Robert Menzies, A Life

For each new generation of Australians, the name Robert Gordon Menzies resounds across the political landscape. No other federal politician this century can match his record period as Prime Minister, from 1949 to 1966. Not one of us is untouched by his life and work.

This long-awaited second volume of Allan Martin's unrivaled biography describes and analyses the flowering of policies and practices foretold in the first. Beginning with the birth of the Liberal Party at the end of World War II, it is the first detailed study of Menzies' climb to power and of his post-war strategies for the country and the world. It ends with his death in 1978, mourned by many as an irreplaceable leader and father figure.

The tumultuous years of the 1950s were echoed in Menzies' own life. His political acumen built on universal Cold War fears, and his anti-communist campaigns brought him into bitter conflict with H. V. Evatt. Menzies' frequent trips to the United States and Great Britain, usually by sea and invariably in time for the Test cricket, fuelled accusations of absenteeism.

Menzies' lifelong devotion to all things British, most notably the monarchy, was rewarded towards the end of his life by investiture as a Knight of the Thistle and by his succeeding Winston Churchill as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. The personal pleasure derived from his growing international stature cushioned to some degree his fall from power in domestic politics.

This volume completes a monumental contribution to Australian political biography. For both scholars and ordinary Australians, Allan Martin has sought to chronicle Menzies' life and to judge what kind of a man he was and what sort of prime ministerial life he led.