Allan — Reading, Listening and Watching¶
Status¶
A catalogue of Allan's reading, listening, and watching recommendations across the corpus (Ep001–Ep113), grouped by medium. Built May 2026, verified against the recommendation section of all 113 source pages, and then checked a second time against the 113 raw transcripts directly — which caught several recommendations the source pages never wrote up (e.g. Sue Halpern's 5G piece, Ep018; Florence Parly's Shangri-La speech, Ep022; Luke Mogelson's Capitol-riot reportage, Ep066; Greg Earl, Ep091; the whole Ep104 cluster including Everything Everywhere All at Once; the Albanese podcast, Ep109). 93 of the 113 episodes carry a recommendation segment; the other 20 are guest-interview or Allan-absent episodes with none. Only Allan's own recommendations are listed; Darren's picks (e.g. Taylor Swift's Folklore, Ep053; The Social Dilemma, Ep057) are deliberately excluded. The companion Allan - Preferences and tastes carries the "what it reveals" analysis.
Provenance note. Transcript-verified means each entry was traced to Allan's own words in
raw/. The auto-transcribed names are noisy; where I corrected an obvious mis-hearing the transcript spelling is shown in parentheses (e.g. "McGeeche" → McGeachy, "Mangelson" → Mogelson, "Bali" → Parly). A handful of recommendations are descriptive rather than fully titled in the transcript — those are flagged in place.
Purpose and how to use this page¶
Every episode of Australia in the World closes with Allan and Darren sharing recommendations. Allan's are among the richest biographical evidence in the corpus — what he read, watched, and listened to, and how he framed each choice, reveals his mind, range, formation, and self-presentation more directly than almost anything else.
This page is the catalogue — what he recommended, by medium, with his own words and the episode it came from. For the analysis — what each choice reveals about him — follow the cross-links to Allan - Preferences and tastes, which carries a "Reveals" note for most entries.
The throughline (see Preferences for the full argument): Allan reads and watches to understand how institutions actually work (The Bureau, Chernobyl, Mantel's Cromwell, Le Carré's Smiley); he reads culture as political evidence (The Wandering Earth); he prizes writing quality and counterintuitive conclusions; he seeks non-Anglophone and scholarly perspectives as antidotes to "bumper-sticker" commentary; and, rarely but tellingly, he reaches for pure escape when the world is too much (Money Heist, the O'Brian novels, "a long way away from 2020").
Reading — Non-fiction¶
| Work | Episode (date) | Allan's framing (brief) |
|---|---|---|
| Steven Pinker — Enlightenment Now | Ep002 (2018-08-10) | "450 data-rich pages on why the World is better than you think it is… we need a cheery note" |
| Brendan Taylor — The Four Flashpoints: How Asia Goes to War | Ep003 (2018-08-23) | "a terrific read… the South China Sea matters less than some of the other areas" |
| Ian Johnson — The Souls of China | Ep005 (2018-10-04) | "we've got to understand the society deeply and in all its dimensions" (read en route to Beijing) |
| [Likely David Sanger — The Perfect Weapon] cyber-policy book | Ep007 (2018-11-02) | He "badly needed to update my knowledge of cyber policy" |
| Paul Krugman — "Competitiveness, a Dangerous Obsession" (Foreign Affairs, 1994) | Ep008 (2018-11-14) | Listener recommendation; "trade is not a zero sum game… a terrific message" |
| Kai-Fu Lee — AI / geopolitics book | Ep009 (2018-11-29) | Reading on AI and US–China technology competition |
| Yuval Noah Harari — "Why Technology Favours Tyranny" (The Atlantic) | Ep009 (2018-11-29) | "Something we really got to begin to get our minds around here" |
| Daniel Schönpflug — A World on Edge | Ep012 (2019-02-20) | Chosen partly "because it was written by a German… a point of view slightly different" |
