The first major biography of Don Dunstan, one of the few state premiers to stride the national stage and make a lasting mark on Australian life. Don Dunstan was one of the most significant political figures of twentieth-century Australia. As Premier of South Australia, he blazed a trail of reform. But his influence reached far beyond his home state. He was seen as the architect of a new kind of Australian society, and his decade in office marked a golden age. This is the first comprehensive biography of a larger than life figure. Angela Woollacott recounts how he battled Adelaide's conservative establishment to win office for Labor, and then pioneered Aboriginal land rights, abolished the death penalty, supported women's rights, relaxed censorship and drinking laws and decriminalised homosexuality. He worked against the White Australia Policy, and was an ardent supporter of the arts and food. Although he was much loved by the public, Dunstan's career was marked by controversy and vilification, with scandal surrounding his personal relationships. Dunstan's life story helps us to appreciate just what a watershed era the 1960s and 1970s were in Australia, and to see how one small state could, for a time, lead a nation. 'A fitting tribute' - Penny Wong 'Whitlam and Dunstan were the Washington and Jefferson of modern Australian Labor politics.' - Mike Rann 'Angela Woollacott's biography captures what was so special about him.' - Maggie Beer

This is the first account of the Bannon years, indispensable because it's told by a former senior minister without hope or desire of reinstatement. It's a successful reformer's diary of some of the Bannon government's finest achievements.

The obituary pages of our quality newspapers have been described as 'oases of calm in a world gone mad', 'a lovely part of the paper to linger in', and 'writing that matters'. Entertaining, inspiring and informative, they serve as a legitimate instrument of history, and have enjoyed an extraordinary revival in popularity over the past twenty years. Life After Death investigates-and celebrates-the development of the obituary form in the British, American, and Australian press. Author Nigel Starck tracks down the earliest exercise in obituary publication (in 1622), then traces the evolution of the form over four centuries, from times when the obituary was the reserve of royalty and privilege to its contemporary egalitarian mode. Along the way Dr Starck delves into a multitude of lives, from the heroic to the comic, the saintly to the downright villainous, the exemplary to the eccentric. Meet, in the posthumous cast list, Major Digby Tatham-Warter, of Britain's Parachute Regiment, who carried an umbrella into battle just in case it rained; the absent-minded Australian barrister Pat Lanigan, who drove from Canberra to Sydney and then flew back, leaving his car behind; and the eccentric American publisher Eddie Clontz, whose newspaper reported (exclusively, of course) that 'tiny terrorists' were disguising themselves as garden gnomes. Life After Death also incorporates a connoisseur's collection of ten obituaries reprinted in full: the subjects include Helen Keller, Diana Mosley, Quentin Crisp, George Wallace, and Rosa Parks. Without doubt, Life After Death is a book that will outlive its author-as an enduring celebration of journalism's dying art. 'Canon Smith expired after suffering an unfortunate disagreement with his bishop.'-The Sydney Morning Herald, 1882 'Minnesota Fats died at his home in Nashville. He was eighty-two, or perhaps ninety-five.'-The New York Times, 1996

In the year 937, the new king of England, a grandson of Alfred the Great, readies himself to go to war in the north. His dream of a united kingdom of all England will stand or fall on one field—on the passage of a single day. At his side is the priest Dunstan of Glastonbury, full of ambition and wit (perhaps enough to damn his soul). His talents will take him from the villages of Wessex to the royal court, to the hills of Rome—from exile to exaltation. Through Dunstan’s vision, by his guiding hand, England will either come together as one great country or fall back into anarchy and misrule . . . From one of our finest historical writers, The Abbott’s Tale is an intimate portrait of a priest and performer, a visionary, a traitor and confessor to kings—the man who can change the fate of England.

Just weeks before he died on 6 February 1999, Don Dunstan completed the last of many articles written for the Adelaide Review. In these articles he wrote of the importance of democratic institutions, the absurdities of economic rationalism and the need to fight against social and economic injustices.