Paul Keating. The Biography

Cover Type: Hardcover
Book Condition: Good
Jacket Condition: Good
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Publisher Place: Sydney
Publisher Year: 2015
Edition: First Edition

Description: 557 pages. Ex-Library. (only one small stamp on inside page). Book and Jacket are both in Good condition. There is some light shelf and reading wear, but still a presentable copy.

Publishers Description: In the end, the key ingredient for public life is imagination. You imagine something better, you try to bring people with you.Paul KeatingLeaving school at fourteen, and challenged by reading difficulties, Paul Keating was not expected to do well. Yet he was elected to parliament at the age of just twenty-five and went on to become one of Australias most important political figures.Prize-winning biographer David Day has written an extraordinary story of the single-minded ambition that drove Keating to the top, revealing how he turned his reading difficulty to advantage, becoming a devastating debater in parliament and eventually toppling Australias most popular prime minister, Bob Hawke.By then, Keating had been treasurer for nearly nine years, during which time he had transformed the Australian economy, making it much more open and outward looking and setting it up for the prosperity of the late 1990s.But it was the position of prime minister that Keating particularly coveted. Only then would he get the chance to make the really big changes to Australia and to the way that Australians thought of themselves and their place in the world.Keating became prime minister in 1991, twenty-two years after he first entered parliament. The cost of his single-minded ambition was eating away at his marriage and threatening the relationships that he held most dear. Although fearful that power had come to him too late, he was impelled to push on.There were big issues confronting the country—from reconciliation to the republic and relations with Asia—and Keating was determined not to shrink from the challenge of finding progressive solutions. His chance to carve out a place in history had come, and Australia would be the better for the political courage and vision that he brought to the office of prime minister.However, rather than being lauded for his efforts, Keating was tossed from office at the 1996 election by voters who had become tired of change. Spurned by his own party, and with his marriage in tatters, Keating was left lonely and embittered as he watched some of his milestone achievements being dismantled by the new government.This landmark biography of Australias 24th prime minister from eminent political historian David Day provides a long-awaited appraisal of one of this countrys most fascinating and divisive public figures.

ISBN: 9780732284251