The 2024 Australian Political Book of the Year Award Shortlist was announced last night at a special event held at the iconic Hill of Content bookshop in Melbourne.
The four Shortlisted titles are:
- Flawed Hero: Truth, Lies and War Crimes by Chris Masters
- Killing for Country: A Family Story by David Marr
- Bad Cop: Peter Dutton’s Strongman Politics by Lech Blaine
- Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country by Ryan Cropp
Each Shortlisted author will receive $1,000 in prize money, with the Winner to be announced by Treasurer the Hon. Dr Jim Chalmers MP on Wednesday 20 November at the National Press Club in Canberra.
In determining the shortlist, the Judges said: “These four books were all chosen because of their combination of dense and compelling storytelling and powerful writing which reflect on the challenging times in which we live and the changing nature of the issues and conduct of our national political debates.”
“These are four impeccably researched works which give us new insights into issues of particular importance in 2024.”
On Flawed Hero: Truth, Lies and War Crimes, the Judges said: “Chris Masters’ often painful and anxious look into the world of Australia’s elite forces in Afghanistan – and the biggest defamation case in Australian history which followed it – paint a picture of Australians thrust into an almost surreal world by service to their country, and the strengths, flaws and weaknesses which the pressures of those extraordinarily demanding situations create or enlarge.”
On Killing for Country: A Family Story, the Judges said: “In a year when Australia considered Indigenous Recognition in the Constitution, and the Referendum debate exposed divisions in our community and issues which remain unresolved in the wake of its defeat, David Marr’s intense and shocking account of just one white family’s history in Australia – and its horrifying impact on Indigenous Australia – is a book that brings home just how much we do not know about our own story.”
Bad Cop: Peter Dutton’s Strongman Politics is the first work to be shortlisted for Australian Political Book of the Year from the shorter essay formats that have emerged in recent years, including from Quarterly Essay.
The Judges said: “Lech Blaine paints a tough picture of one of our toughest politicians in his searing Quarterly Essay on Peter Dutton which takes us from Dutton’s childhood and life before politics into the inner workings of the federal Coalition. It paints a new and revealing portrait of a complicated character who may be elevated into the prime ministership at the looming federal election and how he has altered the way the political battle is fought.”
On Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country, the Judges said: “Ryan Cropp’s biography of Donald Horne is not just the story of one of our major 20th Century intellectuals but of the times he lived in, the institutions which dominated our national debates, and characters that once shaped our political, cultural, and literary worlds. Cropp’s account of Horne’s influence on public debate over the second half of the 20th Century tracks the shift in his attitudes from the right to the left of the political spectrum, gives us a rare portrait of the other characters who dominated the stage during Horne’s times and holds up a mirror to the very different nature of political and intellectual discussion to the one we experience today.”
The Winner of the 2024 Australian Political Book of the Year Award will receive $15,000 in prize money.
Previous winners of the Australian Political Book of the Year are: Bulldozed: Scott Morrison’s Fall and Anthony Albanese’s Rise by Niki Savva in 2023 and Telling Tennant’s Story: The Strange Career of the Great Australian Silence by Dean Ashenden in 2022.
Further details about the Australian Poltical Book of the Award can be found at
