Neither Power Nor Glory
100 Years Of Political Labor In Victoria, 1856-1956
Published on 1. June 2012
392 pages
978-0-522-86212-6 (ISBN)
Description
When Frank Hardy published Power Without Glory, his notorious novel about corruption and venality in the Victorian Labor Party, it quickly came to be seen as a true account of the party. Until now, there has been no authoritative chronicle of the struggles of political Labor in Victoria, from its origins in the mid-nineteenth century through to the calamitous split of the 1950s.
By conventional measures these were fallow years. Ensnared by the colony's powerful liberal protectionist tradition in the late nineteenth century, Victorian Labor then found itself hindered by a grossly unfair electoral system and the lack of a constituency outside Melbourne's industrial suburbs. But exile from government also meant that the party developed its own distinctive traditions and culture. It was a unique and intriguing species among the state Labor parties.
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.
WINNER OF THE 2013 HENRY MAYER PRIZE
By conventional measures these were fallow years. Ensnared by the colony's powerful liberal protectionist tradition in the late nineteenth century, Victorian Labor then found itself hindered by a grossly unfair electoral system and the lack of a constituency outside Melbourne's industrial suburbs. But exile from government also meant that the party developed its own distinctive traditions and culture. It was a unique and intriguing species among the state Labor parties.
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.
WINNER OF THE 2013 HENRY MAYER PRIZE
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06/2012
Melbourne University Press
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Person
Paul Strangio is Associate Professor of Politics in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University. A political historian and biographer, he has written extensively about political leadership and political parties in Australia. Before recent studies of the Australian prime ministers, his last book was Neither Power Nor Glory: 100 Years of Political Labor in Victoria, 1856?1956 (2012). Paul has also been a long-time commentator on Australian politics in the print and electronic media.
He is the co-author of Understanding Prime-Ministerial Performance: Comparative Perspectives (2013), Settling the Office: The Australian Prime Ministership from Federation to Reconstruction (2016) and The Pivot of Power: Australian Prime Ministers and Political Leadership, 1949-2016 (2017).
He is the co-author of Understanding Prime-Ministerial Performance: Comparative Perspectives (2013), Settling the Office: The Australian Prime Ministership from Federation to Reconstruction (2016) and The Pivot of Power: Australian Prime Ministers and Political Leadership, 1949-2016 (2017).
