Edmund Barton: The One Man for the Job by Geoffrey Bolton

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Previous owner has signed front endpage, now covered with blank ex libris bookplate sticker.Dust jacket has creasing at edges and at spine. Back cover is worn. Dust jacket is now enclosed in protective cover. Pages have started to sun.

This is the story of how an easy-going Sydney politician, with a reputation for enjoying the pleasures of the table and a fondness for cricket, became possessed by one enduring enthusiasm. That passion, sustained for almost two decades, was to build a new country from a collection of British colonies.

How did Edmund Barton, although only one of many who contributed to the federal cause, come to be regarded as its actual and symbolic leader? In the company of figures like Henry Parkes, Samuel Griffith, George Reid and Alfred Deakin, Barton was by no means the most flamboyant or forceful of these campaigners. So what led the supporters of the Federation to acknowledge the man caricatured in the press as 'Tosspot Toby' as the necessary man, 'the one man for the job' of the first prime minister of the Commonwealth of Australia?

Few Australians can recall the name of their first prime minister, and fewer know what kind of man he was. This, the first biography in fifty years, demonstrates that Edmund Barton was and is worth knowing. (book flap)