Épisodes

  • Zachary Gorman, "The Menzies Watershed: Liberalism, Anti-Communism, Continuities 1943-1954" (Melbourne UP, 2023)

    Zachary Gorman, "The Menzies Watershed: Liberalism, Anti-Communism, Continuities 1943-1954" (Melbourne UP, 2023)
    Sep 4 2025
    The eleven years that passed between the 1943 and the 1954 elections were arguably some of the most pivotal in Australian history. This was a period of intense political, policy and strategic transition, which saw a popular Labor Government and its state-led vision for post-war reconstruction toppled by Robert Menzies and his newly formed political machine, the Liberal Party of Australia. Meanwhile, a backdrop of rising Cold War tensions came to dominate domestic and international policymaking, ushering in a divisive communist party ban, the ANZUS treaty, the Colombo Plan, and Australia's own agency of international espionage, ASIS. But what was the difference in practical terms between Menzies and his predecessors? What role was the state to play under a centre-right government, and would Menzies be able to live up to the liberal ideals with which he had won over the Australian public All these issues are explored in The Menzies Watershed: Liberalism, Anti-Communism, Continuities 1943-1954 (Melbourne UP, 2023), the second of a four-volume history of Menzies and his world, based on conferences convened by the Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/australian-and-new-zealand-studies
    Voir plus Voir moins
    1 h et 2 min
  • Michelle De Kretser, "Theory & Practice" (Catapult, 2025)

    Michelle De Kretser, "Theory & Practice" (Catapult, 2025)
    Aug 4 2025
    Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and lives in Australia on unceded Gadigal land. She writes fiction but has also published a short book about Shirley Hazzard's work. Theory & Practice, her seventh novel, recently won Australia's Stella Prize for writing by women. Theory and Practice is set in 1986, when “beautiful, radical ideas” are in the air. Its narrator is a young woman originally from Sri Lankan who arrives in Melbourne for graduate school to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In the bohemian neighborhood of St. Kilda she meets artists, activists, students—and Kit. He claims to be in a “deconstructed relationship.” They become lovers, and the narrator’s feminism comes up against her jealousy. Meanwhile, an entry in Woolf’s diary upends what the narrator knows about her literary idol, and throws her own work into disarray. What happens when our desires run contrary to our beliefs? What should we do when the failings of revered figures come to light? Who is shamed when the truth is told? Michelle de Kretser’s new novel offers a spellbinding meditation on the moral complexities that arise in the gap between our values and our lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/australian-and-new-zealand-studies
    Voir plus Voir moins
    1 h et 3 min
  • Nicholas Thomas, "Voyagers: The Settlement of the Pacific" (Apollo, 2020)

    Nicholas Thomas, "Voyagers: The Settlement of the Pacific" (Apollo, 2020)
    Jul 20 2025
    In Voyagers: The Settlement of the Pacific (Apollo, 2020), the distinguished anthropologist Nicholas Thomas tells the story of the peopling of the Pacific. In clear, accessible language Thomas shows us that most Pacific Islanders are in fact 'inter-islanders', or people defined by their movement across the ocean and between islands, rather than 'trapped' in islands in a far sea. Thomas also described the European discovery of the Pacific, and emphasizes the role Pacific Islanders played in teaching European explorers about the Pacific. 'European' knowledge of the Pacific, Thomas claims, was very much 'intercultural' and relied on indigenous Pacific knowledge of the region. In this episode of the podcast, Nick sits down with Alex Golub to discuss his book and the history of the Pacific. They talk about the influence of Epeli Hau‘ofa's writings on Nick's concept of 'inter-islanders' and discuss the complexities of intercultural contact in the nineteenth century Pacific which are exemplified by 'Tupaia's Chart' -- the map made for Captain Cook by Tupaia, the Tahitian navigator who led Cook to Aotearoa/New Zealand. Overall, Voyagers is an excellent introduction to Pacific history which can be read by anyone with an interest in the Pacific. Associate professor of anthropology, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/australian-and-new-zealand-studies
    Voir plus Voir moins
    56 min
  • Zachary Gorman, "The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942" (Melbourne UP, 2022)

    Zachary Gorman, "The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942" (Melbourne UP, 2022)
    Jun 27 2025
    Sir Robert Menzies is a towering figure in Australian history. The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942 (Melbourne UP, 2022) explores the formative period of Menzies' life, when his personal outlook and system of beliefs that would help shape modern Australia were themselves still being formed. This is the first of a four-volume history of Menzies and his world, based on conferences convened by the Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne. Contributors include Troy Bramston, Judith Brett, David Kemp, and Frank Bongiorno. Dr. Zachary Gorman is the academic coordinator at the Robert Menzies Institute. A professional historian, Gorman has worked as a researcher and academic since 2013, including several years at the University of Wollongong, where he received his PhD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/australian-and-new-zealand-studies
    Voir plus Voir moins
    1 h et 1 min
  • Matthew Allen, "Drink and Democracy: Alcohol and the Political Imaginary in Colonial Australia" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

