Pre-eminent Russia expert Sheila Fitzpatrick (The Death of Stalin) gives a 30-minute crash course on recent Russian history. 

Ready to electrify everything and cut your living costs?

Whether you're just curious or already committed, lock in Sunday 22 June for the Go Electric Open Day at Club Thirroul—a fun, informative, and inspiring event for households across the Illawarra.

With energy bills soaring and a growing appetite to shrink our carbon footprints, more people than ever are exploring solar, EVs, home batteries, and electric appliances. But let’s face it—there are still a lot of questions around cost, incentives, the latest tech, and when to take the plunge. That’s where this free community event comes in.

We’re bringing together experts, locals, and hands-on experiences to help make electrifying your home and lifestyle easier—and more exciting—than ever.

Lucy Sussex (Outrageous Fortunes) introduces us to Australia’s first female crime writer Mary Fortune and her career-criminal son in conversation with Troy Hunter.

In 1966, with the words Bombard the Headquarters! Mao Zedong unleashed the full, violent force of a movement that he called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Many have gone to great lengths to bury this period of history, while some brave enough risk their freedom to uncover the truth. For they all know, to grasp the history of the Cultural Revolution is to understand much about China today.

Bombard the Headquarters! is not just Mao's story. It's the unforgettable stories of countless individuals, mass manias, sacred mangos and spectacular falls from grace.

About the author

Linda Jaivin has been studying Chinese politics, language and culture for more than forty years. She has been a foreign correspondent in China, and is co-editor of the China Story Yearbook, an associate of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University and the author of twelve books including The Shortest History of China.

Organised in partnership with Constant Reader Bookshop.

HUGH WHITE AO in-conversation with Misha Ketchell, Editor, The Conversation

Are we ready for our post-American future?

In an era of rising danger for all, and dramatic choices for Australia, Hugh White AO explores with Misha Ketchell, Editor of The Conversation, how the world is changing and how Australia should respond. 

Under Donald Trump, America’s retreat from global leadership has been swift and erratic. China, Russia and India are on the move. White explains the big strategic trends driving the war in Ukraine, and why America has “lost” Asia.

In his Quarterly Essay, Hugh discusses Albanese Labor’s record and its future choices, and why complacency about the American alliance – including AUKUS – is no longer an option. This essential essay urges us to make our way in a hard new world with realism and confidence.   

Hugh White is the author of The China Choice and How to Defend Australia, and three previous Quarterly Essays, Power Shift, Without America and Sleepwalk to War. He is Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University and was the principal author of Australia’s Defence White Paper 2000.

Join us for a special library event featuring The Immigrants, a powerful and poignant novel by Moreno Giovannoni.

This heartbreaking yet beautiful story of love, exile, and tragedy takes us to the Victorian town of Mitrefò, where a family seeks a better life in a foreign land. Amidst the joys, scandals, and shared experiences of a close-knit community, indelible moments of loss and hardship shape their journey.

In an era of rising danger for all, and dramatic choices for Australia, Hugh White explores how the world is changing and how Australia should respond in his latest Quarterly Essay, On War & Peace & the New Global Order.

On Thursday 26th June at the Red Mill Distillery, Balmain, join Hugh White in conversation with Sam Roggeveen, Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program.

Copies of Quarterly Essay will be available for purchase at the venue through Roaring Stories, with White signing copies after the discussion.

In his latest Quarterly Essay, Hugh White lays out the hard choices that lay ahead of Australia in the face of the changing global order.

The old global order faces direct challenge in three crucial regions, including our own. We confront the world's deepest and most dangerous international crisis in generations.

He explores Australia's responses to these crises, as reflected in the policies of Albanese's Labor and Dutton's Coalition – including AUKUS. He lays out in stark terms the hard choices ahead and explains how we can make our way in a very different world.

Hugh White is the author of The China Choice and Quarterly Essay 39, Power Shift. He is professor of strategic studies at ANU and was the principal author of Australia’s Defence White Paper 2000.

Organised in partnership with Constant Reader Bookshop.

Linda Jaivin: Shades of the Cultural Revolution: from Mao to Musk

It would have been the furthest thing from Elon Musk’s mind, but his call for Americans to denounce public servants they think should be fired on the social media platform X is a perfect example of what Mao Zedong, in his analogue world, called ‘mass dictatorship’. In China, mass dictatorship reached its apotheosis in the Cultural Revolution from 1966-1976, which resulted in nearly two million deaths and incalculable damage to China’s culture and heritage as well as the collapse of political and economic institutions. To know the history of the Cultural Revolution is to better understand the world today, from Beijing to Washington.

Linda Jaivin is a prolific cultural commentator, essayist and the internationally published author of thirteen books, including The Shortest History of China, which has been published in 23 countries and counting, and her latest, Bombard the Headquarters: China’s Cultural Revolution. She studied Asian History at Brown University in the US and has studied and lived in and reported from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. She is also a translator of film subtitles for Chinese films and has been an editor of The China Story Yearbook (published by the Australian Centre in the World at the ANU). She lives in Sydney.