Culture

  • Lessons from radical republicans

    details = The Captive Republic: A history of republicanism in Australia 1788-1996By Mark McKennaCambridge University Press, 1996334 pp., $29.95(pb), $90.00(hb) Review by Alex Bainbridge For many people, the republic debate is simply a bore — a

  • Poem: Me Generation and the death of a nation

    Me Generation and the death of a nation There was a time when most knew want and therefore understood, That in this land across the sea, there was a chance for good. Knowing adversity, they saw their fellows in that light And so against

  • The Satire Workshop

    Satire, to be worthy of its name, generalises, exaggerates and distorts. Because it relies on its immediate impact and addresses topical vices and abuses, satire can rely on persistence in its struggle against hypocrisy, pretence and

  • Show of determination

    GuwanyiRedfern Aboriginal Community ExhibitionMuseum of SydneyUntil May 4 Review by Kellee Nolan Guwanyi is Aboriginal for "to tell". The exhibition tells the positive side of the Redfern story and reaches into the daily lives, expressions and

  • The young and bloody useless

    Idiot BoxDirected by David CaesarProduced by Glenys RoweNational release on February 20 Preview by Marina Cameron Director David Caesar describes the purpose of his dark comedy as taking the audience on a roller coaster, and that's certainly how it

  • Poem: Let us Rise

    Let us Rise On Lygon Street a building stands a house of dreams, each stone a vision. A little tattered and worse, or should I say, better for wear this Parliament of workers. But solid, dignified and proud. I climb the steps so

  • War, resistance and the ALP

    Save Our SonsSBS TV, February 27, 8.30pm (8 in SA) Preview by Lisa Macdonald This film, written and directed by Rebecca McLean, daughter of former Victorian ALP parliamentarian Jean McLean, is a long overdue documentation of a little known chapter

  • Evocative novels on the horror of war

    The Regeneration Trilogy: Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, The Ghost RoadBy Pat BarkerViking, 1996. 592 pp., $24.95 (pb) Reviewed by Phil Shannon It is almost 80 years since the first world war finished, but the horrors live on. In the murderous

  • Art with a punch

    Prints and drawings of the Weimar Republic, Germany 1918-1933RMIT Gallery, Storey Hall, 344 Swanston St, City until March 1Art Gallery of South Australia, March 14-April 27Queensland Art Gallery, June 4-July 20Percy Tucker Gallery, Townsville, August

  • Outbreak of peace

    PORT LINCOLN — Queued up waiting to get into the Yothu Yindi concert at Centennial Oval on January 23 there were so many cops around you might have expected a convoy of uranium trucks to come roaring down New West Road headed for

  • Anyone but Lenin

    A People's Tragedy: The Russian revolution 1891-1924By Orlando FigesCape, 1996Review By Phil Hearse This year is the 80th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, and among the liberal intelligentsia it's going to be open season on the October

  • Poem: A Black Armbanded History

    A Black Armbanded History Roll Up! Roll up and see the show, armbanded historians in a row, spreading revisionism as they go, weaving distortion to and fro. Saying Robert Menzies was the greatest — greatest liar: that he never set the