Dr Neville Buch

Professional Historian and History Consultancy Services Brisbane

Category: The Importance Of History In Our Own Lives?

  • Progress and Popular Thinking in the United States & Australia 1945-2020

    Progress and Popular Thinking in the United States & Australia 1945-2020

    Sometime ago, two scholars – an American, and an Australian – discussed descriptions of populism and progressivism in the history of the United States and Australia after 1945. The reflection that flows here is a synopsis of that conversation, reshaped as an argument on our current political position.   Marilyn Lake’s book, “Progressive New World:…

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  • Oh, No! Not the Religion and Science Debate, Again, and Again…and Again…

    Oh, No! Not the Religion and Science Debate, Again, and Again…and Again…

    In The Philosophy Cafe, Brisbane, Australia, meeting, this discussion will not be a debate, but a process of deconstructing the mixed messages that tangle people up in cognitive knots. In both categories, of ‘religion’ and ‘science’, misconceptions abound. For Script, click here: Religion & Science (PowerPoint Script)  

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  • What is Cost for A Professional Historian: One Measure – Book Purchases

    What is Cost for A Professional Historian: One Measure – Book Purchases

    What does it cost for those better historians, the ones which are trained for their profession and sacrifice for their passion in reading, research, and writing?   The question should be asked in the time of the increased pricing of the Arts course, recently announced by the Australian Government.   It is an almost impossible…

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  • ‘The Fire Next Time’ by James Baldwin

    ‘The Fire Next Time’ by James Baldwin

    Last night I listened completely to the audio-book, ‘The Fire Next Time’ by James Baldwin.     Cornel West is right, from a recent interview, Baldwin was unpopular with the largest section of the population, and he was often misunderstood by his ‘white liberal’ friends whom he mercilessly criticised. West too was unpopular with the…

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  • The Collapse of now too old ‘New Christian Right’

    The Collapse of now too old ‘New Christian Right’

    The signs might be early, but I believe we are seeing the alliance of the global “New” (so old now) Christian Right collapsing; the alliance at the very least. And I suspect that if the Christian Right reforms and creates a new movement, it will have to step away from the dominant theology from the…

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  • Are you being diverted from what really matters! Understand the history! …globally!

    Are you being diverted from what really matters! Understand the history! …globally!

    Friends, do not be distracted by the diversion fallacies, currently going around social media, about what is at stake in our contemporary history.     It is wrong to not to take a stand when it is so blatant that a great wrong has been committed. Those who do wrong need to be held accountable…

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  • IDRlabs.com 8 Values Political Test: Why informing opinion is better than behavioural psychology?

    IDRlabs.com 8 Values Political Test: Why informing opinion is better than behavioural psychology?

    I took the IDRlabs.com 8 Values Political Test, and, much like most tests designed for unreflective responses, so as to get to the prejudices of a person, I was frustrated on these psychological goals as an educator and a researcher. Many of the questions, if not all, assumes that any tested person has no prior…

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  • 2020 THE SDGs for Australian Universities

    2020 THE SDGs for Australian Universities

    The rankings game can be a farce in statistics but perception does count. The ‘2020 Impact Rankings’, on the measures of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has been provided by the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings tables.   There are seventeen measures with the overall ranking. My analysis in this paper…

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  • Books, learning, and thinking, in the midst of global destruction

    Books, learning, and thinking, in the midst of global destruction

      I saw this image, “HOLLAND HOUSE BADLY BURNED. WS/57” (1940), while reading Jay Winter’s book this afternoon, War Beyond Words: Languages of Remembrance from the Great War to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2017).  The original photography was no doubt staged, but Eduardo Cadava makes the point that it was art with the message…

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  • Higher Education Research and Employment-Income Statistics: Here is my Face, Look Me in the Eye

    Higher Education Research and Employment-Income Statistics: Here is my Face, Look Me in the Eye

    ID 52687398 © Sss200 | Dreamstime.com There is a very meaningful discussion in the THE world – am I working hard enough? I recently calculated the tallies of work hours for my 2018-2019 Tax Return, as well as for the last eight months. Before I announce the depressing picture, a critical point has to be…

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