Tune into Dr Zachary Gorman in conversation with Frank Bongiorno and Michelle Grattan as they discuss the new book, The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience (1894-1942) and its ties to the National Library of Australia collection.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Sir Robert Menzies is a towering figure in Australian history. As the nation's longest-serving prime minister, he transformed and ultimately dominated the political landscape, implementing policies that laid the foundations of modern Australia. The story of Menzies and his governments is essential to the Australian narrative: the centrality of political liberalism, the defense of democracy through trying times, and the expanding horizons of our identity, prosperity and appreciation. The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942 explores the formative period of Menzies's life, when his personal outlook and system of beliefs that would help shape modern Australia were themselves still being formed.

Contributors look at Menzies's ideas prior to their political practice and examine their context and origins. This period is also the time in which Menzies first attained power, though in difficult circumstances, when the focus of the nation was on survival. It was in losing office that Menzies was given the impetus to develop his vision for post-war Australia.

This is the first of a four-volume history of Menzies and his world, based on conferences convened by the Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne.

Contributors include Frank Bongiorno, Troy Bramston, Judith Brett, Nick Cater, Justice James Edelman, David Furse-Roberts, Anne Henderson, David Kemp, Angela Kittikhoun, Greg Melleuish and Scott Prasser, with a foreword by Geoffrey Blainey.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Dr Zachary Gorman is the academic coordinator at the Robert Menzies Institute. A professional historian, Gorman has worked as a researcher and academic since 2013, including several years at the University of Wollongong, where he received his PhD. He has written two books, Sir Joseph Carruthers: Founder of the New South Wales Liberal Party and Summoning Magna Carta: Freedom's Symbol Over a Millennium, and edited two others, the 250th anniversary edition of Captain James Cook, R.N.: 150 Years After and The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942. He has been published in a wide range of academic journals.

Frank Bongiorno AM is professor of history at the Australian National University, where he was formerly Head of the School of History. Frank is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a Whitlam Institute Distinguished Fellow at Western Sydney University. Frank is the author or co-author of five books and many scholarly articles and book chapters on Australian history. He is most recently the author of Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Australia.

Michelle Grattan AO is a professorial fellow at the University of Canberra and chief political correspondent at The Conversation. One of Australia’s most respected and awarded political journalists, she has been a member of the Canberra parliamentary press gallery for more than 40 years, during which time she has covered all the most significant stories in Australian politics. As a former editor of The Canberra Times, Michelle Grattan was also the first female editor of an Australian daily newspaper.