Wednesday 3 August 2011

Today we continue our publication of reviews by librarians that began Monday with six reviews of the titles shortlisted to win the Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction. Check out what Roslyn Irons of Camberwell Library thought of Stephen Foster’s A Private Empire; why Louise Anderson of Preston Library thought Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender will challenge readers' preconceptions; why Moonee Ponds Library’s Letizia Mondello thinks Fiona Capp’s My Blood’s Country is such a fine tribute to Judith Wright; what impressed Sale library’s Marion Silk about Anna Krien’s Into the Woods; why Melbourne City Library’s Aimee Rhodes thought Tim Bonyhady’s Good Living Street was “impressive”; and why, in the view of Hastings Library’s Victoria Matthews, Mark McKenna’s An Eye for Eternity is a “major achievement”.

Image courtesy Robert Scarth/Flickr

Click on the ‘What’s New’ page on the website of the Project for the New American Century and you’ll notice that the Washington DC-based neo-conservative thinktank hasn’t published anything for a while. Not since December 2006, in fact. Yet five years earlier – a decade ago – the Project for the New American Century was the most influential thinktank in the US. Founded during Bill Clinton’s second presidency, its mission was to advocate that what was good for America was good for the world, and it came into its own at the start of the first Bush presidency, particularly in pushing for a war in Iraq.

The apogee of PNAC’s power came in in September 2000 – a year before 9/11 – with the publication of a report called Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century. It was a hawkish American call to arms: “America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces,” it said.

A little more than a decade later, the Project exists in name only. The US is in terminal decline, economically, militarily and diplomatically. It will struggle to emerge from its recent military adventures with any semblance of victory. How did the American century end so quickly?

It was a theme weighing heavily on the mind of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman last Friday at the Melbourne Town Hall. Never a neo-con, Friedman has over the years assumed the mantle of the voice of American liberalism.

In an extended presentation, Friedman explained why US domestic politics are so central to its adventures in foreign policy, and what he means when he says that the American dream is now “in play and in peril”.

Friedman read from his latest book (co-authored with Michael Mandelbaum), That Used to be Us: What Went Wrong With America? And How it Can Come Back. The book is a kind of call to arms for a broken and demoralised America, describing everyday signs and comparisons that signal the nation’s struggle to keep up with new powers like China. Friedman outlined what he reads as the four great challenges facing his country.

Friedman summed up his idea of the importance of America to the world with a joke he attributed to his grandmother: “never cede a century to a country that censors Google”. He closed the event as he started it, with an exhortation to Americans that, in order to progress, America must look inward.

(Click to watch video.)

Eric Beecher, the chairman of the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas, today announced the appointment of Michael Williams as its new Director. Michael replaces Chrissy Sharp, the Centre’s inaugural Director since 2009, who is leaving the role to join her husband in Hong Kong, where he has taken up a new appointment.

Michael, who is currently the Wheeler Centre’s Head of Programming, has been with the Centre since its inception. The announcement emphasised the extraordinary role Chrissy Sharp has played in the creation of the Wheeler Centre.

The Wheeler Centre has a new neighbour, and it’s a bookstore. Following news of the closure of Borders, Angus & Robertson and Reader’s Feast, the operators of Embiggen hope that their science-oriented books will help the store buck the recent trend.

Opening opposite the main entrance to the Wheeler Centre on Little Lonsdale Street – just a little further up the hill – an Age report today quotes Warren Bonett, a co-owner of the store with partner Kirsty Bruce, as saying that the store’s idiosyncratic title is inspired by a 1996 episode of The Simpsons (Springfield’s motto is, ‘A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man’). As well as science titles, Embiggen will stock environmental and DIY-green books, children’s books and a selection of adult fiction titles. Bonett and Bruce also hope to host science-related events. The store was previously located in Noosa, and we hope it will bring a little Sunshine Coast sunshine to Melbourne too.