Australian Political Lives

Table of Contents

List of Contributors

Preface

1. The Art of Australian Political Biography

2. Political Biography: Its Contribution to Political Science

What is biography?

Why write biography?

What does biography add?

What are the problems of writing biography?

Choosing a subject

Dead or live subjects?

How to read between the lines?

3. Recording Non-Labor Politics Through Biography

4. The ‘Life Myth’, ‘Short Lives’ and Dealing with Live Subjects in Political Biography

Myths, Training and the Biographer’s Approach

The Problems with Live Subjects

5. Public Lives, Private Lives: the Fundamental Dilemma in Political Biography

6. Expanding The Repertoire: Theory, Method and Language in Political Biography

Introduction

Theory: Beliefs, Traditions, Dilemmas

Why Beliefs?

Why Traditions?

Why Dilemmas?

Why Narratives?

Method

Language

Conclusion

7. John Curtin: Taking his Childhood Seriously

8. Ministers, Prime Ministers, Mandarins: Politics as a Job

9. Biography and the Rehabilitation of the Subject: The Case of John Gorton

10. Aboriginality and Impersonality: Three Australian Indigenous Administrative Memoirs

Charles Perkins

Gordon Matthews

Wayne King

Concluding Comments

11. Writing Political Biography

12. Jessie Street and the New Political Biography

13. Conjuring Fascinating Stories: the Case of Sir Arthur Tange

14. Anonymous in Life, Anonymous in Death: Memoirs and Biographies of Administrators

15. The Personal Writings of Politicians

16. Writing Political Autobiographies

17. Political Biographies and Administrative Memoirs: Some Concluding Comments

What is 'political biography' — and does the description matter?

What is a good political biography — and what gets published?

Questions of Sources and Methodology

Who owns the story, and how far should one delve into the private as distinct from public life?

The problem of gender bias

Gaps in administrative memoirs

Conclusion

References

Index