Don Watson loves America. He has been writing about it for years – its tumultuous past, its people, its landscape, its idiosyncrasies, its politics. Don’s 2008 book American Journeys – an account of travelling around the US – was awarded The Age Book of the Year and the Walkley Book Award. His 2016 Quarterly Essay on the rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement revealed a deep understanding of where America had come from – and where it might be heading.  

And just last October, on the eve of the 2024 presidential election, Don Watson produced another Quarterly Essay on the Trump phenomenon and wondered whether the Democrats might have a chance. Once again, his prescience and innate understanding of how American voters were thinking was sharp and compelling.  

 Who better to put together an illuminating history of the USA at this challenging moment? And what an important time for non-Americans to learn a bit about the so-called “leader of the free world”? As Don Watson writes: “Men like Donald Trump are embedded in US history, mythology and popular culture. Rank populists, hucksters, fakers, grifters, rent-seekers, blowhards, tycoons, kleptocrats, narcissists, psychopaths and delinquents – or, from the other point of view, rugged individualists, entrepreneurs, men of vision, men of destiny, instruments of God. No diorama of mainstream American life in any era could be without them.” 

 Help us celebrate the arrival of The Shortest History of the United States of America and join Don Watson in our special South Yarra Library event. Don will be “in conversation” with Sorrento Writers Festival Director Corrie Perkin. This is our final author event for 2025 – we hope you’ll join us. 

Sean Kelly will be in conversation with Amy Remeikis on his new Quarterly Essay, The Good Fight. What Does Labor Stand For? In this subtle and brilliant essay, Kelly explores whether Labor is still up for the good fight.

In the 100th issue of Australia’s leading agenda-setting journal of politics, culture and debate, Sean Kelly considers the enigma of the Albanese government. With wide yet shallow support, will it change the country? Does it have big ideas, or is it content just to become “the natural party of government”?

Kelly gives a definitive account of Albanese’s political style and asks what lies behind it. In speaking to a fragmented, disengaged electorate, the Prime Minister places a high value on moderation. Often that means ducking fights with entrenched interests. But this runs the risk of embedding an ever more unequal nation, led by a government that can seem gutless. In this subtle and brilliant essay, Kelly explores whether Labor is still up for the good fight.

“Labor has cast itself as a version of what the conservatives once were: the defender of the way things are. This may well appeal to large numbers of Australians, as it did in this last election. [But] Labor’s task, historically, has been to change things on behalf of those who desperately need them to change.” —Sean Kelly.

Sean Kelly is the author of The Game: A portrait of Scott Morrison; an award-winning columnist for the Nine papers; a regular contributor to The Monthly and a former adviser to Labor prime ministers, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute. Her book, On Reckoning was published in 2022.

The vote of thanks will be given by Allan Behm, Senior Advisor, International & Security Affairs Program. The Australia Institute.

Books will be available for signing from 5.30pm and again after the event.

In Quarterly Essay 100, Sean Kelly considers the strange transitional moment we are in. We seem sick of neoliberalism but afraid of what might replace it. We are obsessed with work but resentful of it; desperate for community but stuck inside our phones; protective of our way of life while wanting to change everything.

Amid this uncertainty about who we are, what we believe and what we want, it seems harder than ever to make out where our politicians want to take us. The Liberal Party is in crisis. Labor, meanwhile, as it leaves old ideologies behind, insists it is both bold and incrementalist, committed to progressive values but middle of the road.

With vividness and insight, Kelly diagnoses the state of the nation and the prospects for change and renewal. He argues that the end of ideology may yet offer hope for a new politics. As the prime minister promotes a new nationalism, could Australia show other countries the way forward?