AustLit

'In Democratic Adventurer, Sean Scalmer seeks to do two things. One is to save from posterity’s condescension the Victorian colonial politician Graham Berry – draper, shopkeeper, editor, Member of Parliament, cabinet minister and Premier – ‘the most important and influential reformer of a dauntless reforming age’ (xi). Secondly, and somewhat more ambitiously, he seeks to use Berry to ‘explore the workings of political power: the quest for position and influence, the methods through which authority is accumulated and exercised’ (xii). Aping the work of the great Robert Caro, biographer of Lyndon Johnson, Scalmer wants to use the story of one man to explore the history of Australian politics, and hint at where it might have gone wrong along the way.' (Introduction)