| Ben Macintyre — The Spy and the Traitor (also A Spy Among Friends) | Ep013 (2019-03-01) | "thrillingly written… page-turningly"; cited again next episode as analysis |
| Robert Kagan — "The Strong Men Strike Back" (Washington Post; précis of The Jungle Grows Back) | Ep017 (2019-04-19) | Has read the article, not yet the book; treats it as representative |
| Hilary McGeachy (transcript: "McGeeche") — US-China Technology Competition: Impacting the Rules-Based Order (US Studies Centre) | Ep018 (2019-05-05) | "I thoroughly recommend that" — "makes the international organisation for standardisation interesting" |
| Sue Halpern (transcript: "Halpin") — "The Terrifying Potential of the 5G Network" (New Yorker) | Ep018 (2019-05-05) | "a terrific piece… chronicles some of the dangers ahead" |
| Adam Tooze — "Is This the End of the American Century?" (London Review of Books) | Ep019 (2019-05-15) | "What has ended… is any claim… to provide a political model" |
| Hugh White — How to Defend Australia | Ep023 (2019-07-08) | "he won't let you look away… hard thinking of the sort Australia badly needs now" |
| Richard Neustadt & Ernest May — Thinking in Time | Ep026 (2019-08-21) | Prescribed "for all our parliamentarians and public servants" |
| Julie Suarez — J.B. Chifley: An Ardent Internationalist | Ep029 (2019-09-24) | Chifley as a model: "calm, plain-spoken, drawing on his own experiences" |
| Adam Gopnik — A Thousand Small Sanities | Ep032 (2019-10-23) | "the philosophical tradition that I identify with myself" |
| Ashton Robinson — Meeting Saddam's Men | Ep033 (2019-11-07) | "Australia has too few memoirs from our diplomats, soldiers and intelligence analysts" (a former ONA colleague) |
| George Packer — Our Man: Richard Holbrooke | Ep037 (2020-01-10) | His "best foreign policy book of 2019"; he was inside the Afghanistan/Pakistan debates |
| Ivan Krastev & Stephen Holmes — The Light That Failed | Ep039 / Ep040 (2020-02-10) | His highest category: a book that "change[s] your understanding" |
| Andy Greenberg — Sandworm | Ep042 (2020-03-10) | Listener rec; "even someone as un-techie as me" |
| Rory Medcalf — Contest for the Indo-Pacific | Ep042 (2020-03-10) | "essential reading" — his strongest for an Australian strategic text to date |
| Peter Hessler (New Yorker, Peace Corps; River Town) + Evan Osnos | Ep044 (2020-04-09) | One analytic overview paired with one "human-scale" particular |
| Peter Edwards — A Life of Robert Hope | Ep045 (2020-04-23) | Hope "always been one of my public policy heroes" |
| Ta-Nehisi Coates — Between the World and Me | Ep049 (2020-06-14) | "hugely insightful for me" — a rare primarily-personal recommendation |
| Adam Tooze — Crashed (via Sinica + Tyler Cowen talks) | Ep056 (2020-09-10) | "We need historians more than ever" |
| Joseph Nye — Do Morals Matter? | Ep057 (2020-09-26) | Values authors who combine "academic depth with practical government experience" |
| John Lewis Gaddis — George F. Kennan: An American Life | Ep058 (2020-10-11); again Ep112 (2023-04-04) | "magisterial… and I don't use that word about many things" — his final reading rec |
| Christopher Hill — The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy | Ep058 (2020-10-11) | "foreign policy is what fundamentally interests me" |
| Anne Applebaum — Twilight of Democracy | Ep059 (2020-10-29) | A "companion piece" to Krastev/Holmes; "any society can turn against democracy" |
| Malcolm Turnbull — A Bigger Picture; Christopher Pyne — The Insider | Ep066 (2021-01-22) | Research reading; Turnbull "some serious content", Pyne "put together in a blender" |
| Luke Mogelson (transcript: "Mangelson") — "Among the Insurrectionists" (New Yorker) | Ep066 (2021-01-22) | "embedded… with the rioters… which I recommend" |
