Young Hawke

From Rhodes Scholar to union leader to political powerhouse: how Bobbie became Bob, the iconic PM. The new biography from award-winning historian David Day sheds fresh light on the formative years of Australia's most charismatic leader, who became a political legend.

David Day's biography of the young Bob Hawke takes readers on a journey, from his humble beginnings as the often-neglected son of religious zealots on the South Australian frontier to his wild ways at a succession of universities and his eventual rise as the country's most powerful union leader. Day provides a new perspective on a larrikin who was known for his overweening self-confidence and charm. A skilled negotiator with a drive to bring Australians together, he would go on to become our most popular and accomplished prime minister.

Drawing on a decade of extensive research and interviews with those who knew Hawke best, this ground-breaking biography by an acclaimed writer reveals how Hawke's difficult childhood shaped him into someone who was also known for his uncontrollable bouts of anger and notorious for his alcoholism, obsessive womanising and close links with some of Australia's more shadowy characters.

This gripping biography is a must-read for anyone interested in the first fifty years of Bob Hawke, our last truly colourful political leader.

David Day has written more than twenty books to great acclaim, both here and overseas. Apart from eight political biographies, including prize-winning biographies of John Curtin and Ben Chifley, he has written several books about the Second World War and others on Antarctica. He has won or been shortlisted for several literary prizes, including the South Australian Festival Prize for Literature, the National Biography Award, the NSW Premier's Literary Prize, the NSW Premier's History Award, the Centre for Australian Cultural Studies National Awards, the Queensland Premier's Literary Award and the Fellowship of Australian Writers Book of the Year. A graduate of Melbourne and Cambridge universities, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, he has been a research fellow at Clare College in Cambridge, a visiting fellow at Churchill College in Cambridge, a professor of history at University College Dublin, a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, and a visiting fellow at the University of Aberdeen. He has served as the official historian of the Australian Customs Service and the Bureau of Meteorology, and been an Australian Research Council senior research fellow at La Trobe University in Melbourne, where he is currently based.

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