A gripping reckoning with the bloody history of Australia's frontier wars

Power Trip shows the making of Kevin Rudd, prime minister. In Eumundi, where Rudd was born, David Marr investigates the formative tragedy of his life: the death of his father and what came after. He tracks the transformation of a dreamy kid into an implacably determined youth, already set on the prime ministership. He examines Rudd's years as Wayne Goss's right-hand man in Queensland, his relentless work in federal Opposition - from Sunrise to AWB - and finally his record as prime minister.

In Rudd's Queensland years, Marr finds strange patterns that will recur: a tendency to chaos, a mania for control and a strange mix of heady ambition and retreat. All through this dazzling and revelatory essay, Marr seeks to know what drives an extraordinarily driven man. As Power Trip concludes, he enters into a conversation with the prime minister in which much becomes clear.

Rudd had sold himself to the Australian people as a new kind of leader: a man of intellect and values out to reshape the future. If he isn't that, people are asking, what is he? And who is he? ... Millions of words have been written about him since he emerged from the Labor pack half-a-dozen years ago, but Rudd remains hidden in full view. David Marr, Power Trip

This issue also contains correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 37, What's Right?, from John Hirst, George Brandis, Tom Switzer, Andrew Norton, George Megalogenis, Jean Curthoys, Martin Krygier, and Waleed Aly

We all know people popularly described as on the spectrum - people who have Aspergers Syndrome. In this memoir, David vividly and clearly describes what that means: in the home, in schoolyards, in classrooms, in the work place and in a love relationship. And the reader learns from the inside out.

-Susan Bergman

Panic (noun). A sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour.

Australians see themselves as a relaxed and tolerant bunch. But scratch the surface and you'll uncover an extraordinary level of fear.

Cronulla. Henson. Hanson. Wik. Haneef. The Boats. ...

Panic shows all of David Marr's characteristic insight, quick wit and brilliant prose as he cuts through the froth and fury that have kept Australia simmering over the last fifteen years.

Turning fear into panic is a great political art: knowing how to stack the bonfire, where to find the kindling, when to slosh on a bucket of kero to set the whole thing off with a satisfying roar ... These are dispatches from the republic of panic, stories of fear and fear-mongering under three prime ministers. Some chart panic on the rise and others pick through the wreckage left behind, but all grew out of my wish to honour the victims of these ugly episodes: the people damaged and a damaged country. -David Marr

Praise for Panic:

'for those who deplore such panics ... this is a good tonic' - Jack Waterford, Canberra Times

'The effectiveness of Marr's writing lies in his ability to stand back and offer sweet reasonableness in the fact of events that other reporters would happily play for populist hysteria.' - Sydney Morning Herald

'David Marr is not on the list of Australian living treasures, but perhaps he should be. Among our best journalists, he stands out as someone who has consistently challenged the powerful, at his best with forensic skill and deep research.' - Dennis Altman, Australian Book Review

'Panic is clever, intelligently exposing the language of Marr's right-wing adversaries while separating political rhetoric from political reality.' - West Australian

About the author:

David Marr has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Monthly, been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners, presenter of ABC TV's Media Watch and now writes for the Guardian. His books include Patrick White: A Life, The High Price of Heaven, Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson) and three Quarterly Essays: His Master's Voice, Power Trip and Political Animal.

David Marr's posthumously published Vision (1982) influenced a generation of brain and cognitive scientists, inspiring many to enter the field. In Vision, Marr describes a general framework for understanding visual perception and touches on broader questions about how the brain and its functions can be studied and understood. Researchers from a range of brain and cognitive sciences have long valued Marr's creativity, intellectual power, and ability to integrate insights and data from neuroscience, psychology, and computation. This MIT Press edition makes Marr's influential work available to a new generation of students and scientists.

In Marr's framework, the process of vision constructs a set of representations, starting from a description of the input image and culminating with a description of three-dimensional objects in the surrounding environment. A central theme, and one that has had far-reaching influence in both neuroscience and cognitive science, is the notion of different levels of analysis--in Marr's framework, the computational level, the algorithmic level, and the hardware implementation level.

