History
Jay Daniel Thompson on 'The Baby Farmers'
In The Baby Farmers, legal scholar Annie Cossins revisits a bizarre episode in Australian criminal history. Her text focuses on a pair of baby killers who operated in Sydney during the nineteenth century. In October 1892, Sarah and John Makin were arrested after a baby’s corpse was found buried on their farm. An investigation revealed the ... More
Robert Dare reviews 'Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain' by John Darwin
The main title of John Darwin’s new book is simple but mischievous. Its primary purpose is to announce that he sees empire as an activity rather than a thing. People, millions of t More
Jo Scanlan reviews 'The Boy Colonel' by Will Davies
So many Australian scholars and writers stand tall alongside C.E.W. Bean that you have to wonder: is there much more that can be said about Worl More
Stuart Macintyre reviews 'The Undivided Past: History Beyond our Differences' by David Cannadine
David Cannadine is a distinguished transatlantic historian, the author of books on modern Britain and its empire, the biographer of G.M. Trevelyan and Andrew Mellon, and he recently More
Dennis Altman reviews 'Rendezvous with Destiny' by Michael Fullilove
Michael Fullilove, head of the Lowy Institute, has written about President Roosevelt and the men who helped him to guide the US so reluctantly into World War II. Dennis Altman reviews this model of academic research.< More
In the Moscow archives
Neal Blewett reviews 'Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill 1832' by Antonia Fraser
ver fifty years have passed since I wrote my first tutorial essay in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE), or Modern Greats, as it was known in Oxford. The subject was the Gr More
Norman Etherington reviews 'The Last Blank Spaces'
Dane Kennedy reminds us that not so long ago exploring held an honoured place among recognised professions. Today, though, the job is extinct. For about a century and a half, the business More
Alison Broinowski reviews 'The Untold History of the United States' by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick
It is ten years since the invasion of Iraq by the United States and the few countries willing to join it. Happening to be in Washington in February, and recalling worldwide protests in 2003, I was struck by what seems to be American amnesia about the war and its consequences. At least in Australia groups are exploring ways to prevent such catastrophic expediti ... More
2013 Calibre Prize (Winner): Because it's Your Country
The morgue in Gunbalanya holds no more than half a dozen corpses – and, as usual, it was full. When the Old Man died in the wet season of 2012, they had to fly him to Darwin, only to discover that the morgue there was already overcrowded. So they moved him again, this time to Katherine, where they put him on ice until the funeral. The hot climate notwithstan ... More
