An Imperial Affair: Portrait of an Australian Marriage (Biography) - Softcover

Written by award-winning author John Rickard, An Imperial Affair takes us into the marriage of an Australian couple during a time when private lives were properly private, and when divorce was a scandal. The book shines a light on the family values and sexual dynamics of this period, conditioned as they were by the imperial relationship and cultural dependence on 'the mother country,' which inevitably helped shape hopes, fear, and desires. This is also a beautifully told story of the author's sensitive and courageous quest to understand his parents Philip and Pearl, and the world he came from and grew up in, its fragile reality filtered through the prism of memory. Part biography, part autobiography, part social history, An Imperial Affair is also a complex, quintessentially Australian meditation on the nature of love. *** "This book is a rich social history that sheds much light on how Australian men experienced the Second World War in ways that were not strictly related to military matters, and it shows vividly how, because of Australia's affiliation with Britain, the ordinary became imperial." -- Australian Historical Studies, 45, 2014 *** "This is a fine, moving book - the book of an historian, a writer, a loyal but troubled son and a wise man. The love, compassion and delicacy, evident throughout, offers its reader a deepened and more sympathetic understanding of the values that defined times to which we are now inclined to condescend." -- Raimond Gaita, Australian philosopher and author of "Romulus My Father"Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?