Cirrus@Austlit

'In this personal yet unsentimental memoir, Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty unearths the revealing and unique history of tennis and its ties to culture and nationalism.

'For those who look, and think deeply, new connections emerge. Peter Doherty, one of the world's foremost authorities on immunology, recipient of the Nobel Prize for medicine, and an active and respected commentator on public health, reflects in this book on empire, war and tennis Doherty identifies the origins of modern tennis within its imperial context, relating seemingly unlikely connections between the sport, its players and national militaries. He traces the fate of tennis-and its players-as a nascent force for internationalism and cultural tolerance within the context of World War II. And he personalises this account through an unsentimental but revealing depiction of his tennis-loving Queenslander uncles, at war and in captivity in the Pacific. As Doherty shows, tennis and war have threaded their way through the lives of many people since the nineteenth century, in a way intriguingly unique to this sport. This is part of Peter's story. And, as we come to realise, it is also part of the story of our world.'  (Publication summary)

'At 80, I’m just a bit older than Meanjin.

'Born into the British Empire, we both started out in Brisbane where, in December 1940, journalist Clem Christesen AM OBE published the first Meanjin Papers. Days later (3 January 1941) the 6th Division of the 2nd AIF, which, like the 1st Australian Imperial Force of 1914–18, had been training in Palestine, engaged with Italian forces at Bardia, the first occasion where our ground troops were seriously committed in World War II. I’d arrived in the preceding October, the month in which the Battle of Britain ended. Some 35 Australian pilots (ten died) flew in that conflict over Will Shakespeare’s ‘sceptered isle’—this fortress built by nature for itself against infection and the hand of war—that my Essex-born, Brisbane-resident maternal grandparents, Bert and Emma Byford, still referred to as ‘home’.' (Introduction)

'Join Nobel Prize winner Peter Doherty on his extraordinary adventures around the globe.

'Doherty's dazzling schedule can leave his head spinning. So what happens when he lifts his gaze and asks: 'What the hell am I doing here?'

'Doherty has kept a journal about the far-flung destinations his work has taken him to for more than thirty years. His observations and discoveries in The Incidental Tourist make for perfect armchair travel.' (Publication summary)