Stanley Melbourne Bruce: Institution Builder

This Biographical Monograph focuses on the formative years and political career of Stanley Melbourne Bruce to his defeat as Prime Minister in 1929. This period included winning a hotly contested by-election in Flinders in 1918, which brought with it the introduction of preferential voting; a short interlude on the back bench; one year as Treasurer in 1922-23; and then a period as Prime Minister from February 1923 until October 1929, when he was still in his forties. Bruce’s career after 1929 was in many ways as distinguished as the period from 1918 to 1929. Notable in this second career after 1929 was his support for institutions such as the League of Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization. The argument of this book is that the theme that connects Bruce’s first period in Australian politics from 1918 until 1929 with his later career is that of institution building.

David Lee is Associate Professor in History, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Canberra. He was General Editor of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Documents on Australian Foreign Policy series from 1997 to 2019. His publications on political, diplomatic, economic and strategic aspects of Australian history include Australia and the World in the Twentieth Century (2005), Stanley Melbourne Bruce: Australian Internationalist (2010) and The Second Rush: Mining and the Transformation of Australia (2016).