The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility and courage - to spur citizens and their leaders to take the difficult actions necessary to avert such [...]
Charles Kingsford Smith was the most commanding flyer of the golden age of aviation. In three short years, he broke records with his astounding and daring voyages: the first trans-Pacific flight from America to Australia, the first flight across the Tasman, the first non-stop crossing of the Australian mainland. A tickertape parade was held in [...]
On Thursday 6 June 2019, the Vice-Chancellor of Australian Catholic University, Professor Greg Craven, joined The Sydney Institute’s Anne Henderson to launch the P M Glynn Institute’s Federation’s Man of Letters. As Greg Crave explained, polymath Glynn should not have been a man who fell through history’s cracks. But he has. The publication of Anne [...]
Australian Federal Police raids on the offices of the ABC and the home of a journalist with The Australian provoked a heated debate over press freedom in Australia during June 2019. Predictably, the debate gained widespread media coverage as the Australian media voiced its collective disapproval of the raids. To offer a more nuanced appraisal [...]
On Saturday 18 May 2019, Australia voted and the opinion polls were wrong. Prime Minister Scott Morrison pulled off what had been predicted to be an impossible win. In March 2019, at The Sydney Institute, Caroline Overington and Paul Kelly could not see the Coalition winning. On Monday 20 May 2019, author and Associate Editor [...]
David Furse-Roberts, Research fellow at the Menzies Research Centre and editor of Menzies – The Forgotten Speeches joined forces with Dr Catherine Runcie, contributing editor of Reclaiming Education: Renewing Schools and Universities in Contemporary Western Culture, at The Sydney Institute on Wednesday 22 May 2019 to discuss the concern many feel over scholastic standards and the decline [...]
Margaret Cameron-Ash is the author of Lying for the Admiralty: Captain Cook's Endeavour Voyage. In her book, she mounts a strong circumstantial case that Cook both discovered Bass Strait and actually gazed upon Sydney Harbour. Her proposition is that Cook and some of his party walked overland from Botany Bay to the Harbour. Her case is [...]
One summer night in 1979, Roger Rogerson and a posse of tough Sydney cops raided a Sydney house where sticks of gelignite were discovered. The Croatian family's young men were taken off and soon joined by others, arrested in simultaneous raids across the city. For them, and the entire community of migrants from Croatia, it [...]
Key economic indicators have judged the current US economy to be in good health. Inflation is low and US manufacturing is picking up. Employment figures are improving but structural unemployment remains a concern. The Trump phenomenon has improved confidence. Len Harlan, Chairman, Castle Harlan Executive Committee, has been a close observer of US politics over [...]
Gwen Harwood, Ruth Park, Dorothy Hewitt and Christina Stead - all went on to become notable Australian writers. They were very different women from very different backgrounds, but they shared a sense of urgency around their vocation – their “need” to be a writer – that would not let them rest. These precocious girls in [...]
