Not for the Faint-hearted

In 2007, Kevin Rudd became only the third Labor prime minister since the Second World War, after Whitlam and Hawke, to win government from opposition. In doing so he also defeated, and unseated, John Howard, the longest-serving conservative prime minister since Menzies. So who was the man behind the phenomenal success of the Kevin07 campaign? This Mandarin-speaking professional diplomat, committed Christian and self-described policy wonk, who grew up as the son of a dairy farmer in rural Queensland to become the 26th prime minister of Australia? While journalists, the professional commentariat and Rudd's political foes have together felled forests writing about the 'real' Kevin Rudd, until now he has refused to provide any written response to his many critics. That changes with this volume, which takes us to his election as prime minister in 2007. This is the first time we hear from the man himself, in his own words, about what makes him tick. With a level of self-reflection, and a capacity for sending himself up that is rarely seen in political autobiography, Rudd chronicles a childhood shaped by the love of his mother and tragically disrupted by the death of his father when he was eleven - an event that left the family without a home or an income, and which would foster in him a visceral passion for social justice, and the foundations of his own political vision. He tells of his years as a budding China scholar, his many misadventures as a young diplomat in Stockholm and Beijing, his marriage to the remarkable Therese Rein and the centrality of his tight-knit family to both his private and public lives. This is an optimistic book, written with passion, conviction and insight. It is the first in a two-volume autobiography. It covers the unlikely rise of the 'boy from Eumundi' to the most powerful office in the land.

ISBN: 9781743534830
Author: Rudd, Kevin
Publication date: 24/10/2017
Format: Hardback
Pages: 688
Dimension: 243mm X 161mm