Donald Horne was Australia’s leading public intellectual in the sixties and seventies and coined the phrase The Lucky Country in his bestselling book of the same title. The phrase has entered the Australian vernacular, and is often misused and interpreted as a sign of national complacency.

Before he became an author, Horne had tried on many hats: as a journalist, ad man, and editor; later he became an academic and a bureaucrat. The big story in his life was his political shift from the conservative right to the progressive left, thanks to his enthusiasm for Gough Whitlam’s vision of Australia’s potential.

Famous for his love of a long lunch (especially when he was the editor of the Bulletin), he was indeed lucky to find in his second wife Myfanwy a partner who was a true collaborator in all his ideas.

Ryan Cropp’s energetic debut biography captures the paradoxes and many-faceted ambitions of the man and his times.