“Now Is the Psychological Moment”: Earle Page and the Imagining of Australia book cover
Biography · 2020 · en

“Now Is the Psychological Moment”: Earle Page and the Imagining of Australia

by Stephen Wilks

About this book

Stephen Wilks examines Earle Page through his ideas about Australia’s development and his efforts to put those ideas into practice. The biography follows Page from his family and Methodist background into national public life, considering the mixture of regional attachment, ambition and optimism that shaped his career.

Rather than concentrating only on Page’s brief prime ministership, Wilks explores his work as treasurer, his approach to federalism and planning, and his continuing interest in national development after the Second World War. Photographs, correspondence and other historical records illuminate both his achievements and frustrations. The book places an often overlooked figure within wider debates about the country’s economic and institutional direction.