'John Murphy’s Evatt: A Life is a biography of Australian parliamentarian and jurist HV Evatt. Remembered as the first foreign minister to argue for an independent Australian policy in the 1940s and for his central role in the formation of the UN, Evatt went on to be the leader of the Labor party in the 1950s, the time of the split that resulted in the party being out of power for a generation. Evatt traces the course of Evatt’s life and places him in the context of a long period of conservatism in Australia. It treats Evatt’s inner, personal life as being just as important as his spectacular, controversial and eventual tragic public career. Murphy looks closely at Evatt’s previously unexamined private life and unravels some of the puzzles that have lead Evatt to be considered erratic, even mad.' (Publication summary)
'Whether the product of the economics of Australia’s small book-buying market or a self-deprecating national temperament, there is something of an inhibition towards examining lives that have already received biographical treatment. H.V. Evatt defies that convention. John Murphy’s is the fourth full-scale biography of him. In the introduction, Murphy suggests that, despite those previous studies, Evatt has mostly remained “out of focus, evading capture or only being captured in fragments”.' (Introduction)
'Any account of the life of Herbert Vere Evatt must address two key questions: could the Labor split of the mid 1950s have been avoided with a leader other than Evatt, and was Evatt “mad”? John Murphy tackles these issues and more in a very readable account of one of Australian politics’ most perplexing characters. Evatt has perhaps been the subject of more studies than many prime ministers, which would be small solace to a man who so greatly craved that high office but who, after failing to reach it by a slim margin in 1954, spent the next six years in very public political and psychological disintegration.' (Introduction)
'Any account of the life of Herbert Vere Evatt must address two key questions: could the Labor split of the mid 1950s have been avoided with a leader other than Evatt, and was Evatt “mad”? John Murphy tackles these issues and more in a very readable account of one of Australian politics’ most perplexing characters. Evatt has perhaps been the subject of more studies than many prime ministers, which would be small solace to a man who so greatly craved that high office but who, after failing to reach it by a slim margin in 1954, spent the next six years in very public political and psychological disintegration.' (Introduction)
'Whether the product of the economics of Australia’s small book-buying market or a self-deprecating national temperament, there is something of an inhibition towards examining lives that have already received biographical treatment. H.V. Evatt defies that convention. John Murphy’s is the fourth full-scale biography of him. In the introduction, Murphy suggests that, despite those previous studies, Evatt has mostly remained “out of focus, evading capture or only being captured in fragments”.' (Introduction)
