Reviews
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Colonialism by Nigel Biggar review – a flawed defence of empire
A reappraisal of colonialism by an Oxford professor strains credulity and ill serves his aim of defending ‘western values’ Kenan…
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How the 20 year rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has transformed Turkey
The seemingly unstoppable rise of political Islam throughout the turbulent 1990s had finally culminated in a much-dreaded loss for a…
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Margo Jefferson and the Art of Life
In her work, especially her new book Constructing a Nervous System, she transforms criticism into an experience one feels in…
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Hilma af Klint: A Biography by Julia Voss review – portrait of the painter as a mystic
The voices in her head told Hilma af Klint she would be a great artist. Madoc Cairns The Guardian They…
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Command by Lawrence Freedman review – inside the war room
From Korea to Ukraine, a brilliant study of the politics and personalities that drive modern conflicts John Simpson The Guardian…
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Bravery, insight and simmering fury: Australian female correspondents on speaking truth to power
It never has. Sue Joseph The Conversation I am always far more interested in elegantly rendered content. Whether it’s written…
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The People Immortal by Vasily Grossman review – Soviet wartime propaganda with a human face
Some authors have a very active afterlife, though the results when the writer’s literary estate dips its hand in the…
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Witty and relevant, a stage adaptation of Alice Pung’s Laurinda is filled with intelligence and humour
The Melbourne Theatre Company’s Laurinda is a smart re-framing of Alice Pung’s classic coming-of-age novel about the racism inherent in…
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Post Fact Figments
As if the collective Cypriot mind didn’t have enough trouble distinguishing myth from historical reality, along comes Andreas Hadjikyriacos with…
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‘Can you come to my party?’: What it’s like to have your novel studied at schools
For Maxine Beneba Clarke, the excitement of being included on school reading lists was quickly matched by the realities of…
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In War, the Economic Weapon Is No Silver Bullet
Nicholas Mulder, The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War (New Haven: Yale University Press). 448 pp.,…
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Bias, politics and protests: how human laws constrain and sometimes liberate animals
The book is not jurisdictionally specific, nor is it temporally bound. Siobhan O’Sullivan The Conversation It is startling in its…
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On Bloody Sunday by Julieann Campbell review – first-hand stories of a shameful day
“As children,” Julieann Campbell writes in her introduction to this intricately woven oral history of Bloody Sunday and its long…
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Bark Ladies: how women’s Yolŋu bark paintings break with convention and embrace artists’ strong personalities
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this story includes names of people who have died. Sasha Grishin The…
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The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabriele and David Perry review – the colourful side of the dark ages
The middle ages are a sort of paradox, write the authors of this engaging history. Peter Frankopan The Guardian “When…
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The Treaty by Gretchen Friemann review – the road to division in Ireland
At 3am on 3 December 1921, the mail steamer Cambria, on her maiden voyage between Holyhead and Kingstown, now Dún…
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