Left, Right, Left

Anyone who has ever read one of Robert Manne's newspaper columns or one of his powerful Quarterly Essays will find here a treasure-house of thought, argument and evocation.

This book gathers the fruits of a lifetime of political and cultural debate: from the Cold War to the Iraq war, from the stolen generations to the asylum seekers, from Australian party politics to the culture wars. Manne's two Quarterly Essays, In Denial and Sending Them Home, are included here in their entirety, as are long essays on the Iraq war and on several key Cold War figures, as well as a generous selection from his book on the Demidenko affair.

There is also an array of passionate and entertaining essays on subjects ranging from Geoffrey Blainey to Paul Keating, Helen Garner to George Orwell, Noel Pearson to Philip Ruddock.

This is the perfect book for anyone interested in politics and the key cultural controversies of the past thirty years.