George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis

$45.00 AUD

Category: Political

Selected by "The New York Times Book Review" as a Notable Book of the Year Drawing on extensive interviews with George Kennan and exclusive access to his archives, an eminent scholar of the Cold War delivers a revelatory biography of its troubled mastermind. In the late 1940s, George Kennan wrote two documents, the "Long Telegram" and the "X Article," which set forward the strategy of containment that would define U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union for the next four decades. This achievement alone would qualify him as the most influential American diplomat of the Cold War era. But he was also an architect of the Marshall Plan, a prizewinning historian, and would become one of the most outspoken critics of American diplomacy, politics, and culture during the last half of the twentieth century. Now the full scope of Kennan's long life and vast influence is revealed by one of today's most important Cold War scholars. Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis began this magisterial history almost thirty years ago, interviewing Kennan frequently and gaining complete access to his voluminous diaries and other personal papers. So frank and detailed were these materials that Kennan and Gaddis agreed that the book would not appear until after Kennan's death. It was well worth the wait: the journals give this book a breathtaking candor and intimacy that match its century-long sweep. We see Kennan's insecurity as a Midwesterner among elites at Princeton, his budding dissatisfaction with authority and the status quo, his struggles with depression, his gift for satire, and his sharp insights on the policies and people he encountered. Kennan turned these sharp analytical gifts upon himself, even to the point of regularly recording dreams. The result is a remarkably revealing view of how this greatest of Cold War strategists came to doubt his strategy and always doubted himself. This is a landmark work of history and biography that reveals the vast influence and rich inner landscape of a life that both mirrored and shaped the century it spanned. ...Show more

A Smile For My Parents by Heather Henderson

$30.00 AUD

Category: Political

Heather Henderson is the only daughter of Sir Robert Menzies, Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister and founder of the Liberal party. Father and daughter were very close, and in 2011 Heather edited and published Letters to My Daughter, a collection of letters written by Menzies to Heather throughou t the fifties, sixties and seventies, when she was living overseas with her diplomat husband. They are full of warmth, love, humour and insights - both political and personal - and they allow us to see a completely different side of a man many Australians think of as a rather stern and forbidding authoritarian figure. Now comes A Smile for My Parents, Heather Henderson's engaging memoir recounting charming and insightful stories and memories of Dame Pattie and Sir Robert and their family and friends that will surprise and delight all who read it. ...Show more

Clive: The Story of Clive Palmer by Sean Parnell

$40.00 AUD

Category: Political

Big-spending Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer bought a football team, helped create a political party, and is set to recreate the 'Titanic' and build a dinosaur park. But are these just fanciful splurges or something more calculated? The reality is that Palmer uses his immense mining wealth (estimate d at over $6 billion) in a proactive (if sometimes eccentric) global way. His personal story is just as colourful and intriguing: Clive spent time as a child in China and writes poetry. He is well-known for attention-grabbing statements that send the media into a spin. Shortly after Clive was named a National Living Treasure, he claimed that the CIA was secretly backing green groups in a bid to kill the Australian coal-mining industry. In true Clive fashion, in May 2012 he announced that he was building a luxury cruise liner - the 'Titanic II' - and his political feuds are legendary. Part business expose, part political insider profile, and all rollicking tale, this is a dramatic portrayal of the man himself and the unconventional life he leads. ...Show more

To the Bitter End: The Dramatic Story Behind the Fall of John Howard and the Rise of Kevin Rudd by Peter Hartcher

$35.00 AUD

Category: Political

On 24 November, 2007 Australia resoundingly changed government. If you think you know what really happened during that tumultuous year behind the closed doors of the Liberal Party, in the back rooms of the ACTU and deep in the campaign war room of the Labor Party, think again. 2007 was a year to remembe r in Australian politics. It saw the dramatic fall of John Howard and the unexpected rise of Kevin Rudd. It saw the Liberal Party buckle under the inertia of incumbency and the Labor Party find new discipline and energy. It also saw the union movement at the centre of the most effective and powerful political campaign in years. This is the story of that year. It is about faltering ambition, driving ego, confidences lost and gained. It is about friends and enemies, truth and deception, humiliation and triumph. ...Show more

