Political Biographies and Administrative Memoirs: Some Concluding Comments

The Australian and New Zealand School of Government workshop on political biographies proceeded on the basis that ‘political biography’ was a genre in its own right. This was reinforced by the fact that most of those attending the workshop were political scientists — or, at least, have been political science students. Geoffrey Bolton said that ‘real intellectuals do not do political biography’, that political biography ‘is doubly suspect because it carries with it a whiff of the “great man in history” heresy’, and ‘is also prone to contamination with a moral agenda, or at the very least to an implication that the lives of past statesmen may convey lessons and examples to the political leaders of our own generation’. Yet, as Bolton stated, and the workshop attested, ‘political biography survives’.

In her introductory essay, ‘Political Biography: its contribution to political science’, Tracey Arklay claimed that ‘political biography is the form through which writers breathe life into archival documents such as letters, diaries, birth, death and marriage certificates, Hansard and official records to assist in the re-creation of a life’. She noted the comment by Harold Lasswell, Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale, that ‘political science without biography is a form of taxidermy’ (quoted in Walter 1980) or as Sir John Seeley, the nineteenth century historian, put it: ‘history without political science has no fruit; political science without history has no root’. As Michael Holroyd (2003: 30) has written: ‘biography began as a reinforcement of the existing order. By re-examining the past and pointing it in a new direction, it may now be used to question our understanding of the present, and affect our vision of the future’. Judith Brett (1997: 1) put it succinctly in Political Lives: ‘the task of political biography is to tell the story of a political life in such a way as to make that life intelligible’.

Why should we be concerned that ‘political biographical methodology on the whole [is] so ill-defined’? A good biography can ‘provide students of politics with another perspective of how power is shared, how leaders are made not born, and how circumstances can catapult ordinary people into extraordinary situations’. Few would disagree with any of these sentiments. But are we not talking about biography as such. Is there a sub-species of ‘political biography’? Does it matter? What is ‘political biography’? Robert Porter (1993: 1) tells us that political biographies in Australia ‘have typically been written on those who have attained leadership of their political party or of government’. There are few memoirs and biographies of the backbencher (St John 1969; Haylen 1969; Hermann 1993; Fry 2002; Duthie 1984; Gullett 1992; Kane 1989; McManus 1977). This is not surprising. It would be an unusual publisher who is interested in a book about someone few book buyers had heard about. There is also the practical problem of the record to be examined. ‘A great man leaves a trail behind him — press reports, letters, official records, and a wide circle of acquaintances who also have letters and the rest, in which he is mentioned’ (Pimlott 1990: 223). The emphasis at the workshop was on biographies (and biographers) of the twentieth century, and mainly Australian federal politicians; that is, on leaders of government. There have been many references to Allan Martin’s two-volume biography of Menzies: A life (1993; 1999) but few to his Henry Parkes: A biography (1980). Disregarding the 79 years between the subjects’ birthdates, I suggest there is no difference in subject matter that would have the latter work labelled a ‘political biography’ and the former not.

If Ben Pimlott’s Harold Wilson (1992) and Hugh Dalton: A life (1985) are political biographies, because they were prominent in national government, is Pimlott’s The Queen: A biography of Elizabeth II (1996) a political biography? Are John Toland’s Adolf Hitler (1976) and Richard Bosworth’s Mussolini (2004) political biographies? Andrew Roberts recently published a dual biography of Napoleon and Wellington (2002). Is this a political biography? The issue is the interaction between personality and office, between government and private passions — even in people for whom governing was not their primary motivation or interest.

General Ulysses S. Grant’s The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (1895), one of the best written memoirs of which I am aware, is generally classified as being ‘military memoirs’, yet Grant was President of the United States for eight years. John Dean’s biography of Warren G. Harding (2004) has recently been published in Arthur M. Schlesinger’s series of books on American presidents, an interesting choice of author given Harding’s reputation. There is Winston Churchill’s very successful attempt to influence how he would be seen by both his contemporaries and history, The Second World War (1948-56). Few biographies bluntly state in their title that the book is a political biography, as did Jenny Hocking for Lionel Murphy: A political biography (1997). All of these biographies could be labelled as ‘political biographies’.

Trying to define a political biography is a sterile debate.^[1] The approach I would prefer is rather to ask which biographies, autobiographies and memoirs have influenced political institutions (including the public service) or, more commonly, which ones show how these institutions work. It is these works that have lasting value for political scientists. Jessie Street’s autobiography, recently edited by Lenore Coltheart, shows how this unelected campaigner for human rights influenced both Australian and international bodies (2004). In contrast, in her recent autobiography Chika, Kerry Chikarovski, the former New South Wales minister and Leader of the Opposition, shows us little of the inner workings of government — or Opposition (2004).