Neither Power nor Glory

<p>When Frank Hardy published <em>Power Without Glory</em>, his notorious novel about corruption and venality in the Victorian Labor Party, it quickly came to be seen as a true account of the party. Until now, there has been no authoritative chronicle of the struggles of political Labor in Victoria, from its origins in the mid-nineteenth century through to the calamitous split of the 1950s. </p> <p>By conventional measures these were fallow years. Ensnared by the colony’s powerful liberal protectionist tradition in the late nineteenth century, Victorian Labor then found itself hindered by a grossly unfair electoral system and the lack of a constituency outside Melbourne’s industrial suburbs. But exile from government also meant that the party developed its own distinctive traditions and culture. It was a unique and intriguing species among the state Labor parties. </p> <p>Meticulously researched and elegantly written, <em>Neither Power Nor Glory</em> fills an important gap in Australian political history and our understanding of the Labor Party. It is also a timely antidote to nostalgia about Labor’s past. In Victoria at least, that past was anything but golden. </p>