Isaiah Berlin by Ignatieff, Michael

$34.95 AUD

Category: General

The Alastair Campbell Diaries: The Burden of Power ; v. 4 by Alastair Campbell

$55.00 AUD

Category: Political

The Burden of Power is the fourth volume of Alastair Campbell's diaries, and perhaps the most eagerly awaited given the ground it covers. It begins on September 11, 2001, a day which immediately wrote itself into the history books, and it ends on the day Campbell leaves Downing Street. In between there are two wars: first Afghanistan, and then, even more controversially, Iraq. It was the most difficult decision of Tony Blair's premiership, and almost certainly the most unpopular. Campbell describes in detail the discussions with President Bush and other world leaders as the steps to war are taken, and delivers a unique account of Blair as war leader. He records the enormous political difficulties at home, and the sense of crisis that engulfed the government after the suicide of weapons inspector David Kelly. And all the while, Blair continues to struggle with two issues that ran throughout his time in government - fighting for peace in Northern Ireland, and trying to make peace with Gordon Brown. And Campbell continues to struggle balancing the needs of his family with one of the most pressurised roles in politics. Riveting and revelatory, The Burden of Power is as raw and intimate a portrayal of political life as you are ever likely to read. ...Show more

Keith Kyle, Reporting the World by Keith Kyle

$59.95 AUD

Category: Political

Keith Kyle was 'the epitome of the intellectual journalist' and the foremost historian of the Suez War. In this, his posthumously published autobiography, he takes the reader on a spectacular and exhilarating journey through the political history of the later 20th century, to the heart of world-shaking international crises where great events, people and places come to life. The clarity, expertise, enthusiasm and essential modesty with which he wrote gave his international audience the vital feeling of involvement and being there. Here was a reporter - and he claimed to be no more - of rare skill, intelligence, humanity and true moral purpose. Keith Kyle's extraordinary career took him from history at Oxford with A.J.P. Taylor, military service in India and Burma (ending as 'an unlikely infantry captain'), to the BBC World Service. He was recruited for The Economist by Geoffrey Crowther to act as Political and Parliamentary Correspondent in Washington, where he was at the epicentre of world politics. He was in Washington when the Suez crisis broke - the subject of his major history, Suez: Britain's End of Empire in the Middle East, which has defined the subject to the present. Keith Kyle's radio and television journalism brought him into countless British homes as BBC Talks Producer but he also held political ambitions which saw him contesting - unsuccessfully - St Albans and Braintree for Labour and Northampton South for the SDP/Alliance. In Keith Kyle's last years his life evolved from his years of vivid reporting of world politics, to scholarly research and writing at the John F Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard; St Antony's College, Oxford; the RIIA at Chatham House; and, the University of Ulster, where he was Visiting Professor of History. ...Show more

The Man Who Brought Down a Taoiseach and Exposed the Greed and Corruption at the Heart of Irish Politics by Frank Connolly

$35.00 AUD

Category: Political

No. 1 Bestseller A successful property developer in England, the Sligo-born Tom Gilmartin had ambitious plans for major retail developments in Dublin in the late 1980s. Little did he know that in order to do business in the city, senior politicians and public officials would want a slice of the action i n large amounts of cash. Gilmartin blew the whistle on corruption at the heart of government and the city s planning system, and the fallout from his claims ultimately led to the resignation of the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in 2008. The developer, who died in November 2013, was thoroughly vindicated in the final report of the Mahon Tribunal in March 2012. This is a compelling narrative of official wrong-doing and abuse of office. It exposes the roots of the political and financial disaster that has wreaked havoc in the lives of so many Irish people. Praise for the author: Frank Connolly is the best investigative journalist we ve ever had. Eamon Dunphy Tom Gilmartin did all Irish people an immense service by telling the truth about the corruption and cynicism he encountered at the very top of the political system. Frank Connolly brought Gilmartin s story to light, and does another great service by retelling that story with such vividness, clarity and power. As human and engaging as a novel, this is a truth stranger, and more urgent, than fiction. Fintan O Toole Frank Connolly lays bare, in cold, forensic detail, how hard it has been to arrive at certain truths, and the human price paid for those truths. Theo Dorgan Frank Connolly s biography of the businessman who died last year is ultimately a pretty devastating account of how being bright, hardworking and ambitious was absolutely no use to Tom Gilmartin in his native country................It s a story worth retelling, but just as compelling is the deeper story, that emerges throughout the biography, of how Ireland failed Tom Gilmartin, not once, not even twice, but throughout his lifetime. Donal O DonovanIrish Independent Review 05 April 2014 The corruption endemic in parts of Irish public life is clearly illustrated by the story of what happened to the developer and whistleblower Tom Gilmartin. Frank McDonald Irish Times Weekend Review 05 April 2014 'If you want to keep your blood pressure down on holiday, then Frank Connolly's book probably isn't for you, but it deserves to be read. It's a maddening and deeply vital tale of how figures in Ireland's political establishment sought to enrich themselves at the expense of the people they had sworn to serve.' - Sunday Business Post" ...Show more

