Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class

‘This is a book of major significance. It provides an original and powerfully coherent insight into how the non-Labor parties have understood politics and themselves.’ Professor Stuart Macintyre, University of Melbourne ‘I believe this analysis to be very important indeed, making a serious and fresh contribution to our understanding of party politics … The exposition of middle class virtue … is quite brilliant.’ Graham Maddox ‘Judith Brett has a story to tell that is not only fascinating in itself, but at times almost spookily reminiscent of passes in the history of British parties in the twentieth century … an account of Australian party politics which breaks free of many of the crudities of political science and casts a flood of light on the relationship between rhetoric and morality in the politics of twentieth-century liberal democracies.’ Times Literary Supplement

Judith Brett is the author of the highly acclaimed Menzies’ Forgotten People, winner of the Arthur Phillips award for Australian Studies, Douglas Stewart award for non-fiction and Ernest Scott prize. Formerly the editor of Meanjin and Arena magazines, she has been teaching politics at La Trobe University since 1989.