Dark and Hurrying Days is the text of a diary kept by Robert Menzies, then Prime Minister of Australia, of his experiences during a wartime trip to England in 1941. It was a grim time when British cities were enduring heavy bombing and German invasion seemed imminent. Menzies' Diary reveals the shifting feelings and fears which these experiences engendered in him, and is of prime importance in capturing the brooding spirit of this grim time.
Winner of the 2020 Australian National Biography Award and the 2020 NSW Premier’s Non-Fiction Award. The oddly compelling story of a man regarded as Australia’s worst prime minister. William McMahon was a significant, if widely derided and disliked, figure in Australian politics in the second half of the twentieth century. This biography tells the story of his life, his career, and his doomed attempts to recast views of his much-maligned time as Australia’s prime minister. After a long ministerial career under Menzies, McMahon became treasurer under Harold Holt, and fought a fierce, bitter war over protectionism with John McEwen. Following Holt’s death in 1967, McEwen had his revenge by vetoing McMahon’s candidature for the Liberal Party’s leadership, and thus paved the way for John Gorton to become prime minister. But almost three years later, amid acrimony and division, McMahon would topple Gorton and fulfill his life’s ambition to become Australia’s prime minister. In office, McMahon worked furiously to enact an agenda that grappled with the profound changes reshaping Australia. He withdrew combat forces from Vietnam, legislated for Commonwealth government involvement in childcare, established the National Urban and Regional Development Authority and the first Department of the Environment, began phasing out the means test on pensions, sought to control foreign investments, and accelerated the timetable for the independence of Papua New Guinea. But his failures would overshadow his successes, and by the time of the 1972 election McMahon would lead a divided, tired, and rancorous party to defeat. A man whose life was coloured by tragedy, comedy, persistence, courage, farce, and failure, McMahon’s story has never been told at length. Tiberius with a Telephone fills that gap, using deep archival research and extensive interviews with McMahon’s contemporaries and colleagues. It is a tour de force — an authoritative and colourful account of a unique politician and a vital period in Australia’s history.
Colourfully illustrated series of articles written to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the opening of the National Library of Australia. Discusses the library's collections which include early Australian manuscripts, documentary paintings and rare maps and books. Also discusses related topics such as using and interpreting the national collection. Includes chapter notes and sources. The contributors are experts in their fields, and include well-known historian Stuart Macintyre and Jonathan Wantrup, author of 'Australian Rare Books 1788-1900'.
A revelatory biography of Australia’s longest-serving prime minister. Robert Menzies claimed the prime ministership in 1939 and led the nation during the early years of the war, but resigned two years later when he lost the confidence of his party. His political career seemed over, and yet he staged one of the great comebacks to forge a new political party, devise a new governing philosophy, and craft a winning electoral approach that as to make him Australia’s longest-serving prime minister. The lessons Menzies learned — and the way he applied them — made him a model that every Liberal leader since has looked to for inspiration. But debate over Menzies’ life and legacy has never settled. Who was Robert Menzies, what did he stand for, what did he achieve? Troy Bramston has not only researched the official record and published accounts, but has also interviewed members of Menzies’ family, and his former advisers and ministers. He has also been given exclusive access to family letters, as well as to a series of interviews that Menzies gave that have never been revealed before. They are a major historical find, in which Menzies talks about his life, reflects on political events and personalities, offers political lessons, and candidly assesses his successors. Now with a new preface, Robert Menzies is the first biography in 20 years of the Liberal icon — and it contains important contemporary lessons for those who want to understand, and master, the art and science of politics.
Man of the Century is the often surprising story of how Winston Churchill, in the last years of his life, carefully crafted his reputation for posterity, revealing him to be perhaps the twentieth century's first, and most gifted, "spin doctor." Ramsden draws on fresh material and extensive research on three continents to argue that the statesman's force of personality and romantic, imperial notion of Britain has contributed directly to many of the political debates of the last decades--including American involvement in Vietnam and the role of the Anglo-American alliance in promoting and protecting a certain vision of world order.
