul Kelly
In my last year of high school the two coolest records were Hot Rats, by Frank Zappa, and Gasoline Alley, by Rod Stewart. (Yes, there once...
More ...
SOCIETY
School Days
Alice Pung
‘Ladies' is such a salacious word when slurred by young men, but when enunciated by a carefully coiffured middle-aged lady to a mass of...
More ...
ECONOMICS
Incentivising
Gideon Haigh
An age-old conjugation of democracy runs something like this: I am guided by the will of the people; you are a slave of public opinion; he...
More ...
WORLD
Comment: Carbon Omissions
Over the past four years, there has been immeasurable progress on climate change - in public awareness, in media interest and in the...
More ...
Twitter
@THEMONTHLY @SLOWTV
