In 2020 Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel inspected the taken-for-granted idea of “merit” and concluded that perhaps it’s not such a good thing after all. Now another member of the American ...

Books & arts Finding the right words Zora Simic 16 November 2025 Accusations that her grandmother was a communist spy or a fascist collaborator — or both — sent Lea Ypi back to Albania and into her ...

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago, the world’s attention has focused on what quickly became a grinding war of attrition, with its endless drone and missile ...

Nations are built with pens and brushes not just hammers and nails. They exhibit their character in what they say about themselves as much as what is said about them. — Bruce Pascoe, Convincing Ground ...

“I cannot live with You —” goes Emily Dickinson’s poem. “It would be Life —/ And Life is over there —/ Behind the Shelf.” Once upon a time many Australian homes had the books of Patrick White out ...

It is salutary to turn on the television on the morning after the biggest landslide to the Labor Party since 1943 and the Liberal Party’s worst-ever election defeat. We must have had Sky on by the ...

One Sunday morning nearly four years ago Kevin McCann was surprised to learn that an organisation he chaired was being hounded in the News Corp tabloids for being in “China’s grip” and “lobbying ...

The demise of the Coalition agreement this week — seemingly temporary — called into question the common assumption that Australia has a “two-party” system. The Liberal and National parties have become ...

In the end, the Voice referendum showed that the old Labor referendum rules still apply. Early polling indicates overwhelming support. Liberal opposition leaders, regardless of their personal ...

THE story of the devastation of the NSW Labor Party in 2011 begins on the night of one of its more miraculous victories. On Saturday 24 March 2007, the premier, Morris Iemma – whose government had ...

In the wake of Trump’s first month in office, when his administration launched concerted attacks on education and research in every guise, it has been provoking to read the new edition of Martha ...

In Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, 93 per cent of children attend public schools. In Alberta, the province that topped Canada for reading and science in the latest round of OECD tests, ...