Quarterly Essays

John Howard has the loudest voice in Australia. He has cowed his critics, muffled the press, intimidated the ABC, gagged scientists, silenced NGOs, censored the arts, prosecuted leakers, criminalised protest and curtailed parliamentary scrutiny. Though touted as a contest of values, this has been a party-political assault on Australia's liberal culture. In the name of "balance", the Liberal Party has muscled its way into the intellectual life of the country. And this has happened because we let it happen.

In Love & Money, Anne Manne looks at the religion of work - its high priests and sacrificial lambs. As family life and motherhood feel the pressure of the market, she asks whether the chief beneficiaries are self-interested employers and child-care corporations. Manne argues that devaluing motherhood - still central to so many women's lives - has done feminism few favours. For women on the frontline of the work-centred society, it has made for hard choices. Manne eloquently tells what happened when feminism adapted itself to the free market.

In this national best seller, Robert Mane attacks the right-wing campaign against the "Bringing Them Home" report that revealed how thousands of Aborigines had been taken from their parents. What was the role of Paddy McGuinness as editor of Quadrant? How reliable was the evidence that led newspaper columnists from Piers Akerman in the Sydney Daily Telegraph to Andrew Bolt in the Melbourne Herald Sun to deny the gravity of the injustice done?

In the second Quarterly Essay of 2005, Gail Bell investigates Australia's depression epidemic. Why, she wonders, do well over a million Australians now take anti-depressant drugs? This is a fresh, frank and independent look at the depression culture and the move to medicalise sadness. Bell examines how the prescription culture operates, scrutinising the role of big drug companies and GPs and talking to those who take - and don't take - the new anti-depressants, from anxious students to lonely retirees.

In the third Quarterly Essay of 2001, Guy Rundle comes to grips with John Howard, the prime minister who, on the eve of an election, seems to have turned round his political fortunes by spurning refugees and writing blank cheques for America's War on Terror. This is a brilliant account of John Howard's dominant ideas, his concerted "dreaming" with its emphasis on unity and national identity that reveals him to be the most reactionary PM we have ever had.

After many thousands of years, the nomads are disappearing, swept away by modernity. Robyn Davidson has spent a good part of her life with nomadic cultures - in Australia, northwest India, Tibet and the Indian Himalayas - and she herself calls three countries home. In the last Quarterly Essay for 2006, she draws on her unique experience to delineate a vanishing way of life. In a time of environmental peril, Davidson argues that the nomadic way with nature offers valuable lessons.

In the third Quarterly Essay of 2003, Germaine Greer suggests that embracing Aboriginality is the only way Australia can fully imagine itself as a nation. In this sweeping and magisterial work, she looks at the interdependence of black and white and suggests not how the Aborigine question may be settled, but rather how a sense of being Aboriginal might save the soul of Australia. Touching on everything from Henry Lawson to multiculturalism, Greer argues that Australia must enter the Aboriginal "web of dreams".

From the Hillsong Church to the Family First Party, Australia appears to be experiencing an evangelical revival. In the second Quarterly Essay for 2006, Amanda Lohrey investigates that revival - its shape and scope, and what it means for the mainstream churches and the nation's politics. She talks to young believers and analyses the machinations of the Christian Right. She discusses, with humour and insight, the appeal of the megachurch, the changing image of Jesus and the political theories of George Pell and Peter Jensen.

This irreverent, controversial account is sure to be one of the most talked-about publications of election year 2010 - a groundbreaking, in-depth profile that traces Kevin Rudd's years in Queensland, in China, in opposition, and finally in government. Based on extensive research, observation, and interviewing, it examines the forces that have made Kevin Rudd and the way he wields his power. Marr investigates both the fragility of Rudd's hold on the Labor leadership, and considers what he might do with his popularity.

In the third Quarterly Essay of 2004, Margaret Simons takes a long hard look at Mark Latham, the self-proclaimed "club buster" and the man who would be prime minister. Few doubt Latham's intelligence and ambition, but what will this amount to in government? Simons argues that if Labor is elected, it will not be "business as usual". Rather we can expect a reformist government in the spirit - if not the letter - of Latham's political tutor, Gough Whitlam. It is also likely to be a government that has little time for the totemic issues of the Labor elites.

