Quarterly Essay
Quarterly Essay 45: Us And Them: The Importance Of Animals
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For the first time in history, humans sit unchallenged at the top of the food chain. As we encroach on the wild and a vast wave of extinctions gathers force, how has our relationship to animals changed?
In this dazzling ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 44: Man-Made World: Choosing Between Progress and Planet
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Witnessing at first-hand the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Conference and wondering what went wrong, Andrew Charlton realised the truth of a colleague’s words: “The world is split between those who want to save the p... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 43: Bad News: Murdoch's Australian and the Shaping of the Nation
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This year has seen unprecedented scrutiny of Rupert Murdoch’s empire in Britain. But what about in Australia, where he owns 70 per cent of the press? In Bad News, Robert Manne investigates Murdoch’s lead political voice ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 42: Fair Share: Country And City In Australia
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Once the country believed itself to be the true face of Australia: sunburnt men and capable women raising crops and children, enduring isolation and a fickle environment, carrying the nation on their sturdy backs. For al... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 41: The Good Life: The Search for Contentment in the Modern World
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In the first Quarterly Essay for 2011, David Malouf returns to one of the most fundamental questions and gives it a modern twist: what makes for a happy life?
With grace and profundity, Malouf discusses new and old ways ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 41: The Good Life Happiness And Virtue In The Modern World
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In the first Quarterly Essay for 2011, David Malouf returns to one of the most fundamental questions and gives it a modern twist: what is it to live a good life?
With grace and profundity, Malouf discusses new and old wa... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 40: Trivial Pursuit: Leadership And The End Ofthe Reform Era (Unabridged Audio)
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In the aftermath of the 2010 election, George Megalogenis considers what has happened to politics in Australia. Have we entered a new phase with minority government and the rise of the Greens and independents? The Hawke,... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 40: Trivial Pursuit: Leadership and the End of the Reform Era
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In the aftermath of the 2010 election, George Megalogenis considers what has happened to politics in Australia. Have we entered a new phase with minority government and the rise of the Greens and independents?
The Hawke,... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 39: Power Shift: Australia’s Future between Washington and Beijing
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In the third Quarterly Essay of 2010, Hugh White considers Australia’s future between Beijing and Washington. As the power balance shifts, and China’s influence grows, what might this mean for our nation?
Throughout ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 38: Power Trip: The Political Journey Of Kevin Rudd
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Power Trip shows the making of Kevin Rudd, prime minister. In Eumundi, where Rudd was born, David Marr investigates the formative tragedy of his life: the death of his father and what came after. He tracks the transforma... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 37: What's Right?: The Future of Conservatism in Australia
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Where did the Right go wrong? With the departure of George W. Bush and John Howard, conservative parties in the US and Australia entered a period of turmoil. Foreign affairs, economics, the environment all were issues ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 36: Australian Story: Kevin Rudd and the Lucky Country
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In Australian Story, Mungo MacCallum investigates the political success of Kevin Rudd. What does he know about Australia that his opponents don’t? This is a characteristically barbed and perceptive look at the challenges... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 34: Stop At Nothing: The Life and Adventures of Malcolm Turnbull
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What does Malcolm Turnbull stand for? In Stop at Nothing Annabel Crabb tells the story of the man who would be prime minister. Based on extensive interviews with Turnbull as well as those who have worked with him, this i... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 33: Quarry Vision Coal Climate Change and the Resources Boom
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This is an essay about 'quarry vision', the mindset that sees Australia's greatest asset as its mineral resources - coal especially. How has this distorted our national politics and our response to climate change? What w... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 32: On The US Election: American Revolution
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Where were you when America elected Barack Obama? Kate Jennings was in New York, eyes wide open, completing her take on an amazing time: “the run-up to the election … a time when every day felt like a year and we became ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 31: Now Or Never: A Sustainable Future For Australia?
