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Chris Watson & the first ALP Government
Ross McMullin: So Monstrous a Travesty
AN IRRESTIBLE READ FOR TRUE BELIEVERS
Ross McMullin has written the story of Chris Watson and the world's first national labour government.
If you would like your copy inscribed with a personalised author's signature, email Labor eHerald at garyo@alp.org.au or contact Ross on 03 9481 6409. Cost $30.
So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the World's First National Labour Government, has been widely acclaimed as a riveting page-turner. Impressed reviewers praised Ross for his meticulous research and superb writing. This is what they said.
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This is a book written for a wide audience, and a book that deserves one. Ross McMullin presents a lucid, engaging survey of the Watson government and the early experience of federal Labor in power. An often mentioned but rarely examined Labor government, Watson and his Cabinet are brought to life by McMullin in a way that highlights their importance and should appeal to the general reader and student of labour history alike.
The great strength of this book is in the writing ... McMullin presents the story of the Chilean born Australian prime minister in page-turning style. McMullin draws the reader into the political world of the early 1900s. He makes the reader feel part of the story and his obvious enthusiasm and sympathy for the subject draws you in....( Shawn Sherlock, Labour History).
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The Watson Labor government rose unexpectedly, survived precariously and fell predictablyall within the space of four months. It left no significant legislative imprint. If this seems a slim basis for a book-length study, Ross McMullin proves otherwise in this absorbing, deftly related account ... McMullin's command of the terrain is enviable. Characteristic of his writing, it features keenly observed sympathetic portraits of the key Labor players, including future prime ministers Andrew Fisher and Billy Hughes, which infuse the narrative with the flavour of collective biography. Stir in the ingredients of scheming Tories and a hostile capitalist press and McMullin produces a recipe irresistible for 'true believers'....( Paul Strangio, The Age)
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This book tells the story, succinctly and with elegance, of the first national Labor government in the world ... With this book, Ross McMullin has reinforced his reputation as the pre-eminent historian of the ALP....( Jeff Shaw, Sydney Morning Herald)
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This is an altogether splendid little book, being as useful and readable in its 175 pages of text as the same author's vastly longer Pompey Elliott (750pp). Dr Johnson would have said that Ross McMullin can not only cut a colossus from a rock but can carve a head on a cherry stone ... This engaging book has been well written, well designed, and well printed and bound....( Peter Ryan, The Australian)
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McMullin is a meticulous researcher ... He also has an eye for the little details that graphically illuminate personality and place ... This book is beautifully crafted. McMullin does more than simply tell the story of the Watson government, although he does that well. With carefully placed chapters admirable for both their economy and readability, McMullin narrates the emergence of the Labor Party in Australia in the late nineteenth century, and compares it with parties of the left elsewhere in the world. Australian Labor, he reminds us, was on the agenda in contemporary European debates about the future of socialism. It provided an example to be emulated, or shunned, depending on whether you were a revolutionary or a moderate....( Frank Bongiorno, Australian Book Review)
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Ross McMullin has written a short, fascinating history of the Watson government, So Monstrous a Travestya title taken from the tirade of press abuse heaped on Australias first Labor government....( Dennis Atkins, The Courier-Mail)
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In 1904 it was a radical and, for many people, frightening notion that Labor would actually govern. Such an idea was yet to be tested and Watson delivered the trial run ... McMullin is surely correct in seeing Watsons triumph not in any decision but in proving to the nation that Labor was fit to govern and able to govern properly. This is Watsons legacy. The great Labor governments of the future walked on his foundations....( Paul Kelly, The Australian)
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This is an excellent history, finely honed and thoroughly researched....( Ross Fitzgerald, The Bulletin)
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Watson was prime minister for a few months in 1904, achieving the distinction of becoming not only Australias first labor prime minister but the first labour prime minister of any country anywhere ... It is shameful that such a significant character should have fallen from the national story ... Read this book for its account of Labors first program of legislation, which included the preposterous idea that Aborigines should be allowed to deliver the mail. Read it also for its paean to early Labor figures, such as the Queenslander Andy Dawson who rose from poverty and sank into alcoholism but, in between, led the first Labor Government anywhere in the world....( Michael McGirr, Eureka Street )
