Bookstore

This is a book on politics, history and legal philosophy like no other. Featuring an introduction by the late Sir Walter Campbell AC QC, former Governor and Chief Justice of Queensland, it argues that the republican ideal of government "...of the people, by the people, for the people" has permanently parted company from the republican form of government. A monarchist, not a royalist, the author argues that the important aspects of the monarchy are not the sentimental or tabloid details, but the constitutional role that has evolved within parliamentary democracy over centuries, in Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth. The book advocates the importance of the Crown in the Westminster parliamentary system of democracy, to limit executive power and help preserve peaceful, culturally diverse societies in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. Contrasts are presented between the legal safeguards inherent in the Westminster system with the failures of governance in the United States and France.

About the Author

Dr Nigel Greenwood is a political writer and mathematician who gained his PhD from the University of Queensland in 1994. A former international university debater, he wrote For the Sovereignty of the People after having successfully argued both sides of the republican debate in Brisbane and Oxford. He was awarded a Menzies Scholarship to research at Merton College, Oxford and was an official delegate to the Gladstone Constitutional Convention held in June 1999.

Reviews

"Probably the most important book to be published on the topic to date... Read the book? I've dog-eared every page of it!" Clive James.

"The New Testament of constitutional monarchy... quite different from any other book you are likely to read about political systems- largely because of its scope. It is a kind of international book which analyses systems all around the world."
Dame Leonie Kramer, then Chancellor, University of Sydney.