Cirrus@Austlit

'By now, the Robert Manne essay is a well-established form – four decades at the centre of public life will do that. Whatever the topic, his pieces tend to possess certain qualities: an almost lawyerly emphasis on fact and argument over style and rhetoric; a professor’s sympathy for the world of ideas over the muck of institutions; an unfashionable willingness to change his mind without worry or shame; and an overwhelming focus on public questions over private struggles.' (Introduction)