“Vance’s people are the white working class… and he champions their interests in a way that chimes with Catholic tribalism. To translate it into Australian, it is a little like the B.A. Santamaria–DLP Catholicism of family and patriarchal order, still active in Tony Abbott’s worldview.”

By his fruits shall we know him? • Robert Phiddian

J.D. Vance follows Hillbilly Elegy with a tale of religious revelation

inside.org.au

“Vance really can write, and ‘Communion’ is very clearly in the same voice as ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ albeit a voice muted by the pontification proper for a public figure considerably older than Vance’s 41 years.” Robert Phiddian reviews J.D. Vance’s ‘Communion.’ insidestory.org.au/by-his-fruit...

By his fruits shall we know him? • Robert Phiddian

J.D. Vance follows Hillbilly Elegy with a tale of religious revelation

insidestory.org.au

“I have travelled the world in an attempt to expose linguicide,” writes @sophiasgaler.bsky.social. Jim Davidson reviews her new book, How to Kill a Language: “carefully researched, written with flair, and illuminated by personal encounters.”

Tongue-tied no more • Jim Davidson

An urgent plea to save linguistic diversity across the world

inside.org.au

“Of particular interest, as reported in Capital Brief’s Political Capital newsletter, was Demos’s finding that One Nation support among people earning more than $200,000 a year had ‘peeled away from both major parties’ since its last MRP in January to March.”

Three-cornered contest • Peter Brent

One Nation’s support remains surprising high, but the implications for the next election are less clear

inside.org.au

“The book industry as a whole is in a period of recovery rather than decline. The number of independent bookstores in the country has grown by 70 per cent since 2020, as Literary Hub noted last month. The US bookselling chain Barnes & Noble opened fifty-five new locations in 2025.”

Is this what a post-literate era looks like? • David Wallace-Wells

What the numbers say about changing reading habits

inside.org.au

“A Labor majority would be a miracle — greater than the one bestowed by the Almighty on Scott Morrison in 2019. ‘Winning,’ for Carroll, would be somehow keeping enough seats, and getting a good enough crossbench, that he somehow gets a real go at being premier.“

A wing and a prayer • James Murphy and Tenzin Liddy-Corlett

Can a new premier turn around the Victorian government’s electoral fortunes?

inside.org.au

“Slobodian and Tarnoff understand well that what is distinctive about this era is the particular configurations of private and public power that Elon Musk, this man at this moment, is exploiting and shaping.” insidestory.org.au/sovereignty-...

Sovereignty at your service • Jock Given

Elon Musk “never lost sight of how the power to build and the power to rule were intertwined”

inside.org.au

“For creatives, educators and carers, the application of productivity and efficiency values — even before they were expressed in AI form — seems like a category error in any attempt to grasp the purpose and value of their work.”

What are we building? • Frances Flanagan

A reporter documents the good, the bad and the ugly of AI in the workplace

inside.org.au

“The messy life of the country — mostly lived far from Capital Hill — exercises its own sway, increasingly independent of the traditional institutions of Australian democracy. The hollowed-out parties are the most obvious casualty of this process, the teal independents the major beneficiaries.”

Australian twilight, Liberal swansong? • Frank Bongiorno

Veteran journalist Paul Kelly grapples with three prime ministers and the party they led

inside.org.au

“Where Nolan’s Odyssey falls away, however, is in its conception of the figure at the centre; it is as if all the contradiction, intensity and excess of the character has shrunk into a symbolic figure of earnestness and atonement, given more weight to carry than he can bear.”

Hit and myth • Philippa Hawker

Christopher Nolan’s high-stakes version of The Odyssey strikes some targets but avoids others

inside.org.au

“What emerges is not a ledger of winners and losers but a set of skilfully drawn portraits of power, self-awareness, hard choices and collective contestation.” Frances Flanagan reviews @sarahoconnorft.ft.com's ‘We Are Not Machines.’

What are we building? • Frances Flanagan

A reporter documents the good, the bad and the ugly of AI in the workplace

inside.org.au

“For Kelly, the new era demanded political and intellectual skills beyond the capacities not just of three prime ministers but also of the overall political system.” Frank Bongiorno reviews Paul Kelly’s ‘The Twilight of Exceptionalism’

Australian twilight, Liberal swansong? • Frank Bongiorno

Veteran journalist Paul Kelly grapples with three prime ministers and the party they led

inside.org.au

Review of our book for @insidestory.bsky.social with helpful overview of why Australia is a growth market for Starlink in particular. insidestory.org.au/sovereignty-...

Thanks to Ian McShane and @insidestory.bsky.social for a lovely review of our new book The First Inventors: How People Shaped a Continent! inside.org.au/shaping-a-co... @ciehf.bsky.social @jcuofficial.bsky.social

Shaping a continent • Inside Story

A 65,000-year account of Indigenous knowledge brings science and history into dialogue

inside.org.au

“I wheeled away from the screen and looked at her for a long minute. A colleague was passing and I called her into my office. ‘That,’ she declared, peering over my shoulder, ‘is someone I’d want to know more about. She is a real person.’”