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Professor Tim Flannery investigates the latest climate science and the challenges facing Australia and the world. He looks at what the Rudd government needs to do if the nation is to play its part in averting a global ca... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 30: Last Drinks: The Impact of the Northern Territory Intervention.
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In June it will be a year since the Northern Territory intervention was announced. In Quarterly Essay 30, Paul Toohey offers a definitive account of how it came about and what it has achieved. In this riveting piece of r... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 29: Love And Money
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In Love & Money Anne Manne looks at the challenge of balancing love and economics, and the value our society places on both. Examining how paid work has become “sacred” for many, she argues that any true definition o... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 28: Exit Right: The Unravelling of John Howard
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In 'Exit Right', Judith Brett explains why the tide turned on John Howard. This is an essay about leadership, in particular Howard’s style of strong leadership which led him to dominate his party with such ultimately cat... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 37: What's Right?: The Future of Conservatism in Australia (Audio CD)
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Where did the Right go wrong? With the departure of George W. Bush and John Howard, conservative parties in the US and Australia entered a period of turmoil. Foreign affairs, economics, the environment all were issues ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 36: Australian Story, Kevin Rudd And The Lucky Country (Audio CD)
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In Australian Story, Mungo MacCallum investigates the political success of Kevin Rudd. What does he know about Australia that his opponents don’t? This is a characteristically barbed and perceptive look at the challenges... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 27: Reaction Time
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Something strange happened last year. The debate over nuclear power, which many thought was buried with a stake through its heart, rose and walked again. In Australia it was raised by John Howard, who suggested the issue... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 26: His Master's Voice: Public Debate In Howard's Australia
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John Howard has the loudest voice in Australia. He has cowed his critics, muffled the press, intimidated the ABC, gagged scientists, silenced NGOs, censored the arts, prosecuted leakers, criminalised protest and shut dow... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 25 Bipolar Nation
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Australians are more economically secure, yet existentially as anxious as ever. On the one hand we see a more prosperous, confident and "aspirational" society, and on the other the continuation of a well-cultivated sense... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 24: No Fixed Address: Nomads and the Fate of the Planet
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Robyn Davidson has spent a good part of her life with nomadic cultures of various kinds (in Australia, north-west India, Tibet and the Indian Himalayas), and she herself calls three countries 'home' – Australia, England ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 23: The History Question Who Owns The Past
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In QE23, acclaimed writer and thinker Inga Clendinnen looks past the skirmishes and pitched battles of the history wars and asks what's at stake – what kind of history do we want and need? What are the differences betwee... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 22: Voting For Jesus: The Christian Revival In Australia
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In QE22, Amanda Lohrey looks at the Christian revival in Australia and its effect on our politics and public life. Voting for Jesus explores the world of evangelical Christianity. Lohrey talks to the ground troops - what... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 21: What's Left: The Death of Social Democracy
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According to Clive Hamilton the author of two recent Australian bestsellers, Growth Fetish and Affluenza - Australia needs a completely new politics built on the world as we find it. In his provocative new essay, he thro... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 20: A Time For War: Australia as a Military Power
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Quarterly Essay 20 combines riveting storytelling with fresh and provocative analysis. In it, bestselling author John Birmingham delves into our new military myths. Why has Anzac Day returned and Vietnam faded? Why do we... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 19: Relaxed And Comfortable: Why Australians Vote Liberal
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Australians are relaxed and comfortable with the Liberal Party. What is the party doing right? What is its core appeal to Australian voters? Has John Howard made a dramatic break with the past, or is he simply our Robert... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 18:The Worried Well: The Depression Epidemic and the Medicalisation of Our Sorrows
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Why does Australia suddenly seem to be in the grip of an epidemic of depression? What role do big drug companies play in this new culture of anti-depressants in which lonely retirees and anxious high-school students pop ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 17: Kangaroo Court: Family Law in Australia
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'I am writing to voice my disgust as to my treatment by your Kangaroo Court known as the Family Court.' So began one of many hostile submissions to the 1992 parliamentary enquiry into the Family Law Act.
