If Australia’s iconic wheat single-selling desk was dismantled because of corrupt practices by AWB Ltd, then it surely follows that Treasurer Joe Hockey should reject Nick Minchin’s recent proposal that United States grains giant ADM should make a new bid for Australia’s GrainCorp. The grain-growers’ single desk was dismantled after AWB Ltd was found culpable in the oil-for-food scandal, which involved kickbacks to…

  HOW THE WEST WON: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity by Rodney Stark (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books) Hardcover: 432 pages ISBN: 9781610170857 Price: AUD$55.90   Reviewed by Bill Muehlenberg   There are some authors you know will not disappoint, so you eagerly await their next volume. Historian and sociologist of religion Rodney Stark is one such writer whose growing library…

IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson (Melbourne: Scribe Publications) Paperback: 466 pages ISBN: 9781921844799 Price: AUD$24.95   Reviewed by Jeffry Babb   Some time I ago I met David Kilgour, joint author of a report to the Canadian parliament on the Chinese government’s grisly practice of involuntary organ-harvesting. A lawyer by training,…