| Natasha Kassam & Darren Lim — "Future Shock" (Australian Foreign Affairs) | Ep068 (2021-02-25) | "I am going to be rethinking some of the issues… for a while yet" |
| David Brophy — China Panic | Ep075 (2021-06-09) | Recommended because he disagrees: the productive friction "provoked me" |
| Three Xi-Jinping readings | Ep083 (2021-09-22) | Curated reading list on a single leader's thinking |
| Oliver Burkeman — Four Thousand Weeks | Ep089 (2021-12-17) | The philosophy of finitude; scepticism of productivity-optimisation |
| Colin Kahl & Tom Wright — Aftershocks | Ep090 (2022-01-14) | Situates COVID in systemic perspective |
| Greg Earl — review piece in the Lowy Interpreter (cryptocurrency, remittances, Australia's FP spending) | Ep091 (2022-01-30) | "well worth reading"; the Pacific step-up "looking more and more like a PNG rescue program" |
| James Wise — "The Costs of Discounted Diplomacy" (ASPI Strategic Insights) | Ep092 (2022-02-21) | A "very distinguished former colleague"; the empirical base for his DFAT argument |
| AP4D — papers on engaging Southeast Asia | Ep092 (2022-02-21) | Output of a body he sits on (disclosed); integration of defence, diplomacy, development |
| Paul Kelly — Morrison's Mission | Ep093 (2022-03-07) | Reads serious political journalism even on ground he knows from the inside |
| Graeme Wood — Atlantic profile of MBS ("Absolute Power") | Ep094 (2022-03-24) | The journalistic method he admires: named sources, judgments "open to challenge" |
| Linda Jaivin (transcript: "Javen") — The Shortest History of China | Ep096 (2022-05-18) | Corrects his "overwhelmingly Western" historical formation |
| Hugh White — Sleepwalk to War (Quarterly Essay) | Ep099 (2022-07-18) | "a sharp, clear look… and finds us wanting" — read it to "test yourself" |
| Kevin Rudd — The Avoidable War; Jessica Chen Weiss — "The China Trap" (Foreign Affairs) | Ep101 (2022-09-02) | Rudd prized for "practitioner lived experience" plus analytical quality |
| Quarterly Essay — Uncivil Wars (Waleed Aly & Scott Stephens; transcript: "Wally Daly… Stevens"), w/ Hugh White replies | Ep103 (2022-10-05) | "An easy winner this week" — the "treasure" is in the replies |
| Michael Wesley (Lowy Interpreter, Ukraine war's implications for Asia) + George Packer (The Atlantic, companion piece) | Ep104 (2022-11-12) | "two pieces of writing" he wanted to flag on Ukraine |
| Zach Cooper — Channel News Asia piece on the US Indo-Pacific strategy | Ep104 (2022-11-12) | Endorses Darren's pick: "well worth reading. I agree with him" |
| Tyson Yunkaporta — Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World | Ep108 (2023-01-20) | "accessible and often funny"; candidly revises a prior view |
| Agathe Demarais — Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against US Interests | Ep110 (2023-02-23) | Via researcher Walter Colnaghi |
Reading — Fiction¶
| Work | Episode (date) | Allan's framing (brief) |
|---|---|---|
| Hilary Mantel — Wolf Hall trilogy / The Mirror and the Light | Ep043 (2020-03-28) | "the best book I'd ever read about politics… full stop"; Cromwell as bureaucratic hero |
| Patrick O'Brian — Aubrey–Maturin series | Ep064 (2020-12-23) | His "best of 2020" escapism: "taken me a long way away from 2020" |
| Richard Powers — The Overstory | Ep082 (2021-09-10) | Formally innovative, morally demanding literary fiction |
| Mick Herron — Slough House (Jackson Lamb) novels | first rec Ep034 (2019-11-29); again Ep106 (2022-12-15) | "Your reference to spies… led me to think of John le Carré"; the bureaucratic-realist spy aesthetic |
| Annie Ernaux — The Years | Ep109 (2023-02-11) | Recommended by his wife Catherine, against his grain: "how the hell is she doing this?" |
Recurring fiction touchstones he names without formally recommending: John le Carré (George Smiley as "bureaucratic hero" and "superb intelligence manager", Ep043).
