Whitlam To Winston

Politics is often described as public service, which is a noble way of saying meetings, grudges, speeches, ambition, compromise, and the occasional magnificent collapse. Whitlam to Winston by Barry Cohen looks back across Australian political life with the weary amusement of someone who was there, took notes, and survived.

Cohen served through a lively stretch of Australian politics, from the Whitlam years onwards, and this memoir offers portraits, anecdotes, reflections, and the sort of insider detail that makes politics look less like a grand machine and more like a room full of clever people trying not to trip over one another.

There are personalities here, naturally. Political memoirs need personalities in the same way parliaments need arguments. Cohen writes with humour and warmth, but also with the useful sharpness of a man who knows that public life is never quite as dignified behind the scenes as it appears in the official photographs.

This 1997 Allen & Unwin edition, in fine condition, is a very smart copy of a political memoir with wit, memory, and a distinctly Australian flavour. Ideal for readers interested in Australian politics, political autobiography, parliamentary life, and the strange comedy of government by humans.

Whitlam to Winston is public life remembered with a raised eyebrow — part memoir, part political scrapbook, and part evidence that history is often run by people who badly need a cup of tea.

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