Swingeing Pom
Christopher Hitchens and the road to curmudgeonhood Phillip KnightleyA couple of years ago at Britain’s premier literary festival, Hay-on-Wye, two star performers dominated the program: former US...
View ArticleThe Great Unspooler. Romeo meets Juliet in 'Kashmir'
'Shalimar the Clown' by Salman Rushdie Delia FalconerToward the beginning of A Satanic Affair, his analysis of the furore caused by The Satanic Verses, Malise Ruthven tells the following story. A month...
View ArticleYes, Virginia, there is a Clash of Civilisations
Islamism, Islamophobia and Australia Robert ManneA month ago, the Australian ran an extract of a speech delivered at a Quadrant dinner by John Stone, the former treasury secretary and National Party...
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Not in Translation
Malcolm KnoxWhen Gough Whitlam told the young Kevin Rudd to go out and get a university degree, Rudd chose to study Chinese language and history at the ANU. What if a present-day mentor showed equal...
View ArticleMission Drift
A Report From Afghanistan Chris MastersTo arrive in Oruzgan province is to step into both the future and the past. Through the swirling dust and retreating din of the plane's engines appear soldiers...
View ArticleMore Than Picong
Patrick French’s ‘The World Is What It Is’ Louis NowraWhenever I read Proust's magnificent In Search of Lost Time I have to try hard to forget that the author liked to masturbate while watching rats...
View ArticleIn the Wake of Magellan
The Voyage of Globalisation’s Forefather Simon LeysWhat do you know about Magellan?Ask this question of any educated person - a person (according to John Cowper Powys) whose culture is made of what...
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Incentivising
Gideon HaighAn age-old conjugation of democracy runs something like this: I am guided by the will of the people; you are a slave of public opinion; he is a crude and craven populist. It was on show in...
View ArticleDemocratic Hubris
John Keane's 'The Life and Death of Democracy' Tim SoutphommasaneIt has been a mixed year so far for democracy. There have been peaceful elections in India and Indonesia, the world’s largest and third...
View ArticleUnbelievers
Richard Dawkins' 'The Greatest Show on Earth' Ian LoweYou wouldn’t believe me if I claimed that almost half the people in a rich, modern country still thought the earth was flat, or that the Roman...
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The Man Who Fell to Earth
Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks John BirminghamThe religion of peace came late to Nuristan Province, arriving at spearpoint in 1896. In a desperately poor, remote land at the foot of the Hindu Kush...
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The Way to the Watering Hole
Sharia Law Sally NeighbourCory Bernardi is in full flight, fulminating on one of his pet themes – the danger to Australia posed by Islamic sharia law. “We should not entertain any thought of...
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Secret Worlds
Damascus Robert DessaixWhen I first stepped outside the walls of the Old City this morning, the sheer ugliness of Damascus nearly knocked me off my feet. Raucous, traffic-choked, yellowish squalor as...
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Magical Thinking
Aravind Adiga on VS Naipaul’s 'The Masque of Africa' Aravind AdigaFor over 40 years now, VS Naipaul has met, interviewed and annoyed people in dozens of countries to produce a body of travel writing...
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Cry Freedom
Niall Ferguson’s 'Civilisation: The West and the Rest' Malcolm TurnbullIn 1759 Samuel Johnson published his novel Rasselas about an Abyssinian prince who travels through Egypt with his philosopher...
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The Quest for Muslim Jedis
John Safran’s new ABC TV project Craig SherborneThe world is up this way, just over here. Follow me. Mind your head, you are entering human nature. There are narrow tunnels of religion. There is...
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All About Cory
Cory Bernardi, Conservative Warrior Sally NeighbourThe wall in Cory Bernardi’s Canberra office is adorned with mementos of some of his political paragons: framed portraits of Margaret Thatcher, Arnold...
View ArticleSwingeing Pom
Christopher Hitchens and the road to curmudgeonhood Phillip KnightleyA couple of years ago at Britain’s premier literary festival, Hay-on-Wye, two star performers dominated the program: former US...
View ArticleThe Great Unspooler. Romeo meets Juliet in 'Kashmir'
'Shalimar the Clown' by Salman Rushdie Delia FalconerToward the beginning of A Satanic Affair, his analysis of the furore caused by The Satanic Verses, Malise Ruthven tells the following story. A month...
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