Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Australian History

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • ECONOMICS

    Review: The Shortest History of Economics

    • David James
    • 22 March 2024

    Economics may be useless for forecasting, and its assertions can be overly simplistic. But it is a language that should be understood, and here is a good place to start. In simple and clear prose, Leigh spans the history of human economic activity, beginning in prehistoric times and ending with the modern day.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The changing self

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 20 March 2024
    6 Comments

    Times are changed and we are changed with them. As societal norms evolve, from fashion to expressions of freedom and political attitudes, how does each of us adapt while preserving our core selves? 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Searching for the truth about a wartime massacre

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 15 March 2024
    3 Comments

    Two books about a 1942 massacre of Australian nurses were released last year. One is reliable, the other is notable for factual omissions. If we leave something out, are we then guilty of censorship? Alternatively, if our truth-telling offends someone else, what is our justification for so doing?

    READ MORE
  • EDUCATION

    Declining staff-to-student ratios reveal sorry state of higher ed

    • Erica Cervini
    • 06 March 2024
    2 Comments

    By 2012, when the federal government first started reporting on staff-to-student ratios in universities, there was one academic for every 20 students. The most recent data, from 2021, shows that figure had increased to 23. As Australian students return for the new academic year, it will surely come as no surprise to find that ratio has worsened.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Why the choice revolution let us down: In conversation with Mark Considine

    • David Halliday
    • 28 February 2024
    1 Comment

    The main purpose of government is to promote the welfare of its people. And yet over the last few decades, through numerous inquiries, it’s become clear that the Australian government has failed to provide services for the Australian population as well as might be expected. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    When hope is not enough: Preparing for the next Black Saturday

    • Barry Gittins
    • 26 February 2024

    February marks 15 years since the Black Saturday fires in Victoria when some 400 fires raced through 78 locations, taking 173 lives, injuring hundreds more, destroying more than 2,020 homes and the entire township of Marysville. In a warming climate, that reality of loss is likely to be repeated ad infinitum.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Why we keep coming back to Groundhog Day

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 22 February 2024
    1 Comment

    Since its release, audiences, critics and philosophers have grappled with Groundhog Day’s take on time and eternity. Like all great art, Groundhog Day resists easy categorisation and is a story that, in a wonderful irony, we can go to again and again.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Power pop powers on

    • Barry Divola
    • 21 February 2024
    1 Comment

    A sparky, exuberant pop sub-genre with roots in the ’60s was meant to have died at the end of the ’70s, but its impact and influence are still being felt today. But what was it exactly and why does it matter?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Building on the rock of the apology

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 February 2024
    3 Comments

    Kevin Rudd's Apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008 seems to belong to a different age. It can never be unsaid. It can, however, be disregarded. For that reason it continues to be important. It is a measuring stick by which both Parliamentary behaviour and the treatment of Indigenous Australians can be judged.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Lessons from the referendum

    • Frank Brennan
    • 07 February 2024
    12 Comments

    The referendum result was a disaster for the country and a tragedy for First Australians and there has been little appetite for public discussion about lessons to be learnt from this abject failure. If we are to move forward, it’s time to begin the conversation about past mistakes.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    On putting things together

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 31 January 2024
    4 Comments

    What links the debate about the conduct of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the detention of children in a crowded and under-resourced Cairns watch house, and British legislation to send asylum seekers to Rwanda?

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Reading the places we know

    • Julian Butler
    • 29 January 2024
    2 Comments

    In fiction, place often feels secondary. But when place comes alive in writing, it is a delight. When it’s a place that has shaped you, or continues to shape you, then your own mythology expands.

    READ MORE