Every biographer has a relationship with their subject, even if they have passed away. A real advantage for biographers of the dead is that the subject cannot say what they think about the book. The relationship between Margaret Simons and Penny Wong was fraught. That this mattered is evident from the opening sentence: ‘Penny Wong did not want this book to be written.’ Simons, a journalist, bi ... (read more)
Angela Woollacott
Angela Woollacott is the Manning Clark Professor of History at the Australian National University, an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Australian Academy of Humanities, and a former president of the Australian Historical Association. Her new book Don Dunstan: The visionary politician who changed Australia (Allen & Unwin, 2019) was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery grant.