Böcker av Paul Strangio

Leadership turnover in recent years has seen more prime ministers in Australia rise and fall than at any time since the decade after federation. What explains this volatility? The Pivot of Power is the second volume in a unique blend of collective biography and institutional history that shows the skills, limitations and passions of incumbents are only part of the story.

The prime ministership is indisputably the most closely observed and keenly contested office in Australia. How did it grow to become the pivot of national political power? This volume chronicles the development of the prime ministership from its rudimentary early days following Federation through to the powerful, institutionalised prime-ministerial leadership of the postwar era.

Meticulously researched and elegantly written, Neither Power Nor Glory fills an important gap in Australian political history and our understanding of the Labor Party. It is also a timely antidote to nostalgia about Labor's past. In Victoria at least, that past was anything but golden.

Argues persuasively that we need to reclaim politics and power from politicians who have increasingly pursued contentious policies unconstrained by robust debate. P Strangio, Monash University.