John Howard

For more than a decade, John Howard seemed immovable. From the Port Arthur gun laws and the GST to Tampa, Iraq and WorkChoices, his government shaped the Australia of the late twentieth century more than any other. Supporters remember low unemployment, paid-off mortgages and a prime minister who spoke their language. Critics remember refugees behind razor wire, a lost decade on climate change and a refusal to say "sorry".

In John Howard: Battlers, Borders and the Long Boom, Gordon J. MacKenzie follows Howard from the suburban servo at Dulwich Hill to the Treasury benches, the wilderness years on the backbench and the long reign in the Lodge. This deeply researched narrative tracks the economic reforms and political instincts that underpinned the "Howard years" - the GST and budget surpluses, the Pacific Solution and national security state, the history wars, WorkChoices and the 2007 wipe-out in Bennelong.

MacKenzie neither canonises nor condemns. Instead, he reconstructs the choices, fears and calculations behind the public slogans, showing how a cautious, stubborn lawyer became the most successful conservative politician of his generation - and how his victories planted the seeds of his eventual defeat.

Burden of the Lodge is a major series of full-length biographies of Australian prime ministers, exploring how each occupant of the Lodge reshaped the nation and what burdens they left behind.