Dimensions
158 x 233 x 51mm
This re-release of Blanche d'Alpuget's classic 1982 biography remains one of the finest examples of political biography in Australian literature. D'Alpuget's sensitivity and psychological insight into Hawke's early years reveal how the son of devout Christian parents had been reared to public duty and to the ambition of political leadership.
Known throughout his life as a tireless campaigner for workers' rights, Hawke was a Rhodes Scholar, educated in three universities, before rejecting an academic career to commit himself to the trade union movement. As President of the ACTU from 1970 to 1980 he was a master negotiator and peacemaker in industrial life. He agitated for social and economic reforms, becoming a folk hero and the most popular Australian of his time.
While he was president of the Australian Labor Party he sought to heal its wounds after the sacking of the Whitlam government - and in his capacity as union leader he held back potentially violent industrial action over this most divisive issue.
To unionists he was a giant killer; to employers, a crypto-Communist bent upon their destruction. Hawke: The Early Years is an intimate portrait of a man before his rise to the highest office in Australia.