Now, thirty years later, the main problems that occupied Marr remain fundamental open problems in the study of perception. Vision provides inspiration for the continuing efforts to integrate knowledge from cognition and computation to understand vision and the brain.

Tony Abbott is the most successful Opposition leader of the last forty years, but he has never been popular. Now Australians want to know: what kind of man is he, and how would he perform as prime minister?

In this dramatic portrait, David Marr shows that as a young Catholic warrior at university, Abbott was already a brutally effective politician. He later led the way in defeating the republic and, as the self-proclaimed political love child of John Howard, rose rapidly in the Liberal Party. His reputation as a head-kicker and hard-liner made him an unlikely leader, but when the time came, his opposition to the emissions trading scheme proved decisive.

Marr shows that Abbott thrives on chaos and conflict. Part fighter and part charmer, he is deeply religious and deeply political. What happens, then, when his values clash with his need to win? This is the great puzzle of his career, but the closer he is to taking power, the more guarded he has become.

Since witnessing the Hewson catastrophe at first hand, Abbott has worn a mask. He has grown and changed. Life and politics have taught him a great deal. But how this has shaped the fundamental Abbott is carefully obscured. What has been abandoned? What is merely hidden on the road to power? What makes people so uneasy about Abbott is the sense that he is biding his time, that there is a very hard operator somewhere behind that mask, waiting for power. - David Marr, Political Animal

Correspondence

This issue also contains correspondence relating to the previous issue QE46 Great Expectations: Government, Entitlement and an Angry Nation by Laura Tingle. Correspondence relating to QE47 Political Animal will appear in the next issue.

About the Author

David Marr is the author of Patrick White: a Life, Panic, The High Price of Heaven and (with Marian Wilkinson) Dark Victory. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Monthly, been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners and presenter of ABC-TV's Media Watch. In 2010 he wrote the Quarterly Essay Power Trip: the political journey of Kevin Rudd.

In The Prince, David Marr investigates the man and his career: how did he rise through the ranks? What does he stand for? How does he wield his authority? How much has he shaped his church and Australia? How has he handled the scandal?

Marr reveals a cleric at ease with power and aggressive in asserting the prerogatives of the Vatican. His account of Pell's career focuses on his response as a man, a priest, an archbishop and prince of the church to the scandal that has engulfed the Catholic world in the last thirty years. This is the story of a cleric slow to see what was happening around him; torn by the contest between his church and its victims; and slow to realise that the Catholic Church cannot, in the end, escape secular scrutiny.

The Prince is an arresting portrait of faith, loyalty and ambition, set against a backdrop of terrible suffering and an ancient institution in turmoil.

He knows children have been wrecked. He apologises again and again. He even sees that the hostility of the press he so deplores has helped the church face the scandal. What he doesn't get is the hostility to the church. Whatever else he believes in, Pell has profound faith in the Catholic Church. He guards it with his life. Nations come and go but the church remains. - David Marr, The Prince

David Marr has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Monthly, been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners, presenter of ABC TV's Media Watch and now writes for the Guardian. His books include Patrick White: A Life, The High Price of Heaven, Dark Victory (with Marian Wilkinson) and three previous Quarterly Essays.

The essential work on Tony Abbott is now an expanded, updated short book - and a crucial election-year companion.

Australians want to know: what kind of man is Tony Abbott, and how would he perform as prime minister?

In this dramatic portrait, David Marr shows that as a young Catholic warrior at university, Abbott was already a brutally effective politician. He later led the way in defeating the republic and, as the self-proclaimed 'political love child' of John Howard, rose rapidly in the Liberal Party.

Marr shows that Abbott thrives on chaos and conflict. Part fighter and part charmer, he is deeply religious and deeply political. What happens, then, when his values clash with his need to win? This is the great puzzle of his career, but the closer he is to taking power, the more guarded he has become.