Listening — Podcasts¶
| Work | Episode (date) | Allan's framing (brief) |
|---|---|---|
| Mike Morell — Intelligence Matters (Chris Johnson on China) | Ep006 (2018-10-18) | "non-Trumpian… view of the world informed by deep knowledge"; an "avid podcast listener" |
| Carnegie Diplo Pod — Evan Feigenbaum, "Where is the U.S.–China relationship going?" | Ep014 (2019-03-15) | "sensible, informed commentary" |
| The Ezra Klein Show — Evan Osnos on US–China | Ep044 (2020-04-09) | Worst US–China point "since Mao" |
| Wind of Change — Patrick Radden Keefe | Ep049 (2020-06-14) | "great fun and nostalgic for me because I was around at the time" |
| Song Exploder — Ramin Djawadi on the Game of Thrones score | Ep046 (2020-05-06) | Mentioned in passing; podcast listening extends to creative process |
| Adam Tooze — Sinica appearance + Tyler Cowen conversation | Ep056 (2020-09-10) | "We need historians more than ever" |
| Sam Harris — Making Sense, episode on what motivates Trump supporters | Ep060 (2020-11-06) | "an unusually useful" account |
| Little Red Podcast — "Shi Dada and Daddy Power" (Teiwes; transcript: "Tewes") | Ep061 (2020-11-16) | Paired with Osnos to "introduce the two men" (Xi and Biden) |
| The Ezra Klein Show — Evan Osnos, "Joe Biden Explained" | Ep061 (2020-11-16) | "really thoughtful and useful from an Australian practical point of view" |
| Seneca podcast — Quincy Institute East Asia strategy paper | Ep067 (2021-02-06) | Translates the "denial vs control" distinction into Australian terms |
| Sinica — Jude Blanchett, "Getting Chinese Politics Wrong" | Ep069 (2021-03-13) | On "dangerous heuristics" analysts use — method, not just conclusions |
| The Dismal Science — Mark Thirlwell (transcript: "Thorwell") | Ep070 (2021-03-29) | "a great companion piece to Australia in the World"; an old Lowy colleague |
| Rana Mitter (transcript: "Mitta") — 2021 Reischauer Lectures (Harvard Fairbank; YouTube/podcast) | Ep072 (2021-04-25) | An antidote to "the bumper sticker nature of much… public discussion about China" |
| Sam Harris — Making Sense, "Are We Alone in the Universe?" | Ep076 (2021-06-19) | "even I… sometimes feel a need to elevate my mind to broader horizons" (teenage sci-fi fan) |
| Fiona Hill interviewed by Gideon Rachman (FT podcast) | Ep078 (2021-07-24) | "we are underdone… in talking about Russia on this podcast" |
| The Rest is Politics — Rory Stewart & Alastair Campbell | Ep102 (2022-09-18) | Listener rec; notes Campbell as the model for Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It |
| Anne-Marie Slaughter interview — Seneca podcast | Ep105 (2022-11-20) | "one of the political scientists who's influenced me most over the years" |
| Catherine Murphy/Penny Wong (Guardian); Rory Medcalf/Gareth Evans (ANU National Security) | Ep106 (2022-12-15) | Paired so the contrast between eras "illuminates what an activist foreign policy can mean" |
| Catherine Murphy — interview with Anthony Albanese (Australian Politics podcast) | Ep109 (2023-02-11) | "such a relaxed chat… a much more revealing sense of the PM's personal approach" |
Named as part of his standing information diet (Ep034): China Power (CSIS), Seneca (Quincy Institute); also Andrew Ford's ABC music show (Ep051).
Listening — Substacks and newsletters¶
| Work | Episode (date) | Allan's framing (brief) |
|---|---|---|
| Adam Tooze — Chartbook | Ep087 (2021-11-09) | One of "three Substacks… I stumbled on… by accident"; "doesn't belt you" |
| Ben Herskovich — From Beijing to Canberra | Ep087 (2021-11-09) | The China–Australia specialist of his three Substacks |
| Heather Cox Richardson — Letters from an American | Ep087 (2021-11-09) | The US-history-and-politics one of his three Substacks |
| Lawrence Freedman — Comment is Freed | Ep095 (2022-04-25) | Follows the best strategic-studies voices on live crises (Ukraine) |
Listening — Music¶
| Work | Episode (date) | Allan's framing (brief) |
|---|---|---|
| The National — I Am Easy to Find | Ep020 (2019-05-30) | First music rec; "diversity and disintegration are not the same thing… I'm going to cling to that" |
| Katie Leng — "The Strangeness We Feel" | Ep032 (2019-10-23) | The song lyric "floating around in my head" gave his Australian Foreign Affairs title |
| Bob Dylan — Rough and Rowdy Ways | Ep051 (2020-07-04) | "a really fine addition to Dylan's body of work" — treats Dylan as literary artist |
| The Velvet Underground | Ep088 (2021-12-01) | "relics of my early 20s" — avant-garde rock of his formation |
| Gurrumul — "Bayini" (animated video, with Sarah Blasko / Emily Vines) | Ep099 (2022-07-18) | A listener's tip; "breathtakingly lovely… It's just beautiful. Watch it" |
Watching — Television and film drama¶
| Work | Episode (date) | Allan's framing (brief) | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| BBC — Brexit: The Uncivil War | Ep016 (2019-04-06) | "funny… revealing and horrifying simultaneously"; caricatures "possibly unfair but richly deserved" | First film rec |
| HBO — Chernobyl | Ep026 (2019-08-21) | "I can't recommend it highly enough" — he was the Soviet analyst at ONA in 1986 | — |
| The Wandering Earth (流浪地球) | Ep028 (2019-09-09) | Chinese sci-fi read as political document: China "as a servant of humanity" | Netflix |
| Money Heist (La Casa de Papel) | Ep046 (2020-05-06) | "I love heist movies… a great way of taking your mind off the current reality" | Netflix |
| The Bureau (Le Bureau des légendes) | Ep071 (2021-04-15) | Loves the "realities of bureaucratic life", not the thriller; watched all six seasons | SBS On Demand |
| Game of Thrones | Ep018 (2019-05-05); Ep077 (2021-07-02) | Reaches for the Night's Watch oath as a diplomacy analogy — clearly a viewer | — |
| Slow Horses Season 2 (the Mick Herron adaptation) | Ep106 (2022-12-15) | The screen version of the Slough House novels he reads | Apple TV+ |
| The Thick of It | Ep102 (2022-09-18) | Reference, not a recommendation: he knows it well (Campbell as Malcolm Tucker's model) | — |
Declined on air: The Mandalorian (Disney+) — "No… I don't think we get Disney" (Ep037).
