“Scarborough Fair” is what Ellen Stekert calls a “go around song,” one that is passed from singer to singer, down centuries, across oceans, shape-shifting all the while. “Go around songs” shed and ...

If citizens don’t have confidence in their public services, at least on balance, they will be more reluctant to pay taxes and the extent and quality of services will spiral downwards. It’s worth ...

Right now, according to British political theorist Jonathan White, the future seems very close. Our time horizon is closing in. Crises press in on us, shadowing contemporary politics with an “air of ...

Does anyone remember “American carnage”? In his 2017 inaugural address Donald Trump portrayed a collapsing society, emphasising in particular the “crime and gangs and drugs” destroying America’s ...

A few ordinary games as a defender with the Tasmanian Football League’s Glenorchy club ended any prospect I had of a footballing career. In those days, football was still a celebrated part of ...

Australia’s relations with Russia have what you might call a colourful history. Spying has been at the heart of it. Tony Abbott famously vowed to shirtfront president Vladimir Putin in 2014 after ...

Too often tales of exploration are told only from a whitefella perspective. But as this story of a roving zoologist reveals, “the observed” were observing closely when the American–Australian ...

Trump’s vengeance — for that is what it surely is — has been directed primarily at Columbia University (perhaps because his businesses have been engaged in a real estate battle with the university) ...

An enduring theme in Australian elections is the interplay between federal and state politics. In the case of the recent election, it was widely suggested that Victoria’s long-term Labor government ...

Producers who get behind yet another TV series about wealthy Americans and their disconnect from the real world surely know they must offer something more than the scenic indulgences of six-star ...