Three portraits of a lady • Anne-Marie Condé

In the absence of textual evidence, what does the photographic record reveal about Mary Cook?

inside.org.au

“Flanner’s coverage of war crimes perpetrated by the Nazis, her reportage of the Nuremberg trials and her work on the Nazi looting of priceless cultural artefacts were indefatigable. And they inflected the New Yorker’s style and outlook thereafter.” inside.org.au/just-the-thing

Just the thing • Patrick Mullins

Janet Flanner’s despatches from Paris helped make the New Yorker a better magazine than its founder envisaged

inside.org.au

I wrote a review essay on a new book on the development of AI targeting in the US - Project Maven by @katrinamanson.bsky.social As an international lawyer, I ask whether current international law is adequate to regulate AI use (probably not) and what are the barriers to more effective regulation.

Rules of engagement • Holly Cullen

Are we asking the right questions about the military use of artificial intelligence?

inside.org.au

Wrote about Janet Flanner and the New Yorker, and Mark Braude’s Typewriter and the Guillotine, for Inside Story. insidestory.org.au/just-the-thi...

Just the thing • Patrick Mullins

Janet Flanner’s despatches from Paris helped make the New Yorker a better magazine than its founder envisaged

insidestory.org.au

“It is puzzling that Justice Hulme didn’t consider the question of a miscarriage of justice to be within the ambit of his inquiry. After all these years, exactly whose task is it?”

The Croatian Six inquiry raises more reasonable doubts • Hamish McDonald

It sent three convictions back to the appeals court, but the special probe shied away from the implications of suppressed ASIO evidence

inside.org.au

One of Dad's last pieces. For @insidestory.bsky.social insidestory.org.au/if-you-have-...

“If you have all these powers, why not use them?” • Inside Story

The Kazakh president thought he’d been palmed off with second-rate visitors, but the vice-regal Australians eventually got under his guard

insidestory.org.au

“Stefanovic is gambling that a prominent position within the global far-right mediasphere may be more impactful — and potentially more lucrative — than his current position at the apex of an established but fast-declining mass medium.”

Exit, far right • Ramon Robato

Karl Stefanovic’s political shift might be less dramatic than his reading of the media future

inside.org.au

“Our company is a reflection of my thinking, my character, my values,” says Rupert Murdoch. The Australian’s former national affairs editor Mike Steketee reviews a new book about what that means in practice…

Lest we forget • Mike Steketee

“Our company is a reflection of my thinking, my character, my values,” says Rupert Murdoch. It’s not an edifying sight

inside.org.au

Extreme heat is one of Australia’s most dangerous natural hazards and it’s getting worse. It has caused more deaths in Australia than any other natural hazard and has a major impact on ecosystems and infrastructure. insidestory.org.au/the-heat-is-...

The heat is on • Lesley Russell

Yes, sporting events are being disrupted in the Northern Hemisphere. But the wider health effects of heatwaves are much more serious

insidestory.org.au

insidestory.org.au/the-man-who-... "Yesterday's news" is important for understanding why ebola is emerging again... and many other serious problems too. Gordon Peake's review is excellent. @insidestory.bsky.social

The man who kept the receipts • Gordon Peake

A former USAID staffer sticks his head above the parapet

insidestory.org.au

“Howard’s flirtations with reactionary populism were always likely to turn perilous,” says Strangio. “Once that fire was lit, the probability was that it would be impossible to douse; instead it would escalate. That escalation… is dangerously close to a conflagration.” inside.org.au/what-makes-a...

What makes a good prime minister? • Karen Middleton

Australia’s turn-of-the century PM has cast a long shadow over his successors

inside.org.au

“Hanson began her political career, in local government, with a campaign to prevent the building of a library in Ipswich because she thought it was a waste of ratepayers’ money. It is hard to discern much change in her outlook thirty years later. She is one of life’s straighteners.”

Once a Liberal • Frank Bongiorno

Pauline Hanson’s Press Club speech provided plenty of ammunition for at least some of her opponents

inside.org.au

The most interesting contribution of 'Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed' is the authors' excavation of apartheid South Africa as the nursery of Musk's skill of turning public investment and state infrastructure into private leverage. trib.al/wWAzBau

Muskism

The Saturday Paper is a quality weekly newspaper, dedicated to narrative long-form journalism.

trib.al

National housing policy needs much more work www.croakey.org/national-hou...

“While One Nation casts itself as an alternative to the two-party seesaw, its strongest criticism is always directed at Labor (often with a swipe at the Greens). And yet it inflicts a lot more damage to the Coalition parties.”

One Nation’s preference problem • Peter Brent

Peter Dutton was too Trump-like for voters. Are the rules any different for Pauline Hanson?

inside.org.au

“If Burnham’s popularity is remarkable — his approval ratings have risen the longer he has been mayor — Labour’s unpopularity isn’t hard to fathom. Under Keir Starmer it has squandered the opportunity that he himself had created to reverse the public’s growing disillusionment with politics.”

Next stop, 10 Downing Street • Inside Story

Andy Burnham’s stunning by-election victory virtually guarantees him the prime ministership

inside.org.au