×

Roy Williams rss

Coming attractions

6 April 2013
Future Proofing Australia: The Right Answers For Our Future Senator Brett Mason and Daniel Wood (editors)

Melbourne University Press, pp.264, $29.99, ISBN: 9780522862416

It appears inevitable that the Coalition will win the federal election to be held later this year. What can we expect from it in government? Modern history tells us that… Read more

Australian Books: Anthem for doomed youth

14 April 2012

Waltzing Matilda: The Secret History of Australia’s Favourite Song By Dennis O’Keeffe Allen & Unwin, pp. 294, $27.99 ISBN 9781742377063 In 1974 a plebiscite was held on Australia’s national anthem.… Read more

Australian Books: What hath God wrought?

17 December 2011

A Short History of Christianity By Geoffrey Blainey Viking, $45, pp 617 ISBN 9780670075249 Christianity has long since become unfashionable in Australia, and in some ‘well-educated’ circles is held in… Read more

The results are in

22 October 2011

I was in New York in November 2000 for the US Presidential election. In the tumultuous weeks that followed polling day — when the outcome hinged on a few hundred… Read more

Australian Books: Subprime examples

16 July 2011

As opening sentences go, this is a cracker: ‘I was at my desk in the newsroom of the Australian, writing a story about people being given the pink slip, when… Read more

Australian Books: A life in ruins

21 May 2011

John Mulvaney’s is scarcely a household name, but it should be. More perhaps than any other Australian, he can take credit for establishing what is now a generally accepted fact,… Read more

Australian Books: Women’s problems

9 April 2011

‘She has wit, and flashes of intelligence for a Brisbane girl turned schoolteacher.’ So wrote Patrick White in 1960 of then up-and-coming Australian novelist, Thea Astley. Nine Lives: Postwar women… Read more

A lifetime of trust

1 January 2011

A Roman Catholic nun is required to take vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience. Could any three commitments seem less attractive nowadays to a young Western woman, religiously-minded or not?… Read more

Good reason

14 August 2010

What Science Knows and How It Knows It, by James Franklin Encounter Books, $39.99 pp. 283, ISBN 9781594032073 Too much of what passes for serious commentary nowadays is really just… Read more