Doing Politics: Writing on Public Life

Since the 1980s Judith Brett has been helping to shape Australians’ conversations about politics, bringing a historian’s eye to contemporary issues and probing the psychology of our prime ministers. Her writings about Liberal Party leaders have been widely influential, especially her famous 1984 essay ‘Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People’ and her prize-winning book of the same name, as well as her analysis of John Howard’s nationalism.

Brett has interrogated some our most complex issues: multiculturalism, the politics of rural Australia, the republic, mining and climate change, our electoral traditions, the way ordinary people do politics, the decline of universities. Always she writes as a citizen for her fellow citizens, in her distinctive voice: enquiring, accessible and wry.

Doing Politics brings together the finest essays by the author of The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage and the Quarterly Essay ‘The Coal Curse’.

About the author: 

Judith Brett is emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University in Melbourne, where she taught from 1989 until her retirement in 2012. She was the third editor of the literary journal Meanjin, from 1982 to 1986. She has written extensively on Australia’s political history as well as on contemporary politics, and contributed regularly to the Monthly magazine. 

Product details: 

Author: Judith Brett

Publisher: The Text Publishing Company

Dimensions: 155 x 25 x 235 mm

Pages: 312

Format: Paperback

Publication date: 2 November 2021

ISBN: 9781922330987