About this ebook
Non-freedom to the Western mind is inevitably linked with images of backwardness – Soviet tractors, East German Trabants, Kim Jong Il’s haircut. But non-freedom these days is also iPads, iPhones and a dazzling array of less iconic but ubiquitous consumer goods that flood our stores, our homes and which increasingly are used to define our ideas of worth and happiness. It is a full-lipped smile achieved with the aid of collagen made from skin flensed from dead Chinese convicts.
The Australian Disease is Richard Flanagan’s perceptive, hilarious, searing exposé of the conformity that afflicts our public life. From Weary Dunlop to Vassily Grossman, from David Hicks to Craig Thomson, Flanagan takes us on a wildly entertaining and unsettling trip. If we are to find hope, he says, we must take our compass more from ourselves and less from the powerful.
The Australian Disease is Richard Flanagan’s perceptive, hilarious, searing exposé of the conformity that afflicts our public life. From Weary Dunlop to Vassily Grossman, from David Hicks to Craig Thomson, Flanagan takes us on a wildly entertaining and unsettling trip. If we are to find hope, he says, we must take our compass more from ourselves and less from the powerful.
Ratings and reviews
4.1
12 reviews
Greg Ellis
- Flag inappropriate
June 14, 2014
Flanagan's 2011 essay is a damning idictment of our slothful culture of conformity. His skewering of our pathetic journalist class is particularly apt. I detect in Flanagan some conformist thinking of his own but his message is nonetheless incisive and urgent.
1 person found this review helpful
Jo Alchin
- Flag inappropriate
May 15, 2013
Flanagan's commentary on the malaise that is politics and the conformity of our polis is a must-read. He proposes a dangerous yet necessary antidote.
1 person found this review helpful
Nelly “Pup”
- Flag inappropriate
December 16, 2015
Wouldn't bother.
About the author
Richard Flanagan’s most recent novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North won the 2014 Man Booker Prize.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
