A Thinking ReedFrom quiz kid to Australian Minister for Science, from frustrated school teacher to National President of the ALP, from the suburbs of Melbourne to UNESCO in Paris, Barry Jones has had a prodigious public life. Barry Jones first came to public prominence as Pick-a-Box quiz champion, and from then on he has embraced a myriad of passions and causes. A Thinking Reed spans his remarkable career, from a lonely childhood in Melbourne of the 1930s and 1940s to the fight he led against the death penalty to his crusade to make science and the future prominent issues on the political agenda. He has worked tirelessly on both a global and local scale to rethink education, to improve and preserve our heritage, to revive the nations's film industry, and to build a better Australia. Almost unique among politicians, Barry Jones is held in enormous public affection. And while he reveals many insights into the political process - both the problems of office and the atrophy of Opposition - he concentrates above all on the life of the mind; a mind with deep, passionate and often witty insights into history, philosophy, music and literature. A Thinking Reed is a generous gift from an extraordinary Australian. 'A Thinking Reed is a book that works through accumulation and accretion . . . and in his requiem for contemporary politics, we reach the finale of what we now see has been a symphony, and one with Mahleresque intimations of tragedy'. - Australian Literary Review 'Barry Jones has written the best autobiography of a politician I have ever read'. - Don Aitkin, Canberra Historical Journal 'A Thinking Reed is a mixture of honesty, FUN, common sense and scholarship too. It makes a delightful portrait of a life. - Owen Chadwick, OM, historian 'It is breathtakingly ambitious, clear-eyed but generous about other people Rich and strange - like travelling with Gulliver as he discovers the world and himself in it . . . I don't often hanker for multi-volumed works, but I wished for more all the while I was reading this'. - The Age |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 8
Page 2
... especially , indeed overwhelmingly , music . In his Autobiography Charles Darwin wrote : ' My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collec- tions of facts ' . Uneasily , I have a fellow ...
... especially , indeed overwhelmingly , music . In his Autobiography Charles Darwin wrote : ' My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collec- tions of facts ' . Uneasily , I have a fellow ...
Page 5
... especially when they are complex . As Science Minister I was conscious of eyes glazing over in the Cabinet Room as I attempted to interest my colleagues in biotechnology , radio astronomy, Halley's Comet, genetic engineering, global ...
... especially when they are complex . As Science Minister I was conscious of eyes glazing over in the Cabinet Room as I attempted to interest my colleagues in biotechnology , radio astronomy, Halley's Comet, genetic engineering, global ...
Page 21
... especially when Tui was involved . I never understood why this theatricality did not translate into a career . Tui lived in Perth with her daughter from 1971 , suffered from lung cancer and died after a stroke in 1975. My mother , the ...
... especially when Tui was involved . I never understood why this theatricality did not translate into a career . Tui lived in Perth with her daughter from 1971 , suffered from lung cancer and died after a stroke in 1975. My mother , the ...
Page 25
... especially the early ones , passed through times of extraordinary change and reasons for non - achievement can be almost as interesting as achievement . I became increasingly intrigued by some of my unknown forebears , reflecting on how ...
... especially the early ones , passed through times of extraordinary change and reasons for non - achievement can be almost as interesting as achievement . I became increasingly intrigued by some of my unknown forebears , reflecting on how ...
Page 31
... especially the ABC, were my major sources of information about events such as the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937. I sat by the Essanay wireless, generally alone, listening intently, but I cannot recall that ...
... especially the ABC, were my major sources of information about events such as the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937. I sat by the Essanay wireless, generally alone, listening intently, but I cannot recall that ...
Contents
1 | |
8 | |
28 | |
3 Death Penalty | 72 |
4 Quiz Show | 103 |
5 Fifty Years Hard Labor | 130 |
6 Faces | 182 |
7 Bump Me Into Parliament | 226 |
12 Backbench Explorations | 395 |
13 Beliefs | 417 |
14 The Third Age | 443 |
1979 1989 2001 | 475 |
Afterword | 529 |
The Second Coming | 530 |
Lists | 531 |
Blbliography | 538 |
8 Life of My Mind | 259 |
9 Sleepers Wake | 310 |
10 Inside the Hawke Government | 332 |
11 Ministering to Science | 353 |
Acknowledgments | 547 |
Index | 548 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
American argued Arthur asked attack Australian Barry Jones Beazley became Bill Bill Hayden Bob Dyer Bob Hawke Cabinet campaign Canberra Catholic Caucus cent chair Chifley Church Clyde Holding commitment Committee Communist Conference contest Council death penalty debate deeply defeated democratic economic election Evatt Executive factional Federal film Fraser Geelong Gorton Gough Whitlam Government hanging Hayden Henry Bolte House of Representatives industry intellectual interest issues Jesus Jim Cairns John Gorton John Howard Keating Knowledge Nation Koestler Labor Party Lalor later Leader Liberal lived major Malcolm Fraser Melbourne Menzies Nana never organised Parliament Parliamentary Peter Phillip Adams Pick-a-Box political Premier President Prime Minister quiz radio recognised role Science seat Senate Sleepers social South Wales speech Sydney television United University Victorian vote wrote
Popular passages
Page 131 - Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Page 76 - What's that so black agin the sun?' said Files-onParade. 'It's Danny fightin' 'ard for life,' the Colour-Sergeant said. 'What's that that whimpers over'ead?' said Files-onParade. 'It's Danny's soul that's passin' now,
Page 329 - I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
Page 527 - So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
Page 275 - Tell all the Truth but tell it slant— Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind...
Page 530 - Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Page 154 - God save our gracious Queen, Long live our noble Queen, God save the Queen: Send her victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign over us: God save the Queen.
Page 317 - In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat...
Page 528 - I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on" (Three Novels by Samuel Beckett [New York: Grove Press, 1955], p.
Page 530 - Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,...