MENZIES VERSUS EVATT – THE GREAT RIVALRY OF AUSTRALIAN POLITICS By Anne Henderson Connor Court 2023 ISBN: 978 1 92281 56 06 RRP: $34.95 (PB) Reviewed by Nicholas Hasluck At a banquet held in 1960 to farewell Sir William Slim upon the completion of his term as Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, [...]
LAW, POLITICS AND INTELLIGENCE A LIFE OF ROBERT HOPE By Peter Edwards NewSouth 2020 ISBN: 978 1 742 235 370 RRP: $49.99 (HB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson In the age of post 9/11, it is hard to remember how security and intelligence was once so denigrated by the left intelligentsia and left wing [...]
MY LIFE AS A JEW By Michael Gawenda Scribe 2023 ISBN: 978 1 761380 47 1 RRP: $35 (PB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson As a memoir, Michael Gawenda’s My Life as a Jew is part autobiography, part confession, part analysis of historical and contemporary global antisemitism and part a journey of discovery. It is [...]
Arthur Calwell - by James Franklin and Gerry O’Nolan Australian Biographical Monographs 20 Connor Court Publishing, 2023 ISBN: 9781922815811 RRP: $19.95 Brian Harradine – by Keith Harvey Australian Biographical Monographs 21 Connor Court Publishing, 2023 ISBN: 9781922815866 RRP: $19.95 Reviewed by Gerard Henderson Judged by their electoral performances Arthur Calwell (1896-1973) [...]
HITLER, STALIN, MUM AND DAD - A FAMILY MEMOIR OF MIRACULOUS SURVIVAL by Daniel Finkelstein William Collins 2023 ISBN: 978 000 8483885-2 RRP: $34.99 (pb) By Anne Henderson It has been said that history is all too often written by the winners. While George Orwell opined that the most effective way to destroy people would [...]
SISTERS IN CAPTIVITY SISTER BETTY JEFFREY OAM AND THE COURAGEOUS STORY OF AUSTRALIAN ARMY NURSES IN SUMATRA, 1942-1945 by Colin Burgess Simon & Schuster Australia, 2023 ISBN 9781761109089 RRP $34.99 Reviewed by Ross Fitzgerald This fine book, Sisters in Captivity, is dedicated to “the heroic nurses who lived this story but never made it home”. Most [...]
THE FALL OF GENERAL GORDON BENNETT By Brett Lodge Robinson Reynolds 2023 ISBN: 978 1 914973 55 0 RRP: $35 (PB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson Brett Lodge’s The Fall of General Gordon Bennett (just released in a revised edition) is advertised as the “definitive biography”. In fact, Lodge has meticulously researched and brought to a [...]
THE PERFECT POLICE STATE - AN UNDERCOVER ODYSSEY INTO CHINA’S TERRIFYING SURVEILLANCE DYSTOPIA OF THE FUTURE by Geoffrey Cain PublicAffairs/Hachette Australia 2021; ISBN: 9781541757035; RRP: $49.99 (hb) *** NO ESCAPE – THE TRUE STORY OF CHINA’S GENOCIDE OF THE UYGHURS by Nury Turkel HarperCollins 2022; ISBN: 9781335469564; RRP: $USD 28.99 or $51.25 via an Australian [...]
THE SQUATTERS’ GRAB – WHERE IT ALL WENT WRONG By Wal Walker Wal Walker 2023 ISBN 978 0 646 99705 6 RRP: $36.95 (pb) Reviewed by Anne Henderson After a long campaign in Australia in 2023 over constitutional change and recognition of Indigenous Australians in the Australian constitution, reading Wal Walker’s The Squatters’ Grab – [...]
LAST DRINKS: HOW TO DRINK LESS AND BE YOUR BEST By Maz Compton, John Wiley & Sons, 2023 ISBN 9781394184231 RRP $32.95 (PB) Reviewed by Ross Fitzgerald Many Australians now realise that our booze-obsessed culture is extremely destructive. The murder, mayhem, individual, societal and family destruction that alcohol abuse leaves in its wake is, if you’ll [...]
