Overview

The companion volume to YOUNG HAWKE: the making of a larrikin from the award-winning historian and author of CURTIN and CHIFLEY Bob Hawke was one of the most influential Australians of the twentieth century, firstly as Australia's most powerful trade union leader in the 1970s before becoming the longest serving Labor prime minister in the 1980s. The government of this formerly hard-drinking womaniser did much to transform the Australian economy, reorient Australian foreign policy towards Asia and introduce groundbreaking social welfare measures, including Medicare, and did much to promote the advancement of women. After the difficult years of the late 70s and early 80s, it was a time of renewed confidence that was exemplified by the winning of the America's Cup and the celebration of Australia's Bicentenary. It was also a time of national introspection, with the demand for a treaty with the Aborigines, the 75th anniversary of Gallipoli and the questioning of Australian identity. Bob Hawke was at the centre of it all, and for much of his time in office enjoyed an unprecedented level of popularity. But there was a prime minister-in-waiting who was intent on taking his position and a difficult family life that contrasted with the public image. This is the definitive biography of one of Australia's most important prime ministers.

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9781460766613

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David Day has written more than twenty books to great acclaim, both here and overseas. Apart from eight political biographies, including prize-winning biographies of John Curtin and Ben Chifley, he has written several books about the Second World War and others on Antarctica. He has won or been shortlisted for several literary prizes, including the South Australian Festival Prize for Literature, the National Biography Award, the NSW Premier's Literary Prize, the NSW Premier's History Award, the Centre for Australian Cultural Studies National Awards, the Queensland Premier's Literary Award and the Fellowship of Australian Writers Book of the Year. A graduate of Melbourne and Cambridge universities, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, he has been a research fellow at Clare College in Cambridge, a visiting fellow at Churchill College in Cambridge, a professor of history at University College Dublin, a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, and a visiting fellow at the University of Aberdeen. He has served as the official historian of the Australian Customs Service and the Bureau of Meteorology, and been an Australian Research Council senior research fellow at La Trobe University in Melbourne, where he is currently based.

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