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The Monthly Essays

Why We Weren’t Warned: The Victorian bushfires and the royal commission
Robert Manne | July 2009
The morning of 7 February at Cottlesbridge, just south of the line of the most devastating bushfire in Australian history, and where our family has lived on 20 acres for the past 26 years, was baking hot but also relatively still. » read more
Home Truths: Revisiting 'Wake in Fright'
Kate Jennings | July 2009
Watching the movie Wake in Fright nearly 40 years after its release – 1971 – brought back one good memory for me of life in the Bush. » read more
The Coming Storm: Out of Work in a Land of Plenty
John Birmingham | June 2009
One man's recession began in February, on Friday the 13th. Another's world came apart in March. » read more
Patriot Acts: Learning from America
Waleed Aly | June 2009
Yahya Hendi's office conjures up every romantic stereotype of life in the academy. » read more

The Nation Reviewed

Comment: The Corporate Fallacy
Noel Pearson | July 2009
A few prescient people – too few of them economists – are entitled to say of the current economic crisis, “I told you so.” » read more
Botanical Curiosities
Gay Bilson | July 2009
The most enchanting display in the original and permanent collection of the recently re-opened Museum of Economic Botany in the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide consists of about 350 apples, pears and plums, a few peaches and figs, and one forlorn, damaged pomegranate. » read more
Comment: The Return of Deficit Economics
Robert Manne | June 2009
The Labor government of James Scullin was elected in October 1929, the month of the Wall Street crash, which history regards as the beginning of the Great Depression. » read more
Cold Comfort
Nick Bryant | June 2009
Shirt by fluorescent-orange shirt, the quilt will take shape: a gaudy patchwork emblazoned with the logo of the world's biggest mining company, BHP Billiton, and embroidered with the names of its one-time employees who now have lost their jobs. » read more

Arts and Letters

Home Truths: Revisiting 'Wake in Fright'
Kate Jennings | July 2009
The plot of Wake in Fright is as old as an outcropping west of Menindee. » read more
A Matter of Taste: The 53rd Venice Biennale
Sebastian Smee | July 2009
Art that indulges anarchic impulses – even if the results are a little fatuous – is almost always preferable to art that signals its conformity to good taste. » read more
Chinese Whispers: Zachary Mexico’s ‘China Underground’
Alice Pung | July 2009
Zachary Mexico can tell a really good yarn. He will sit you in the swankiest bar in Beijing’s Houhai district or a cheap polluted noodle cafe in Linfen and regale you with stories of China’s sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll scene. » read more
Revolving Doors: Robert G Kaiser’s ‘So Damn Much Money’
Guy Pearse | July 2009
Robert Kaiser’s exposé of lobbying in Washington, DC helps to explain why Barack Obama has declared “war on lobbyists”. » read more
Tudor Style: Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall’
Peter Craven | July 2009
It must be an abyss to contemplate the historical novel set in Tudor times. » read more

Letters to the editor

David Christie
Fiona Capp’s essay on Judith Wright and Nugget Coombs (“In the Garden”, June 2009) is perhaps the most moving love story that I have ever read. » read more
John Nicol
Congratulations to Waleed Aly for his insightful article on the role and nature of US patriotism (“Patriot Acts”, June 2009). » read more
Jim Filshie
I just read John Birmingham’s story (“The Coming Storm”, June ... » read more

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  • Comment: Democracy in Indonesia The Online Monthly - subscriber only access
    Greg Barton | July 2009
    In April Indonesia held its third legislative election since the fall of the Suharto regime, eleven years ago. » read more
  • Soiled Goods The Online Monthly - subscriber only access
    John Birmingham | July 2009
    The dimpled orange, bursting with sweetness, that you cut for your breakfast this morning had been dying from the moment it was plucked from its twig. » read more
  • A Gay Old Time The Online Monthly - subscriber only access
    Benjamin Law | July 2009
    If the huddled group of males gathered outside on the kerbside were teenagers, you’d say they were loitering: hanging out after dark; warming their hands in a circle; talking in low, conspiratorial murmurs. » read more
  • Brought to Booker: Man Booker International The Online Monthly - subscriber only access
    Delia Falconer | July 2009
    “I’ve been lucky to be considered a major writer by writing short stories,” Alice Munro told the Observer in 2005. » read more
  • The Rudd Essay & the Global Financial Crisis The Online Monthly - subscriber only access
    Eric Hobsbawm | May 2009
    Kevin Rudd's essay makes two major contributions to the debate on the present world crisis of capitalism, which is now recognised to be the major breakdown of the economic system since the Great Depression after 1929. » read more
  • The Rudd Essay & the Global Financial Crisis The Online Monthly - subscriber only access
    David Hale | May 2009
    The current global recession will be a more defining event than any other business cycle since the 1930s. » read more

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