Category: Books

The Men Who Came Out of the Ground review by Steven Carroll, The Age-Sydney Morning Herald When Churchill set up the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the Australian army followed the model. The initial result was 2/2 Company, an extraordinary unit drawn largely from rural Australia, chosen for their resilience and adaptability, and trained at Wilson’s…

Trillion Dollar Baby review by Joanne McCarthy, ACM The irritation had been rising for days.  I was standing with my friend, who we’ll call Betsy, and she was photographing something – a bird’s beak, lichen on a rock, a strangely-shaped piece of native animal poop or anything else that would catch the eye of a…

Fiona Capp, Sydney Morning Herald With its “cake-and-eat-it” policy of state equity in oil fields and a tax regime that ensures maximum national benefits, Norway has shown the world how to successfully manage the wealth from natural resources without being exploited by multi-nationals or squandering the windfall. An economic morality tale for our times, Trillion…

The Age This is an epic tale involving the struggle between Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s giant, global mining company, Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), and the Yindjibarndi people of the Pilbara region where the FMG has been mining without the approval of the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation (YAC). It’s an on-going tussle (despite a YAC High Court victory)…

Judges’ comments In the past 20 years Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has been associated with Aboriginal reconciliation, jobs for young Aboriginal workers, welfare reform and the cashless welfare card and now Green Hydrogen. Forrest, his Fortescue Metals Group and charitable Minderoo Foundation have waged a relentless public relations campaign through the Australian media. Now journalist Paul…

Malcolm Quekett, The West Australian This book continues to serve as an important record of the actions of Australian commandos who fought on Timor in 1942.  The West Australian newspaper quoted the book extensively in a detailed report on  ‘Untold Stories of Western Australia’: In 2025, student Dylan McKenzie from Kalbarri in Western Australia won…

Journal of Australian Political Economy, Issue 89 Paul Cleary’s two-part intervention in Too Much Luck and Mine Field appeared within twelve months from 2011. The books are complementary. Their message is sharp and can be glimpsed in two quotes. Cleary declares, in Too Much Luck, that ‘unless we manage this extraordinary boom more effectively, our…

Title Fight review by Andrew Dodd, Inside Story Last month I was walking through spinifex and rocks in Kija country in the Kimberley. I was alone and had strayed well away from the track to head for a distant landmark when I noticed the distinctive shape of a stone tool lying on the ground. It…

Title Fight review by Jack Latimore, The Age Early in his new book Title Fight, economic policy journalist Paul Cleary recounts a 2005 episode which, long before the blasting of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters, showed the levels to which big miners could stoop in pursuit of profit. Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) was pushing to…

Australian Review of Books The casual visitor to Oslo, with little or no knowledge of Norway’s recent history, could be forgiven for being unaware that per capita this is one of the wealthiest nations in the world. With its predominantly nineteenth-century streetscapes and the absence of large or monumental buildings, there is in fact little…