Jill Lepore’s magisterial These Truths is a fantastic book. It is highly ambitious and delivers a strong narrative history of the United States. Professor Lepore has taken the United States Constitution as a starting point for a highly impressive single volume survey of the history of the USA. Impressive as it is, it is not […]
What place does history have in a post-truth world?
The Knowledge Solution: Australian History Anna Clark, Melbourne University Press, 2019 Book Review When the subtitle of a book reads: “What place does history have in apost-truth world?”, you would think that the book might actually touch upon the topic. Anna Clark has edited this book on Australian historical writing. AssociateProfessor Clark is an Australian […]
‘Change the nation forever’: Shorten invokes Whitlam in final push
https://www.watoday.com.au/federal-election-2019/change-the-nation-forever-shorten-invokes-whitlam-in-final-push-20190516-p51nxz.html By Judith Ireland May 16, 2019 — 1.57pm Add to shortlist Labor leader Bill Shorten has told supporters he wants to “change the nation forever” in his final major speech of the election campaign, vowing to start “from day one” if elected on Saturday. Speaking at a rally in Sydney on Thursday, Mr Shorten said […]
New book on lobbying focuses on Local Government
A new book looks at Local Government as a lobbyist in the Australian political framework. http://www.lgfocus.com.au/editions/2019-04/new-book-on-lobbying-focuses-on-local-government.php Local Government is featured in two articles by Socom’s Managing Director, David Hawkins, and former Local Government Focus editor, Dr Kevin Brianton, who is now a senior lecturer in strategic communication at La Trobe University. The two articles represent […]
Ayn Rand and the Motion Picture Alliance
While the studios were beginning to bring out anti-communist films, the right began to look for other targets. Not content with driving communists out of Hollywood, the right turned its attention to films with liberal messages. Ayn Rand wrote a Screen Guide for Americans in 1947 for the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of […]
The Screen is Red – book review
Brianton, Kevin Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2018, Vol.48(2), pp.64-67 Bernard F. Dick, The Screen Is Red: Hollywood, Communism, and the Cold War, Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2016. 282 pp., illus. Hardcover: $65. During the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities – or HUAC – investigations of Hollywood in 1947, chairman […]
The Fountainhead (1949)
One of the oddest anti-communist films to come out of Hollywood in the period between the first and second HUAC investigations was the The Fountainhead (1949). Based on Ayn Rand’s bestselling book, and directed by MPAPAI founding executive committee member King Vidor, the film was a defence of the creative individual against the deadening collective. […]
Ignore press at your peril: Uni. expert
Article in the Local Paper, 9 November 2018 A senior University expert says that Victorian election candidates may be ignoring local newspapers at their peril. Dr Kevin Brianton, Head of Department, Communication and Media at La Trobe university, was commenting on the trend for candidates to use local press less for their messages to voters, […]
Philip Taffs’s Reviews > Hollywood Divided: The 1950 Screen Directors Guild Meeting and the Impact of the Blacklist
Hollywood Divided: The 1950 Screen Directors Guild Meeting and the Impact of the Blacklist by Kevin Brianton Philip Taffs‘s review Oct 10, 2018 really liked it John Ford once famously introduced himself: “I’m John Ford. I make Westerns.” To which Australian author, Kevin Brianton, might now rightfully respond: “I’m Kevin Brianton. I write […]
DeMille and the fascist salute
Swirling around the formal biographies on DeMille is the internet with its hundreds of blogs and web pages. Daniel J. Solove has argued that the internet will be increasingly powerful in defining reputation in the coming years.[1] On the web, there are many examples of DeMille and the meeting being misrepresented. Bloggers can take […]