Bruce Grant
In an active public life as foreign correspondent, columnist, academic, and diplomat, Bruce Grant has also written ten works of non-fiction, three novels, essays and many short stories. His first book Indonesia became a classic. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Australian High Commissioner in New Delhi, foundation chairman of the Australia-Indonesia Institute, chairman of the Australian Dance Theatre, chairman of the Victorian Premier’s literary awards, and president of Melbourne’s International Arts Festival.
Needless to say, yet needing to be said, Australia’s twenty-third prime minister, R.J.L. Hawke, emerges from this interesting, sometimes engrossing yet disconcerting book smelling like roses. When MUP decided to publish, it must have seemed like a good idea. Deployed on television, Bob and Blanche were a marketing dream. But the result has a fatal flaw; it neither enlarges Hawke as a political l ... (read more)
Politics is a demanding profession that calls for skills of leadership and oratory, as well as management, analysis, and even theatre. Asking a politician to be truthful as well may be looking a gift-horse in the mouth. But we do. Misleading parliament by being ‘untruthful’ (‘lying’ is so reprehensible that it is unparliamentary to accuse a member of it) is a serious offence. In the US pre ... (read more)
Henry Kissinger has never seemed at home in the United States, although he has served in its highest councils and received its richest rewards. When I was one of his students at Harvard, we called him Henry, to distinguish him from professorial luminaries such as Galbraith, Riesman, and Schlesinger. He did not fit the insistent reasonableness of the Harvard faculty. His guttural voice, anxiety to ... (read more)
These two books were written in the last stages of a fatal illness. What is remarkable about them is their poise. They show no signs of anguish, anger, or remorse. They remind us of the discipline of a trained and responsible mind, nimble and true to its calling until the end.
... (read more)