The Australian Journal of Politics and History articles from September 2008

The Australian Journal of Politics and History archives from September 2008

Rethinking and rewriting Europe's histories: introduction.
September 1, 2008... The Australasian Association for European History (AAEH) brings together scholars from Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world in a biennial meeting that is always lively and convivial. The essays in the current issue of the...

The colonial table: food, culture and Dutch identity in colonial Indonesia.
September 1, 2008... In European as well as Asian histories, eating has functioned as a cultural activity that produces and reproduces social differentiations and reflects historical and cultural specificities. In colonial contexts, eating was one of the most...

Imperialism from below: informal empire and the private sector in nineteenth-century Germany.
September 1, 2008... A commonplace of European history holds that, prior to 1884, Germany was essentially uninterested in colonies. Both popular histories and scholarly accounts of Germany's entry into the colonial world have traditionally begun with a steadfast...

"Absolutely irresponsible amateurs": the temporary mixed commission on armaments, 1921-1924.
September 1, 2008... In the aftermath of the cataclysm of 1914-18, the problem of national armaments was a natural focus of attention for the newly-created League of Nations. Indeed, to many people it seemed that disarmament was the greatest issue confronting the...

Violence and xenophobia as means of social control in times of collapse: the Soviet occupation of post-War Germany, 1945-1947.
September 1, 2008... Those horrible weeks are in the past. The Nazis frightened us into thinking that the Russians would send all Germans to perpetual slavery in cold Siberia. Now we see that this was a blatant lie. The measures taken by the Soviet...

"A sacred duty": Red Army women veterans remembering the Great Fatherland War, 1941-1945.
September 1, 2008... War's Unwomanly Face was the title of a pioneering, albeit censored, collection of interviews with Soviet Red Army women veterans by the Belorussian journalist Svetlana Aleksievich published in 1985, on the eve of perestroika. In 2004 a second,...

Australian POW in German captivity in the second World War.(prisoners of war)
September 1, 2008... Introduction During the Second World War over 8,000 Australians fell into German captivity. (1) Many of them were captured in North Africa and held in Italian POW camps before being passed on to the Germans in 1943; others were captured...

Histories of madness: the abject perspective of Italian women in Australia.
September 1, 2008... Madness and cultura popolare Considering mental disorders in the migratory context from an historical point of view requires a specific theoretical perspective, as well as a reflection on the relation between psychiatric patients and those...

The missing fifth dimension: the writing of Australian history in Germany.
September 1, 2008... For the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, the world of 1753 had a perfectly symmetrical design. It was well balanced between the four points of the compass and easy to depict on four walls of a castle's hall. For Tiepolo, the winds in...

Decolonising Europe? The colonial boomerang.
September 1, 2008... In a recent article in History and Memory, (1) Neil Levi recalls Freud's concept of "screen" or "cover" memories in a discussion of the usefulness and legitimacy of comparisons between the destruction of European Jewry and the decimation of the...

Van Diemen's Land.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Van Diemen's Land. By James Boyce (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2008), pp. x + 388. Three Maps. $49.95. This book is really two books, both of them extremely important, but it would have been much better if the two had been published separately,...

Mapping Colonial Conquest: Australia and Southern Africa.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Mapping Colonial Conquest: Australia and Southern Africa. Edited by Norman Etherington (Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 2007), pp. 220, $39.95 hb. Norm Etherington, who has edited Mapping Colonial Conquest and contributes its...

Selling Sex: A Hidden History of Prostitution.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Selling Sex: A Hidden History of Prostitution. By Raelene Frances (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007), pp. x + 342, $39.95 pb. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the past--and the future--of gender...

Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy. By Peter Cochrane (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2006), pp. 581, $39.95 pb. Australia has had many politicians who play a hard game: Paul Keating and Graham Richardson were...

Lucy Osburn, a Lady Displaced: Florence Nightingale's Envoy to Australia.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Lucy Osburn, a Lady Displaced: Florence Nightingale's Envoy to Australia. By Judith Godden (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2006), pp. x+373. Illustrated, $34.95. This is partly the story of the first group of nurses to work in Australia,...

Australia's Muslim Cameleers: Pioneers of the Inland 1860-1930.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Australia's Muslim Cameleers: Pioneers of the Inland 1860-1930. By Philip Jones and Anna Kenny (South Australia: Wakefield Press, 2007), ISBN 978 86254 778 0, $39.95 pb. In twenty-first century Australia we often hear of "moderate Muslims"...

Bishop of Magnetic Power: James Moorhouse in Melbourne, 1876-1886.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Bishop of Magnetic Power: James Moorhouse in Melbourne, 1876-1886. By Morna Sturrock (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2005), pp. vii +330. pb.$39.95. As George Shaw had shown with his pioneering biography of Australia's first bishop,...

Summer in the Hills: The Nineteenth-Century Mountain Resort in Australia.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Summer in the Hills: The Nineteenth-Century Mountain Resort in Australia. By Andrea Inglis (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2007), ISBN:1 74097 138 8, $44.00 (pb). Although as a child I enjoyed holidays in the Blue Mountains...

Anzacs and Ireland.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Anzacs and Ireland. By Jeff Kildea (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007), pp. 295. $39.95 (pb). In this book, Kildea sets out to examine the "association between Australian soldiers and Ireland during the First World War" (p....