Watching — Documentaries and journalism¶
| Work | Episode (date) | Allan's framing (brief) | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| ABC Foreign Correspondent — Sean Dorney in PNG | Ep004 (2018-09-06) | "a really moving tribute to one of the great Australian journalists" | ABC iview |
| All In: The Fight for Democracy | Ep065 (2021-01-09) | An "uplifting and hopeful note"; credits Stacey Abrams for the Georgia seats | Amazon Prime |
| 9/11: Inside the President's War Room | Ep084 (2021-10-08) | He was in Beijing on the night of 9/11 — watching it from the other side | Apple TV+ |
| The Velvet Underground (documentary) | Ep088 (2021-12-01) | "relics of my early 20s" | — |
Watching — Cinema and theatre¶
| Work | Episode (date) | Allan's framing (brief) |
|---|---|---|
| West Side Story (2021, Spielberg) | Ep091 (2022-01-30) | "a masterpiece" — and he "went to see it in the cinema alone" |
| Top Gun: Maverick (routed via James Crabtree, FT) | Ep098 (2022-06-20) | Saw the 1986 original at PACOM Honolulu; "the film doesn't need my recommendation" |
| The Girl from the North Country (Dylan stage musical) | Ep098 (2022-06-20) | A follow-up recommendation in the same segment |
| Everything Everywhere All at Once (Kwan & Scheinert; Michelle Yeoh) | Ep104 (2022-11-12) | Caught it on a flight; "surprising things to say about the immigrant experience… and free will" |
| Melbourne theatre | Ep097 (2022-05-28) | Theatre-going noted as part of domestic life |
Reading and watching: newspapers, periodicals, speeches¶
- Financial Times — "my favourite daily" (Ep111). Also: Gideon Rachman columns (Ep103); the FT "Big Read" on Putin's Ukraine decision-making, praised as a model of disclosed-sourcing journalism (Ep111).
- Recurring periodicals: The New Yorker (Osnos, Hessler), The Atlantic (Harari, Wood), and — read with familiarity — The Spectator and The Washington Post.
- Speeches and lectures as primary texts. Allan treats speeches as the first tier of his information diet (Ep034) and recommends them for "close textual analysis": Florence Parly's (transcript: "Bali") "direct and feisty" Shangri-La Dialogue speech as French Defence Minister (Ep022); Frances Adamson's National Press Club address (Ep077, the speech that prompts his Game of Thrones analogy); Malcolm Turnbull's National Press Club speech defending the French-submarine decision and critiquing Morrison's AUKUS handling (Ep084); Yun Jiang's "Rethinking China" lecture (Ep096); Kevin Rudd's China Matters oration at the University of Queensland, which he travelled to Brisbane to attend (Ep110); and Kennan's Long Telegram (Ep112).
Streaming and media platforms (inventory)¶
Confirmed in use across the corpus: Netflix, SBS On Demand, ABC iview, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, YouTube. Explicitly not used: Disney+ ("I don't think we get Disney", Ep037), Foxtel, and all social media ("a conscientious objector to social media", Ep012).
See also¶
- Allan - Preferences and tastes — the analytical companion: a "Reveals" note for most entries here, plus his stated information diet and reading habits
- Theme - Allan's historical imagination — how the histories he reads function in his analysis
- Allan - Anecdotes and biographical fragments — the autobiography embedded in many recommendations (Chernobyl/ONA 1986; Beijing on 9/11; wife Catherine)