Mutineers - A true story of heroes and villains by Robert Hadler Wilkinson Publishing 2021 ISBN: 9781925927573 $29.99 (pb) Reviewed by Paul Henderson The author wrote his first book, entitled Dark Secrets, which was published in 2020. Mutineers was published a year later. Both books are about interesting events in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), [...]
Radicals – Remembering The Sixties by Meredith Burgmann & Nadia Wheatley NewSouth Publishing 2021 ISBN: 9781742235899 RRP: $39.99 (pb) Reviewed by Keith Harvey There were many important social and political issues worth taking up in the 1960s. These included Aboriginal and islander rights (including land rights), racism, apartheid, women’s rights, censorship (up to a point), [...]
Defiant Voices. How Australia’s Female Convicts Challenged Authority by Babette Smith NLA Publishing 2021 ISBN: 9780642279590 RRP: $49.99 (pb) Reviewed by William Coleman On the very wet night of 13 July 1781, John Price was drinking in William Wood’s pub “at the bottom of Chick-lane”, when one Elizabeth Barber, age 24, sat beside him. After a little [...]
SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS COME TOGETHER Curious Obsessions in The History of Science and Spirituality By Rachael Kohn ABC Books 2021 ISBN-10 : 0733316387 ISBN-13 : 978-0733316388 RRP: $36.99 Reviewed by Monica Doumit The word “catholic” comes to us from the Greek word katholikos, which means “universal”. In the Roman Catholic Church, this universality is often jokingly referred [...]
The Truth About China: Propaganda, Patriotism and the Search for Answers by Bill Birtles Allen & Unwin, 2021 ISBN: 9781760879860 RRP: $24.00 Reviewed by Milton Osborne It is a standard observation, not always honoured in reality, that journalists are not supposed to be the subject of their own reporting. Yet Bill Birtles has every reason to break with this “rule” as [...]
NOT ALWAYS DIPLOMATIC – AN AUSTRALIAN WOMAN’S JOURNEY THROUGH INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS By Sue Boyd UWA Publishing 2020 ISBN: 978-1-76080-149-6 RRP: $29.99 (PB) Reviewed By Anne Henderson Sue Boyd’s memoir begins with a meeting she had with Prime Minister Gough Whitlam after returning from her first overseas posting as an Australian diplomat in Portugal where the [...]
Witness: An Investigation into the brutal cost of seeking justice by Louise Milligan Hachette Australia 2020 ISBN: 9780733644634 RRP $34.99 Reviewed by Gerard Henderson The front cover of Witness describes the author as a “Walkley award-winning journalist and bestselling author of Cardinal’”. The full title of ABC TV journalist Louise Milligan’s first book is Cardinal: [...]
CODE NAME MADELEINE – A SUFI SPY IN NAZI OCCUPIED PARIS By Arthur J Magida W W Norton & Company 2020 ISBN-10: 0393867552; ISBN-13: 978-0393867558; RRP: $44.95 (HB) By Anne Henderson Winston Churchill called the Special Operations Executive (SOE), which he created under his minister for economic warfare Hugh Dalton in July 1940, the “Ministry [...]
SIR ROBERT ASKIN By Paul Loughnan Connor Court Publishing ISBN: 9781922449368 RRP: $19.95 Reviewed by Milton Cockburn No biography of Bob Askin has ever been published or, as far as I am aware, attempted. This is odd given that Askin is certainly the most controversial NSW premier since Jack Lang. For an account [...]
GREAT SOCIETY – A NEW HISTORY By Amity Shlaes HarperCollins 2019 ISBN 0061706426 ISBN-13 9780061706424 RRP: $44.95 (HB) By Anne Henderson Stand-up US comedian Charles Fleischer is credited as the originator of the now well-worn line: “If you remember the ’60s, you really weren’t there.” Well, historians and archivists are another matter. Many were there and kept [...]
