What is Going on in Israel Today?
Israel is in the midst of unprecedented political turmoil. Three alarms are sounding.
(2023) Launch of Whitlam Book
Notes “dipped” into in delivering remarks at the Whitlam Institute, Western Sydney University, on 21 February 2023 at the launch of Scott Prasser & David Clune, editors, The Whitlam Era.
(2023) Burning Ambition
This book of essays, The Superpower Transformation (2022), elaborates, expands, debates, and raises difficulties associated with Ross Garnaut’s pioneering study, Super-Power. Australia’s Low-Carbon Opportunity, published in 2019 by the same publishers.
(2022) Foreword to Prudence and Power
All of us knew Owen Harries, the three instigators of this book, Tom Switzer, Sue Windybank, and me. We admired his thinking, his ideas, the craft he applied to wordsmithing, the jesting and jostling in debate, the integrity he displayed respecting others’ viewpoints, the originality he brought to important questions.
(2022) Promise and Influence of Whitlam’s Foreign Policy
On one view, Gough Whitlam was a passing flash, whose government was not around long enough to have had an appreciable impact on Australian foreign policy. On another, Whitlam’s foreign policy changes were immense and long lasting. This chapter, necessarily briefly, discusses the promise, creativity, problems, and influence of Whitlam’s foreign policy. Through such analysis, mature reflection on Australia’s legacy in relation to its obligations to and treatment of our alliances, commitment to the region, and human rights is enabled.
(2022) The Hirschman Difference
Rare is the book that with verve, clarity, enthusiasm, and authority establishes the claim that a thinker demands reappraisal and even celebration.
(2022) Hong Kong’s Unforgettable Lee Cheuk-yan
Of course, everyone wants better relations with China.
(2022) The “Jewish Vote” and the 2022 Federal Election
There is a widespread conceit that, because Australian Jewry is largely economically successful, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) can write them off as unlikely supporters of progressive candidates in elections. This is egregious nonsense — for at least four reasons.
(2022) The Union Leader Who Dared to Dream
Tom McDonald was a building union leader and building industry reformer, superannuation pioneer, pro-Moscow communist turned “broad left” warrior, and celebrated elder of the Australian labour movement.
(2022) The Party
This thoughtful, well-researched, yet sometimes frustratingly opinionated book, The Party, covers the history of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) from 1940 to 1970.