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

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Faint marks on tail foredge.

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, maintained across almost two decades, was to make 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, 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)