The Longest Decade
George Megalogenis
'[George Megalogenis] has done something quite remarkable: on the one hand he has produced a scholarly, yet first-hand, understanding of the Paul Keating–Howard years and on the other he has fashioned a riveting analysis of Australia’s recent political and cultural history ... This book is a brilliant primer for those who wish to understand the Keating years and Australia under Howard.’
Ross Fitzgerald (Weekend Australian)'Take it from three successive prime ministers – this is a book worth paying attention to.'
Jo Case (Big Issue Australia)'It’s like Costello clocked on in 1996 and knocked off in 2007 and, when asked what was going on, said "don’t ask me mate, I just work here." Anyone wanting a considered analysis of what the Howard years meant will for now have to rely on George Megalogenis’s The Longest Decade, which does a superb job of explaining how Australia changed under Keating and then Howard. In Costello’s telling, the Hawke-Keating years were an unmitigated disaster and a personal affront, given he had to clean up the mess.'
Bernard Keane, on The Costello Memoirs (crikey.com)Before the 1990s, the decades in Australia used to run to a predictable script of bust, boom, and bust. They’d commence with the economy in the pits, assume the personality of the good times that followed, and conclude with another collapse. Conveniently, this cycle took about ten years to play out.
Paul Keating and John Howard altered the nation’s body-clock. Between them, they dominated 30 years of power, as both treasurers and prime ministers. Typically, they are seen only as antagonists with competing visions of Australia and its place in the world. In The Longest Decade, George Megalogenis argues that they also deserve to be seen as the twin architects of the political, economic and social revolution that took Australia through a period of trauma and recovery, and then on to an era of unprecedented affluence.
Based on exclusive interviews with both Keating and Howard, and on Megalogenis’s many years experience as a member of the Canberra press gallery, The Longest Decade is a brilliant, non-partisan analysis of the forces that shape Australia today — from the rise of working women to the triumph of the McMansion.
This is the story of how an era came to be defined by Keating and Howard, but it is also the bigger story of how Australia became a more complex society, and how the nation’s evolution, in turn, forced its leaders to adapt. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Australia in the 21st century.
This revised and updated edition includes several additional chapters dealing with the termination of the Keating–Howard era.
George Megalogenis
George Megalogenis is the author of Faultlines (Scribe 2003) and The Longest Decade (Scribe 2006, updated 2008) and a senior journalist with The Australian newspaper. He spent 11 years in the Canberra press gallery between 1988 and 1999 before returning to The Australian’s Melbourne bureau.
He has a small footprint in each area of the media: newspapers, the Internet, television and radio. Apart from his day job, he runs his own blog, 'Meganomics', on The Australian’s website, is a regular panellist with the ABC’s Insiders program and appears on Melbourne community radio RRR’s Breakfasters program.
The Longest Decade created a record of sorts in 2006 when it was launched by John Howard in Canberra and then Paul Keating in Sydney. The book has been updated and expanded with new chapters covering the end of the Keating–Howard era and the rise of Kevin Rudd.
Website: http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/meganomics/index.php
Buy from Readings
Extent: 416
Size: 210mm x 135mm
ISBN (13): 9781921215940
RRP: $29.95
Pub date: May 2008
Read more about The Longest Decade from George Megalogenis’s interview with ABC Radio’s Perspective program.
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