Tony Thomas's Anthem of the Unwoke is a new portfolio of his trademark anti-woke essays. He skewers the climate crazies, the green/Left brainwashing and textbooks in schools, the Aboriginal industry, the ABC and the "progressive" media's green/Left infatuations. As a bonus he recounts strange and hilarious tales from his 60-year career in journalism, such as getting expelled from Portuguese Timor in 1966 and how a scammer made off with his laptop in 2022. Plus reviews damning or celebrating a half-dozen controversial books and TV shows.
This is Tony's fifth essay collection since 2016, and follows Foot Soldier in the Culture Wars (2021). His career as reporter began in Perth in 1958, covered a decade in the Canberra Press Gallery and finished in 2001 after 20 years on a business magazine in Melbourne. In the past decade, as a hobby, he's published more than 430 essays on current affairs, history, literature and politics, featuring both his hallmark good humour and deep research. Anthem of the Unwoke offers another feast of topics to dip into or devour.
Roger Franklin, veteran journalist and editor of Quadrant OnLine: Tony wears a captivating smile. If you've seen a cat with its paw on a rodent, you'll recognise it.
Rowan Callick OBE, author, China expert and an Australian Journalist of the Year: If you have an inkling that a trend, an event or an institution seems awry, deluded, or even downright dangerous, then you will discover on these pages that Tony is the journalist with the persistence and the forensic skills to demonstrate the degree to which your instincts are right. Read in awe and, sadly often, despair.
Nicholas Hasluck, lawyer, poet and novelist: Tony skewers increasingly crazy 'woke' ideas, from invisible micro-aggressions to fake identities and other inventions. His unparliamentary 'voice to the vibe' is now enshrined in the pages of this provocative and highly entertaining book.