When Mal Brough and John Howard announced the Northern Territory intervention in mid-2007, they proclaimed a child abuse emergency. In this riveting piece of reportage and analysis, Paul Toohey unpicks the rhetoric of emergency and tracks progress. One year on, have children been saved? Will Labor continue with the intervention? What are the reasons for the social crisis and how might things be different? Toohey argues that the real issue is not sexual abuse, but rather a more general neglect of children.

What is the Liberal Party's core appeal to Australian voters? Has John Howard made a dramatic break with the past, or has he ingeniously modernised the strategies of his party's founder, Sir Robert Menzies? For Judith Brett, the government of John Howard has done what successful Liberal governments have always done: it has presented itself as the true guardian of the national interest. Full of provocative ideas, Relaxed & Comfortable will change the way Australians see the last decade of national politics.

In the aftermath of the 2010 election, George Megalogenis considers what has happened to politics in Australia. Have we entered a new phase with minority government and the rise of the Greens and independents? Hawke, Keating and Howard years were ones of bold reform; recently we have seen an era of power without purpose. But why? Is it down to powerful lobbies, or the media, or a failure of leadership, or all of the above? And whatever the case, how will hard decisions be taken for the future? In a brilliant analysis, Megalogenis dissects the cycle of polls, focus groups and presidential politics....

In Quarterly Essay 47, David Marr goes beyond the clichés - Dr No, mad monk, gaffe-prone, budgie-smuggling gym junkie - to look at the man as he is and reveal what kind of prime minister he might be.

This is a unique portrait of a unique politician. Marr shows Abbott as part reactionary and part pragmatist, part fighter and part charmer, deeply religious and deeply political. But is Abbott a figure from the past or a leader for the future? Following the explosive Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd, this is certain to be the most discussed political writing of the year.

For many decades Australia was the country that rode on the sheep's back. No more - now we are a country of mining and services. In QE42, one of Australia's most original and respected political thinkers, Judith Brett, looks at what this has meant for the country and the city in our politics and culture.The politics of independence and dependence are complicated, as the Murray-Darling water reform shows. And the question remains: What will be the fate of rural and regional Australia?

Sometime this century, after 4 billion years, some of Earth's regulatory systems will pass from control through evolution by natural selection, to control by human intelligence. Will humanity rise to the challenge? This landmark essay by Tim Flannery is about sustainability, our search for it in the 21st century, and the impact it might have on the environmental threats that confront us today. Flannery discusses in detail three potential solutions to the most pressing of the sustainability challenges: climate change.

This year has seen unprecedented scrutiny of Rupert Murdoch’s empire in Britain. But what about in Australia, where he owns 70 per cent of the press? In Bad News, Robert Manne investigates Murdoch’s lead political voice here, the Australian newspaper, and how it shapes debate.Since 2002, under the editorship of Chris Mitchell, the Australian has come to see itself as judge, jury and would-be executioner of leaders and policies. Is this a dangerous case of power without responsibility?

Based on extensive interviews with Turnbull as well as those who have worked with him, this is an essay full of revelations. Crabb delves into young Malcolm's university exploits - which included co-authoring a musical with Bob Ellis - and his remarkable relationship with Kerry Packer, the man for whom he was at first a prized attack dog, and then a mortal enemy. She asks whether Turnbull - colourful, aggressive, humorous and ruthless - has what it takes to re-invigorate the Australian Liberal Party in the wake of John Howard.

Where were you when America elected Barack Obama? Kate Jennings was in New York, eyes wide open, completing her take on an amazing time: "the run-up to the election... a time when every day felt like a year and we became slightly crazed from worry but also mesmerised, unable to switch off the cable news stations, obsessively tracking the DOW, VIX, LIBOR spreads, polls in red states. So much at stake. American Revolution is a dazzling and perceptive look at the United States between hope and despair.

In QE44, Andrew Charlton exposes the rift that will shape our future progress versus planet; rich versus poor. Who, then, will save us? Charlton shows there are two leading candidates: economists and environmentalists. Each says they know what is best for our grandchildren. Yet environmentalists see economists as merchants of greed with a blind faith in markets. And economists see environmentalism as an indulgence for the middle class of richer nations; those who enjoy the lifestyle afforded by economic growth, but take its source for granted.