The Family Court... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 16: Breach of Trust Truth, Morality and Politics
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Many people are now dismayed by the relaxed attitude of governments here and abroad towards truth-telling. In Australia, examples come readily to mind: WMD and Iraq, children overboard and the Manildra affair. Deceitful ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 15: Latham's World: The New Politics of the Outsiders
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An election is impending. How well do we know Mark Latham, the leader of the ALP who would be the next prime minister? Margaret Simons, one of Australias foremost political journalists, delves into the heart and head of ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 14: Mission Impossible: The Sheikhs, the U.S. and the Future of Iraq
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Can Iraq be democratised? After spending months in Iraq, Australian foreign correspondent Paul McGeough thinks not. He gives an historical overview of the tribal structure of Iraqi society, extending back thousands of ye... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 13: Sending Them Home: Refugees and the New Politics of Indifference
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In the first Quarterly Essay of 2004, Robert Manne tells the stories of individual asylum seekers and finds in their experience the seeds of a devastating critique. Balancing sorrow and pity with a controlled anger, Mann... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 12: Made In England: Australia's British Inheritance
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Australia's British inheritance is a paradox that has preoccupied much of Malouf's fiction, and now it gives rise to a brilliant essay exploring Australia's connection with our one-time 'mother country'. In this remarkab... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 11: Whitefella Jump: Up The Shortest Way To Nationhood
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In the third Quarterly Essay of 2003, Germaine Greer suggests that embracing Aboriginality is the only way Australia can fully imagine itself as a nation. In a wide-ranging essay she looks at the interdependence of black... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 10: Bad Company, The Cult Of The CEO
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In the second Quarterly Essay of 2003, Gideon Haigh scrutinises the way we have turned CEOs into tin gods. Is moral outrage the appropriate response to the collapses of Enron or HIH or are we all implicated in a crazy sy... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 9: Beautiful Lies: Population and Environment in Australia
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In the first Quarterly Essay of 2003, Tim Flannery launches an attack on the various lies that we tell ourselves about our resources, our past and our future. The lie of terra nullius that made us ignore the Aborigines' ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 8: Groundswell: The Rise Of The Greens
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The last federal election saw a massive rise in support for the Greens. They doubled their primary vote and scored over $1.4 million in public funding. Suddenly they are a political force to be reckoned with ... but why?... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 7: Paradise Betrayed: West Papua's Struggle for Independence
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In the third Quarterly Essay for 2002 John Martinkus details what is being done to West Papua by its Indonesian overlords. He illustrates how those who seek independence are killed and tortured for their cause. There is ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 5: Girt By Sea: Australia, the Refugees and the Politics of Fear
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In the first Quarterly Essay of 2002 Mungo MacCallum provides a devastating account of the Howard government's treatment of the refugees as well as delineating the factors in Australian history which have worked towards ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 6: Beyond Belief: What Future for Labor?
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In the second Quarterly Essay of 2002, John Button looks at what has gone wrong with the Labor Party. What has happened to the faith of the True Believers and why is the ALP so bad at recruiting new members? He offers a ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 4: Rabbit Syndrome: Australia and America
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In the fourth Quarterly Essay Don Watson takes an analytical look at the ways in which the Australian imagination has always been dominated by America. Why are they so much better than we are? Even when it comes to produ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 2: Appeasing Jakarta: Australia's Complicity in the East Timor Tragedy
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In the second Quarterly Essay, John Birmingham takes apart the folly of twenty-five years of Australian policy on East Timor. How did Gough Whitlam and Richard Woolcott in 1975 saddle this country with a policy that was ... Buy or find out more →
Quarterly Essay 1: In Denial: The Stolen Generations & The Right
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In this national bestseller Robert Mane attacks the right-wing campaign against the Bringing Them Home report that revealed how thousands of Aborigines had been taken from their parents. What was the role of Paddy McGuin... Buy or find out more →