AustLit

'Long before 1873, when William Christie Gosse ‘discovered’ the six-hundred-million-year-old sandstone monolith at the centre of Australia and called it Ayers – for the about-to-be-deposed South Australian Colonial Secretary – Uluru has had symbolic power that outstrips even its imposing physical dimensions. For the Anangu people, custodians for millennia of the deeply spiritual Uluru and nearby Kata Tjuta, life is based on a foundation of law, religion and morals known as tjukurpa, which  encompasses the creation period, the present and the future.' (Introduction)

'At the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in April, athletes from countries that were once a part of the British Empire will battle for gold—but is the Commonwealth of Nations more than a legacy of another age?

'At a time of geopolitical uncertainty, the Commonwealth is poised to play a major role as a values-based network that represents a third of the world’s population. Whether this group can exercise real power and influence will be determined in 2018. The old empires are long gone but, in the wake of Brexit and the rise of China and India, the shape of a new world order remains unclear.

'Commonwealth Now features writers from around the world who explore the contemporary experience of Commonwealth citizens: reconciling the past, confronting new challenges, and opening new exchanges to create a sustainable and equitable future.' (Publication summary)

'This issue of Australia's most awarded quarterly is about making sense of the populist moment we are living in and includes essays about building a conscience, climate-change deniers, obstructive bureaucracy, religious cults and the enduring kindness of strangers.'  (Publication summary)

The Reform Club, the imposing Palazzo-style structure on Pall Mall, one of London’s grandest thoroughfares, has entered the popular imagination as the

quintessential gentleman’s club. Its camera-ready elegance – the soaring atrium, sweeping staircases and cosy parlours – has given the private club an unusually

public life.' (Introduction)