Its particular interest is in speeches. These set pieces of talk have conventionally been regarded as each prime minister’s opportunity to entrench a legacy. A growing weight of evidence over the years since Keating’s term in office has turned the tables, though, so that we now need to see the speech itself as a “legacy medium”—like vinyl records.
Talking up a Legacy does not specifically offer an insider or partisan account, but it aims to cast light on some of the most difficult challenges of political communication, using language and concepts that speak to non-specialist readers. The author has been an insider and partisan himself (as a speechwriter for premiers in Victoria and NSW).