Madam Secretary by Madeleine Albright

$20.00 AUD

Category: Political

A national bestseller on its original publication in 2003, Madam Secretary is a riveting account of the life of America's first woman Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. For eight years, during Bill Clinton's two presidential terms, Albright was a high-level participant in some of the most dramatic events of our time--from the pursuit of peace in the Middle East to NATO's intervention in the Balkans to America's troubled relations with Iran and Iraq. In this thoughtful memoir, one of the most admired women in U.S. history reflects on her remarkable personal story, including her upbringing in war-torn Europe and the balancing of career and family responsibilities, and on America's leading role in a changing world. With a new epilogue by the author, Madam Secretary offers an inimitable blend of Albright's warm humor, probing insights, and distinctive ideas. ...Show more

Planet Jackson - Power, greed & unions by Brad Norington

$33.00 AUD

Category: Political

Kathy Jackson was hailed as a heroine for blowing the whistle on the million-dollar fraud of Michael Williamson, the corrupt boss of the Health Services Union. While remaining steadfast in this very public ordeal, she endured bitter personal attacks from enemies in the Labor Party and the union movement . But what if Jackson was just as corrupt as Williamson? Or worse? This is the real HSU story. The unbelievable misuse of the union dues of some of the lowest paid workers in Australia. While Jackson was portrayed as a Joan of Arc figure, she had been spending vast amounts of her own union members' money on jet-setting holidays, fashion, jewellery, a home mortgage and even part of a divorce settlement. Nothing, it seems, was off limits. The HSU scandal is more than a dark morality tale marked by high drama and farce. It exposes deep problems at the heart of the union movement and the Labor Party: tribalism, nepotism, a misplaced sense of entitlement and the abuse other peoples' money. Together they are an intoxicating mixture and provide a ripe environment for corruption on a grand scale. ...Show more

Santamaria A Most Unusual Man by Gerard Henderson

$60.00 AUD

Category: Political

B.A. Santamaria was one of the most controversial Australians of our time. An ardent anti-Communist and devout Catholic, he was fiercely intelligent and a natural leader, polarising the community into loyal followers and committed opponents. In the 1940s Santamaria created the anti-Communist organisatio n 'The Movement'. In the 1950s he was a key figure in the tumultuous split of the Australian Labor Party. He subsequently enjoyed great influence as a public commentator on his television program Point of View and in his weekly column in The Australian. Santamaria had a strong social conscience and spent much of his time helping the underprivileged. Although he began as an advocate and champion of the Catholic Church, he spent much of his last decades opposing some of its activities. Published for the 100th anniversary of Santamaria's birth, Santamaria: A Most Unusual Man is an authoritative biography from Gerard Henderson, a close colleague until a disagreement saw the two men estranged and never reconciled. ...Show more

A Fighting Chance by Warren Elizabeth

$32.99 AUD

Category: Political

A New York Times bestseller by a possible 2016 Democratic Party presidential candidate. An unlikely political star tells the inspiring story of the two-decade journey that taught her how Washington really works - and really doesn't. As a child in small-town Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren yearned to go to c ollege and then become an elementary school teacher - an ambitious goal, given her family's modest means. Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but fifteen years later she was a distinguished law professor with a deep understanding of why people go bankrupt. Then came the phone call that changed her life: could she come to Washington DC to help advise Congress on rewriting the bankruptcy laws? Thus began an impolite education into the bare-knuckled, often dysfunctional ways of Washington. She fought for better bankruptcy laws for ten years and lost. She tried to hold the federal government accountable during the financial crisis but became a target of the big banks. She came up with the idea for a new agency designed to protect consumers from predatory bankers and was denied the opportunity to run it. Finally, at age 62, she decided to run for elective office and won the most competitive - and watched - Senate race in the country. In this passionate, funny, rabble-rousing book, Warren shows why she has chosen to fight tooth and nail for the middle class - and why she has become a hero to all those who believe that America's government can and must do better for working families. ...Show more