Designing Australia's Cities: Culture, Commerce and the City Beautiful 1900-1930.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Designing Australia's Cities: Culture, Commerce and the City Beautiful 1900-1930. By Robert Freestone (University of New South Wales Press/Routledge, 2007), pp. 325, $49.95 (pb). When you look at the mess that all of Australia's cities have...

From the Hustings to Harbour Views: Electoral Institutions in New South Wales, 1856-2006.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... From the Hustings to Harbour Views: Electoral Institutions in New South Wales, 1856-2006. By Marian Simms (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2006), pp. viii + 178, $49.95 (hb). The last decade has seen the production of a large...

Jean Beadle: A life of Labor Activism.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Jean Beadle: A life of Labor Activism. By Bobbie Oliver (Crawley, Western Australia: University of Western Australia Press, 2007), pp. vii + 156, $24.95 (pb). Another book about the contribution of women who worked for the betterment of...

The Coalminers of Queensland: A Narrative History of the Queensland Colliery Employees Union.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... The Coalminers of Queensland: A Narrative History of the Queensland Colliery Employees Union. Volume Two: The Pete Thomas Essays. By Pete Thomas and Greg Mallory (Brisbane: Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, 2007), pp. xix + 476....

The Little History of Australian Unionism.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... The Little History of Australian Unionism. By Sean Scalmer (Carlton, Victoria: Vulgar Press, 2006), pp. 89, $9.95 (pb). This pocket-sized booklet, cheaply produced by Vulgar Press, does not seem destined for a place on the bookshelves of...

The Voice of the Thunderer: Journalism of H.G. Kippax.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... The Voice of the Thunderer: Journalism of H.G. Kippax. Selected and introduced by Harry Heseltine (Canberra: Pandanus Books, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2006), pp. 320, $34.95. ...

Sir Ronald Wilson: A Matter of Conscience.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Sir Ronald Wilson: A Matter of Conscience. By Antonio Buti (Crawley, Western Australia: University of Western Australia Press, 2007), pp. vii + 401, 51 photos, $39.95 (pb). The late Sir Ronald Wilson was an air force pilot, Crown...

Power without Responsibility: Ministerial Staffers in Australian Governments from Whitlam to Howard.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Power without Responsibility: Ministerial Staffers in Australian Governments from Whitlam to Howard. By Ann Tiernan (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007), pp. 283, $34.95 (pb). This new book focuses on staff employed mostly...

John Winston Howard: The Biography.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... John Winston Howard: The Biography. By Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen (Melbourne University Press, 2007), ISBN: 9780522853346, $49.95 (pb). Those interested in political biography might well ask why it took until the very end of...

History's Children: History Wars in the Classroom.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... History's Children: History Wars in the Classroom. By Anna Clark (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2008), pp viii + 178, $29.95 (pb). Anna Clark's message is stark. Australian students in years 9-12 are bored by Australian...

John Grote, Cambridge University and the Development of Victorian Thought.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... John Grote, Cambridge University and the Development of Victorian Thought. By John R. Gibbins (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2007), pp. vii + 517, ISBN 9 781845 400071, GB45.00 [pounds sterling]. The natural history of this fascinating book is...

A.J.P. Taylor: Radical Historian of Europe.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... A.J.P. Taylor: Radical Historian of Europe. By Chris Wrigley (London: I.B. Tauris and Co. Ltd. 2006), pp. 439, GB25.00 [pounds sterling]. The Professor of Modern British History at Nottingham has produced a compendious analysis of the...

Deutsche, Juden, Volkermord. Der Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwart.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Deutsche, Juden, Volkermord. Der Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwart. Edited by Jurgen Matthaus and Klaus-Michael Mallmann (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: Darmstadt, 2006), pp. 340, 59.90 [euro] (hb). In the four decades since the...

Prague in Black. Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism.(Prague in Danger)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Prague in Black. Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism. By Chad Bryant (Cambridge MA, London: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. xv + 378, maps, photographs. US$49.95 (hb). Prague in Danger. By Peter Demetz (New York: Farrar, Straus and...

Why is there No Labor Party in the United States?(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Why is there No Labor Party in the United States? By Robin Archer (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. xvii + 310, A$54.95. With the 2008 American Presidential contest between Democrats and Republicans in...

Anti-Americanism: History, Causes, Themes, 4 volumes.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Anti-Americanism: History, Causes, Themes, 4 volumes. Edited by Brendon O'Connor (Oxford and Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood World Publishing, 2007), pp. 1348, $300.00 (hb). As the US presidential candidates are jousting over how America...

Equality.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Equality. By Stuart White (Polity Press, Key Concepts in the Social Sciences, 2007), ISBN-10 0-7456-2773-0, GB 15.99 [pounds sterling] (pb). This is a clear-headed and philosophically sensitive book in the Key Concepts series of which some...

The Political Communication Reader.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... The Political Communication Reader. Edited by Ralph Negrine and James Stanyer (London and New York: Routledge 2007), pp. xvii + 318, A$76.00. The Political Communication Reader is squarely aimed at advanced undergraduate students. But it...

The Right Road to Radical Freedom.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... The Right Road to Radical Freedom. By Tibor Machan (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2007), ISBN 9781845400187, 8.95 [pounds sterling] (pb). This book is made up of reprints taken from a number of (to me) obscure American journals. I think there...

Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People. By John Harris (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. xvi + 242, $US27.95, 16.95 [pounds sterling]. Avallable Australia Footprint Books. The US...