You don’t have to be a full-on Freudian to see the truth in Freud’s proposal that jokes are the release of pent-up ...

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The Melanesian arc running from New Guinea to Fiji is also an arc across Australia, the geography loaded with history and strategic weight. Australia’s life in Melanesia is studded with dreams and ...

China views marriages between Chinese and Taiwanese as the perfect metaphor for national unification. In Taiwan, their status is more ambiguous. An explosion in numbers during the 1990s led to fears ...

In just a few short weeks the Trump administration has halted, overturned, defunded or revised vaccine-related research programs, approvals processes and public health guidance, with steps underway to ...

National affairs It’s no time to lose our heads Paul Strangio 8 November 2024 What lessons should Labor take away from the Democratic Party’s defeat?

Essays & reportage Is grown-up government enough? Paul Strangio 3 September 2024 The puzzle of Anthony Albanese’s struggling prime ministership ...

Books & arts Where Cook saw a camel Marian Quartly 16 September 2024 Two journeys up the east coast of Australia Books & arts Demythologising the frontier Larissa Behrendt 6 December 2023 David Marr’s ...

Books & arts Three “bloody difficult” subjects Tim Rowse 4 July 2023 Historian Ruth Ross, the Waitangi Treaty and historical mythmaking are the subjects of a provocative account of New Zealand’s ...

Books & arts The outsiders Antonia Finnane 11 February 2025 Has Guan Hu made a film about the feral dogs of Chixia — or about China itself?