    Matthew Allen, "Drink and Democracy: Alcohol and the Political Imaginary in Colonial Australia" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)
    Jun 23 2025
    The nineteenth-century spread of democracy in Britain and its colonies coincided with an increase in alcohol consumption and in celebratory public dinners with rounds of toasts. British colonists raised their glasses to salute the Crown in rituals that asserted fraternal equality and political authority. Yet these ceremonies were reserved for gentlemen, leaving others – notably women and Indigenous people – on the political margins. Drink and Democracy: Alcohol and the Political Imaginary in Colonial Australia (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2025) by Dr. Matthew Allen traces the development of democratic ideas in New South Wales through the history of public drinking and temperance. As the colony transformed from a convict autocracy to a liberal democracy, Dr. Allen argues, public drinking practices shaped the character of the emerging political order. The ritual of toasting was a symbolic display of restraint – drunkenness without loss of self-control – that embodied the claim to citizenship of white male settlers. Yet the performative sobriety of the temperance movement was also democratic, a display of respectability that politicized its supporters around a rival vision of responsible citizenship. Drink was a way to police the limits of the political realm. The stigma of female drunkenness worked to exclude women from the public sphere, while perceptions of heavy drinking among Aboriginal people cast them as lacking self-control and hence unworthy of political rights. Drink and Democracy reveals that long before the introduction of the franchise, colonists in Australia imagined themselves as citizens. Yet even as democracy expanded, drink marked its limits. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/australian-and-new-zealand-studies
    Voir plus Voir moins
    55 min
  • Is Beach Safety Signage Fit For Purpose?

    Is Beach Safety Signage Fit For Purpose?
    Jun 4 2025
    We often take the meaning of signs for granted but that's far from the case in a linguistically and culturally diverse society. The instruction to "Swim between the flags!" can be interpreted in multiple ways - some of which may actually heighten rather than reduce risk. In this episode of Language on the Move Podcast, Dr Agnes Bodis talks to Dr Masaki Shibata from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Dr Shibata’s researches beach signs in Australia and how they are understood by beachgoers and what consequences this has on beach safety.For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/australian-and-new-zealand-studies
    Voir plus Voir moins
    29 min
  • Stuart Ward, "Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

    Stuart Ward, "Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
    May 16 2025
    How did Britain cease to be global? In Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2023), Professor Stuart Ward tells the panoramic history of the end of Britain, tracing the ways in which Britishness has been imagined, experienced, disputed and ultimately discarded across the globe since the end of the Second World War. From Indian independence, West Indian immigration and African decolonization to the Suez. Crisis and the Falklands War, he uncovers the demise of Britishness as a global civic idea and its impact on communities across the globe. He also shows the consequences of this diminished 'global reach' in Britain itself, from the Troubles in Northern Ireland to resurgent Englishness and the startling success of separatist political agendas in Scotland and Wales. Untied Kingdom puts the contemporary travails of the Union for the first time in their full global perspective as part of the much larger story of the progressive rollback of Britain's imaginative frontiers. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/australian-and-new-zealand-studies
    Voir plus Voir moins
    1 h et 12 min
  • Georgina Banks, "Back to Bangka: Searching for the Truth about a Wartime Massacre" (Viking Australia, 2023)

    Georgina Banks, "Back to Bangka: Searching for the Truth about a Wartime Massacre" (Viking Australia, 2023)
    Apr 14 2025
    Georgina Banks searches for the truth of what happened to her Great Aunt ‘Bud’, killed in the Second World War. Bangka Strait, Indonesia, 1942. Allied ships are evacuating thousands in flight from Singapore, the island having fallen to Japanese Imperial forces. Facing terrifying assaults by fighter planes, one ship, the Vyner Brooke, is badly bombed and sinks. Its survivors swim or paddle for hours to the nearest land, a beach on Bangka Island, parched, many dreadfully injured. One of the survivors is Australian Army nurse Dorothy ‘Bud’ Elmes, the great-aunt of Georgina Banks. Bud, along with other nurses from the Vyner Brooke, including one Vivian Bullwinkel, make it to the island, where they tend to the wounded as a plan is formulated. But it is soon discovered the place is occupied by Japanese forces, and two days later they arrive on the beach. Seventy-five years on, Georgina receives an invitation to a memorial service for her great-aunt. She knows little of the national history buried in her family but as she retraces Bud’s steps in Indonesia, and then deep in archives back in Australia, she is left making sense of half-truths and confronting the likelihood that she may never know exactly what unfolded on the beach on that devastating day. Back to Bangka: Searching for the Truth about a Wartime Massacre (Viking Australia, 2023) is a deeply moving intergenerational family story; a gripping retelling and investigation of events that throw a spotlight on women in wartime – in their vulnerability and profound strength. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/australian-and-new-zealand-studies
    Voir plus Voir moins
    47 min