History is Events, People, Places, and Themes. That seems clear enough to most readers of history. What is less obvious and often missed is the meaning of Events, People, Places, and Themes, and thus the meaning of history. Many feel that in just mapping such elements and knowing where things fit chronologically, we have history. Nothing could be further from the truth. In such an outlook we have not really discovered history.
"History and historians play a crucial role in Australian culture. They are foundational to other fields in the arts, with historical research often underpinning film, theatre, literature and even, on occasion, dance. A government serious about implementing a cultural...
“…it's one of these moments where you feel like an era has come to an end and the world is a little emptier,” so spoke the wisdom of Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, on the occasion of the passing of Olivia Newton-John. In a matter of only a few days, two...
The breeze is blowing. What will come With the wind? Passing memories Of you, love. The crest of The day. Light has gone. And thoughts turn to you. I sigh. What is there to be, I said Conversations have Past, and now The silence of the...
You have to ask American Senator Ted Cruz, who's propaganda is he and the gun lobby defending? Do we ennoble savagery, and do we falsify civility? These are the questions for the times, and it goes to exceptionalism for personal and national conceit. Exceptionalism is...
The key words here, in President Biden's response, is ‘other countries.’ Why do American scholars struggle to get their messages across in this climate of violence? I suggest it is more than the category of religion, and it is about the way the category of...
It seems that the Southern Baptist Convention is in the news again, and news in the scandal within Hillsong Church, and the fall of Australia's first and (I cautiously predict) only Pentecostal Prime Minister. 'Megachurch and Politics' is a disaster for faith and...
NEW DAWN This morning… This is what I said to my American colleague, Garrett Lang of the Free Thinker Institute (New York, NY), who I work with on these big ideas of education, and politics. … here today, on Sunday, we have a new government. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!! It...
All that is left In my life is to Fulfil Destiny. What is Destiny, However, Compared to Life itself, With all misery and loss, As well as the joy and gain? Life is what it is about, And Destiny will be what it will be. I will, though, work hard To make it happen....
Any serious historian or a sociologist in the broad Australian Studies areas must be puzzled at the messaging of the recent Australian Lamb promotional video, and the, alas, popular response on social media. We have been here before, so many times. Clever? or humorous...