Light on the Hill

This is a new book. Condition: Brand New.

A revised and updated edition of award-winning historian Ross McMullin's acclaimed history of the Australian Labor Party - an entertaining, action-packed, warts-and-all narrative full of illuminating pen-portraits and vivid anecdotes.

The story is told through the people who made it. All Labor's prime ministers feature - Watson, Fisher, Hughes, Scullin, Curtin, Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd, Gillard, and Albanese. The sweeping storytelling blends their governments' achievements and tribulations with those of ALP state branches, conflicts over organisation and policy, emotional highs and lows, and intrigue and intimidation behind the scenes.

Labor's most spectacular controversies are also examined - three devastating ruptures, the Whitlam government's dismissal, and the fierce Hawke-Keating and Rudd-Gillard-Rudd leadership contests.

The Light on the Hill also illuminates the notable families, the lost talents, and the ups and downs for Labor's true believers since 1891. It covers Doc Evatt and Don Dunstan, Susan Ryan and Carmen Lawrence, 'Windy Mick' and 'Happy Jack', 'Red Ted' and 'Stabber Jack', 'Electric Eric' and the 'Killer of Santa Claus' - they're all here. So are Labor's triumphs, notably the 2025 Albanese electoral landslide.

Prodigiously researched, captivating, and powerful, The Light on the Hill is the most authoritative and monumental account of Labor's rich history.

'The Light on the Hill returns us to a world made in what Eric Hobsbawm called the "Age of Extremes", but this new edition provides an overview of what happened once the Cold War was over - and a new age of extremes dawned ... A new generation of readers will be able to add this book to their collection and enjoy McMullin's undoubted gifts as an award-winning historian and prose writer. The Light on the Hill remains a standard setter for deeply researched, accessible political history.'
-Frank Bongiorno, Australian Book Review

'Described as a definitive history, The Light on the Hill was first published 35 years ago, but has been updated to include the 1991-2025 period missing from the first volume ... A feast for the true believers.'
-Caroline Overington, The Australian

Praise for first edition:
'This important and provocative book presents the tremendous and turbulent history of the Australian Labor Party warts and all. Its publication itself demonstrates the strength of a Party and a Movement courageous enough to commission an untrammelled account of its failures and faults, as well as its immense achievements.'
-Bob Hawke, Prime Minister of Australia 1983-1991

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Paperback / softback
ISBN13: 9781761381904
Published: June 2026

Number of pages: 784
Width: 156 mm
Height: 235 mm
Depth: 50 mm

Publisher: Scribe Publications