AustLit

'For decades now, the temptation for students of the life and career of Alfred Deakin has been to define him as a man of policy and a nation-builder. The policies at issue here are those of old Australian economic interventionism: tariffs and industrial arbitration, and authors either praise or condemn Deakin according to their attitudes towards these institutions. In The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, Judith Brett is less interested in this than previous analysts and for this reason her focus is more on Deakin’s nineteenth century experience than the well-trodden path of post Federation civic construction. Instead, she focuses on the manner in which Deakin constructed himself out of the available materials, and the crucial role that religion played in the life of the country’s most famous liberal. Brett also teases out the ultimate paradox: Deakin’s unconventional personal journey led to an utterly conventional political destination, a fused liberal-conservatism.'  (Introduction)