The oddly compelling story of a man regarded as Australia's worst prime minister.
Patrick Mullins is a Canberra-based writer and academic who has a PhD from the University of Canberra. Tiberius with a Telephone, his first book, won the 2020 NSW Premier's Non-Fiction Award and the 2020 National Biography Award. He is also the author of The Trials of Portnoy- how Penguin brought down Australia's censorship system.
``For God's sake behave like a prime minister', implored the
journalist who had assisted William McMahon to attain that office.
His faults were legion. Throughout his political career he boasted
and intrigued, curried favour, and was habitually disloyal. He
worked assiduously with little comprehension of his
responsibilities, and was indecisive and prone to panic. Patrick
Mullins' engrossing, fine biography does much more than document
all these liabilities: it explains how they enabled him to attain
national leadership and left him unable to exercise it.' - Stuart
Macintyre
`Mullins fills an enormous gap in our political history with
extraordinary insight and clarity. He casts new light on our
post-war politics. and rescues one of its most dominant figures
from the throes of partisan caricature.' - Lindsay Tanner, author
of Sideshow and Politics with Purpose
`Sir William McMahon, Liberal party leader and Australia's 20th
prime minister, was a master of political intrigue. He accumulated
epithets - `Billy big-ears', `Billy the leak', `a quean', and in
Gough Whitlam's memorable quip, `Tiberius with a telephone'. In
this commanding and exceptionally researched biography, Patrick
Mullins has retrieved McMahon from historical neglect, revealing
the man behind the personal and political caricature. It is a
compelling portrait of an insecure, vain, deeply ambitious man, and
a skilful political operator whose one great strength, his
remarkable persistence, was eventually rewarded with the liberal
prime ministership.
At once fascinating, revelatory, unflattering, and at times
uncomfortable, Mullins never shies away from McMahon's clear and
unavoidable personal failings. His own colleagues described him as
an inveterate liar, a compulsive leaker, and `completely
untrustworthy'. Some refused outright ever to work with him.
As Mullins unravels this devastating personal and political
critique, McMahon's ascendency is all the more remarkable. But this
is a story also of the Liberal Party in decline, divided and
uncertain of its place in the weary interregnum between the twin
titans of Australian politics - the founding Liberal leader, Sir
Robert Menzies, and Labor's Gough Whitlam.
Mullins' exemplary research, skilful use of an innovative
structure, and engaging biographical narrative shows a complete
picture of McMahon for the first time. This is everything a
political biography should be.' - Emeritus Professor Jenny Hocking,
Monash University, author of Gough Whitlam: the definitive
biography
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
