Robert Michael Manne (born 31 October 1947) is an Emeritus Professor of

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

and Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at

La Trobe University La Trobe University is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its main campus is located in the suburb of Bundoora. The university was established in 1964, becoming the third university in the state of Victoria a ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Australia. He is a leading Australian public intellectual.

Background

Robert Manne was born in Melbourne to parents who were

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

refugees from Europe. His earliest political consciousness was shaped by this fact and that both sets of grandparents were victims of

The Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. He was educated at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

(1966–69) (BA) (Honours thesis 1969, "George Orwell: Socialist Pamphleteer") and the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

(BPhil). He joined

in Melbourne in its early years. He served there as a professor in politics and culture until retirement in 2012. He is Vice-Chancellor's Fellow and Convenor of the Ideas & Society Program at La Trobe. Since 1983, he has been married to journalist and social philosopher Anne Manne (née Robinson). Manne's departure as chairman resulted in the editorial board's dissolution, with ''Monthly'' editor Ben Naparstek announcing, "We're not going to have one any more.". Manne's blog, entitled ''Left, Right, Left'', had its first post on 12 September. Manne is also Chair of the '' Australian Book Review'', a board member of The Brisbane Institute, and a member of the board of the Stolen Generations Taskforce in Victoria.

Influences

Over the years, Manne has claimed a range of political, economic, philosophical, and academic figures as influences from across the political spectrum. These have included

Primo Levi Primo Michele Levi (; 31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was an Italian chemist, partisan, writer, and Jewish Holocaust survivor. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works ...

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then ...

, George Orwell, Richard Pipes, Sven Lindqvist,

Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...

, Eric Hobsbawm,

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repres ...

and Joseph Stiglitz.

Honours

* Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (1999). * In 2005 he was voted Australia's leading public intellectual in a survey conducted by ''

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

''. * Festschrift volume: Tavan Gwenda (ed.). 2013. ''State of the Nation: Essays for Robert Manne''. Melbourne: Black Inc. * Shortlisted for the Melbourne Prize for Literature, 2012. * API Top Australian Public Intellectuals (number 1)

Bibliography

Books

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ;Quarterly Essays * ''QE01 In Denial: The Stolen Generations and the Right'' (2001) * ''QE13 Sending Them Home: Refugees and the New Politics of Indifference'' (2003) – With David Corlett * ''QE43 Bad News: Murdoch's Australian and the Shaping of the Nation'' (2011)

Essays and reporting

* * * * * *

Quadrant editorials

* * *

Book reviews

References

External links

Manne's profile at La Trobe University

Articles by Manne at ''The Monthly''

Articles by Manne at ''The Guardian''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manne, Robert 1947 births Living people Australian political scientists La Trobe University faculty Australian journalists Australian people of Jewish descent Alumni of the University of Oxford University of Melbourne alumni Quadrant (magazine) people