Political Animal's release as a Quarterly Essay in 2012, with its revelations of 'the punch, ' triggered intense scrutiny of Abbott's character, which culminated in Gillard's memorable speech accusing him of misogyny and, soon after, Abbott's worst ever public approval rating. This significantly expanded and updated short book gives the clearest picture yet of the man Abbott is and the prime minister he would be.

'Since witnessing the Hewson catastrophe at first hand, Abbott has worn a mask. He has grown and changed. Life and politics have taught him a great deal. But how this has shaped the fundamental Abbott is carefully obscured. What has been abandoned? What is merely hidden on the road to power? What makes people so uneasy about Abbott is the sense that he is biding his time, that there is a very hard operator somewhere behind that mask, waiting for power.' -David Marr, Political Animal

It's a more fair-minded and more generous assessment than many people, perhaps myself included, had expected. We have very different perspectives on the world but, to his credit, to some extent David Marr was able to step outside the standard leftist critique and appreciate that here was a more nuanced and complex character than perhaps many of the standard left-leaning critics would concede. Having said all of that, I certainly don't think all of his judgments were fair and I don t think all of his interpretations were correct. -Tony Abbott

This anthology concentrates on domestic questions, economic policies, and socialist development and ideology. The essays' subjects include such varied topics as education, economics, the military, leadership, and economic assistance and humanitarian aid.

Most Australians despise what Pauline Hanson stands for, yet politics in this country is now orbiting around One Nation.

In this timely Quarterly Essay, David Marr looks at Australia's politics of fear, resentment and race. Who votes One Nation, and why? How much of this is due to inequality? How much to racism? How should the major parties respond to anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim voices? What damage do Australia's new entrepreneurs of hate inflict on the nation?

Written with drama and wit, this is a ground-breaking look at politics and prejudice by one of Australia's best writers.

This woman went to prison, danced the cha-cha on national television for a couple of years, and failed so often at the ballot box she became a running joke. But the truth is she never left us. She was always knocking on the door. Most of those defeats at the polls were close-run things. For twenty years political leaders appeased Hanson's followers while working to keep her out of office. The first strategy tainted Australian politics. The second eventually failed. So she's with us again - the Kabuki make-up, that mop of red hair and the voice telling us what we already know: 'I'm fed up.' --David Marr

An anthology of David Marr's powerful ruminations on art, religion, sex, censorship and the law, his unflinching profiles of party leaders and forensic accounts of social and political controversy.

Overall, it's an absorbing poetry collection -- one that gives you a lot to think about. If you're a poetry lover, I highly recommend you grab a copy!

- Reviewed by Pikasho Deka, for Readers' Favorite (5 Stars)

In this dramatic essay, David Marr traces the hidden career of a Labor warrior. He shows how a brilliant recruiter and formidable campaigner mastered first the unions and then the party. Marr presents a man willing to deal with his enemies and shift his allegiances, whose ambition to lead has been fixed since childhood.

But does he stand for anything? Is Shorten a defender of Labor values in today's Australia or a shape-shifter, driven entirely by politics? How does the union world he comes from shape the prime minister he might be? Marr reveals a man we hardly know: a virtuoso with numbers and a strategist of skill who Labor hopes will return the party to power.

Australians distrust Shorten almost as much as they distrust Abbott. That's why this election will be fought on trust. It's going to be dirty. At the heart of the contest will be Shorten's character. All the way to polling day, Australians will be invited to rake over every detail of his short life and hidden career. David Marr, Faction Man

This issue contains correspondence relating to Blood Year by David Kilcullen from Hugh White, Jim Molan, Waleed Aly, Paul McGeough, Audrey Kurth Cronin, Martin Chulov, James Brown, Clive Kessler, and David Kilcullen.

John Howard has the loudest voice in Australia. He has cowed his critics, muffled the press, intimidated the ABC, gagged scientists, silenced NGOs, censored the arts, prosecuted leakers, criminalised protest and curtailed parliamentary scrutiny.