Blog

The Flinders Ranges: Ancient Land to the Heysen Trail

Mar 5th, 2020 | Dr Chris Carter

The undeniable rugged beauty of the Flinders Ranges attracts visitors for a myriad of reasons. In this article, Dr Chris Carter explores the marvels of the Flinders, from its unique geology and evidence of the earliest life on earth, to 49,000 years of indigenous settlement, and the difficulties this arid...

The Emotion & Enigma of Eastern Siberia

Feb 28th, 2020 | Dr Matthew Dal Santo

To most of the world, “Siberia” is an undifferentiated mass, a featureless land of prisons and snowdrifts entirely befitting its place in Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. But the Russians themselves divide it up into three administrative units, each of which possesses its own distinctive landscapes, history and relationship to Moscow: Western...

The American Presidential Nomination – how complicated could it be?

Feb 13th, 2020 | Dr Matthew Laing

Image above: Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images America is currently in the quadrennial grip of election fever while the Democratic Party conducts its search for its nominee to run against President Donald Trump this November. These presidential ‘primaries’ (as they are more commonly known) are a complex patchwork of mini-elections...

The Dutch Golden Age – reality & illusion

Jan 24th, 2020 | Dr Sophie Oosterwijk

The art of painting flourished in the Netherlands in the 17th century, and masterpieces by the likes of Rembrandt, Vermeer or Hals continue to fascinate us. The people look so real and as we peer into their houses, look out across their streets and landscapes, we feel like we could...

Moscow of the 1990s – a personal account

Jan 9th, 2020 | Geoff Winestock

A visit to Moscow, like many great cities, offers a chance to immerse yourself in its fascinating, tumultuous history. Moscow is unusual however because you can get a feel not just for the distant past, the medieval world of Ivan the Terrible or Napoleon’s campaign of 1812, but also for...