• Clare Heath-McIvor wrote about the growing threats of Christian nationalism and far-right extremism in Australia.
• Paul Monk reviewed historian Geoffrey Blainey’s revised and recently republished book, The Causes of War.
• David James wrote about the rising and unpayable debt in the Western world.

Up until 26 August 2025, white Christian nationalism may have remained an abstract concept – something that happens in America, but not here. But within days of Dezi Freeman (allegedly) turning his gun on two Victorian Police officers, the Sovereign Citizen movement was pushed into national awareness, and another seemingly unrelated event was about to take place. The ‘March for Australia’ rallies of 31 August brought together an uncomfortable picture. Ten days later, Charlie Kirk was assassinated in the United States.

Geoffrey Blainey is 95 – a venerable age. He remains lucid and productive even so – rather like David Attenborough, who, at 99, has just released and featured in his latest nature documentary, Ocean. Blainey is our country’s finest historian emeritus. The reprinting and updating of one of his most striking books – The Causes of War (2025) – first published in 1973, then republished in 1977 and 1988, is timely. Its observations and lessons are richly illuminating in the current, disturbing international climate.

So what does it mean when the entire Western world, and Japan, are mired in system-wide usury? Over 95 per cent of the money in these systems is credit: debt with an interest rate on it. The problem with this is simple arithmetic. Interest payments compound, increasing geometrically. Economic activity increases only linearly. Over time, as the economic historian Michael Hudson has documented extensively, debt-based financial systems break – something that has been happening for thousands of years.

When economies sputter, when public services strain, when communities feel fragmented, immigration becomes the symbol for everything wrong with globalisation. It offers politicians a visceral, easy-to-grasp story: “Your housing is unaffordable because of them. Your hospital is overcrowded because of them. Your jobs are threatened because of them.” Never mind that the evidence shows otherwise — that migration generally boosts economies, raises overall output without depressing local wages, and is a net fiscal positive.