'Following the death of South Australia's former long-serving premier, Don Dunstan, Gough Whitlam remarked:
'It is difficult to rekindle the brightness of the light which seemed to shine from Adelaide around Australia during the Dunstan years. The fact is that no one has done more to transform his own community and society and, by his example, the whole of Australia. (xii–xiii)
'Dunstan's biographer, Angela Woollacott, set herself the task of rekindling the brightness of the light, and she succeeds admirably in this comprehensive biography of one of South Australia's – and the Australian Labor Party's – most progressive figures.' (Introduction)