Join Paperchain Bookstore with biographer and historian David Day, author of the recently-published Maurice Blackburn: champion of the people.
After his father died when Maurice Blackburn was a child, he was brought up by a mother who was descended from Melbourne’s gentry and was determined to raise him as a gentleman who would achieve greatness as a judge or a prime minister. However, Blackburn had humbler aims. With the support of his wife, he wanted instead ‘to make life better for the ordinary men and women of the country’. He went on to do so, defending the rights of working people as a leading barrister in the courts and as a politician in the parliaments of Melbourne and Canberra, and became much loved and admired across the political spectrum.
A socialist and internationalist all his life, who was twice expelled from the Labor Party for his principles, Blackburn became a leading opponent of conscription in both world wars, a supporter of rights for women, an advocate for peace, and a tireless campaigner for transforming Australia so that it served the interests of all its people.
Part love story, part gripping political thriller, the poignant story of the much-lauded Maurice Blackburn exposes a time when influence-peddling was rife, when political possibilities seemed limitless, and when a man of principle could still make a big difference to the course of Australian politics.
‘This book goes behind the legal legend to explore what made this unusual man tick in an age of political disillusionment; it has lessons for our time.’ The Hon. Michael Kirby, AC, CMG, Former Justice of the High Court of Australia
David Day is a bestselling and prize-winning biographer and historian, several of whose books have been published to acclaim in the United States and Britain and have been translated into numerous languages. Among his many academic posts, David Day has been a junior research fellow at Clare College in Cambridge, a by-fellow at Churchill College in Cambridge, and a visiting fellow at the University of Aberdeen and the Australian National University. He spent three years as a visiting professor at University College, Dublin, and two years at the University of Tokyo. He is currently an honorary associate in the history program at La Trobe University. Maurice Blackburn: champion of the people is his twentieth book.
RSVP: info@paperchainbookstore.com.au or phone 6295 6723
