An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark by Mark McKenna

Manning Clark was a complex, demanding and brilliant man. Mark McKenna's compelling biography of this giant of Australia's cultural landscape is informed by his reading of Clark's extensive private letters, journals, and diaries - many of which have never been read before.

An Eye for Eternity paints a sweeping portrait of the man who gave Australians the signature account of their own history. It tells of his friendships with Patrick White and Sidney Nolan. It details an urgent and dynamic marriage, ripped apart at times by Clark's constant need for extramarital romantic love. A son who wrote letters to his dead parents. A historian who placed narrative ahead of facts. A believer who flirted with Catholicism. A controversial public figure who marked slights and criticisms with deeply held grudges. To understand Clark's life is to understand twentieth century Australia. And it raises fundamental questions about the craft of biography. When are letters too personal, comments too hurtful and insights too private to publish? Clark incessantly documented his life--leaving notes to the biographers he knew would pursue his story. He had a deep need to be remembered and this book means he will now be understood in an unforgettable way.

More than any other historian in the twentieth century, Manning Clark inspired the love and loathing of political parties, professional colleagues and the general public. Throughout his life, he played several roles: teacher, author of the epic "A History of Australia", anointed historian of the Australian Labor Party, prophet and stirrer. From any vantage point-intellectual, literary, political-Manning Clark's impact on Australia's culture is profound. As his biographer Mark McKenna reads it, the life of Clark is the biography of Australia, especially between the 1970s and 1990s. So much about these years was unique, so much of it now lost to view. The almost naive optimism, the sense of starting out, of awakening, the surge of creativity, the spirit of irreverence. The sudden realisation that we had a history all our own.