Here are two books which illuminate aspects of intellectual life in Australia. The anthology edited by Brian Martin et al documents numerous instances of ‘intellectual suppression’, cases where individual scholars find their careers in jeopardy because their findings offend the powerful.

Some of the examples are famous. Cedric Pugh earned the wrath of the South Australian Institute of Technology when he questioned some of their staffing policies. Ann Moyal, a talented and enthusiastic academic in the field of science policy, was suspended from Griffith university on trivial grounds. Others are less spectacular but equally unjust. Richard Davis of the University of Tasmania specialises in Irish history but apparently has a stubborn enemy in another Australian university who can block his every application for external funding.