Cirrus@Austlit

'This new monograph on Australian Prime Minister Sir John Gorton (1968-71) by Dr Paul Williams, Senior Lecturer in politics, journalism and public relations at Griffith University’s School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences, is more than just a snapshot of one of Australia’s more interesting, and at times, most difficult to understand prime ministers. Rather, Dr Williams’s considerable additional research provides a better understanding of the political context of Gorton’s times. We come to appreciate the changing nature of Australian politics and society, including Labor’s resurgence and the fracturing of the Liberal Party’s dominance, and how each of these affected Gorton’s prime ministership and assessments of his performance.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Future generations of readers will invariably look back in awe at the second decade of twenty-first-century Australian politics for its ridiculous revolving door of prime ministers. Personal and journalistic accounts of this rare instability – Australia had six prime ministers between 2010 and 2018 – have certainly proved a publishing bonanza. Defeated prime ministers publish memoirs as rapidly as journalists and commentators write their chronicles.'  (Introduction)