Research Catalog

Title

The years of lightning by George Chapman

Author

Chapman, George Alan, 1927-

Publication

Wellington Reed c1980

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

196 p., [16] p. of plates ill., ports.; 22 cm.

Summary

• "The decade of the 1970s was the most turbulent in New Zealand's political history with five prime ministers in as many years, unprecedented electoral upsets, the most disruptive boundary changes since the beginning of the century, stinging controversy at both personal and legislative levels in Parliament ... years when lightning struck again and again, usually without warning, at the fortunes of parties and politicians alike. George Chapman, president of the National Party since 1973 and deeply committed to the party's affairs for many years before, has played an especially influential part in the shaping of New Zealand's political destiny. Often, his has been a quiet, behind the scenes role of which few have been aware. But at other times, as occasion has demanded, he has been involved in courageous public confrontation with his own party if he has felt that its future or fundamental principles were being jeopardised or compromised.^
• The author describes in detail the shakeup to party reorganisation which he undertook when first taking office in the months following Norman Kirk's triumphant election success, the appointment of new officials, the selection of candidates like Marilyn Waring and Derek Quigley, and the successful 1975 campaign ... What really happened during the Marshall-Muldoon leadership struggle which ended in Rob Muldoon becoming Prime Minister? ...." -- Inside front cover.
• When early in 1980, he had to consider whether to offer himself as president again for a term which will inevitable take him through the 1981 General Election, George Chapman undertook a deep and almost solitary reappraisal of his own and his party's future. "The years of lightning" is, to a large extent, the result of this assessment. In affirming his willingness to serve the party again, at tremendous personal cost and sacrifice (few realise that it is an unpaid post), he sets down for the first time his personal perspective of the 1970s, of the years which set the scene for the events of the decade, and of the directions he feels New Zealand must take in the even more uncertain years which lie ahead. George Chapman's book is an unusual blend of autobiography, political history and social analysis. It begins with his own first (and unexpected) nomination as president in May, 1971 and moves through the Holyoake, Marshal and Kirk years into the Muldoon era ...^

Subject

• Chapman, George Alan, 1927-
• New Zealand > Politics and government > 1971-
• New Zealand National Party
• Politicians > New Zealand > Biography

Note

• Autobiography of president of the National Party

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

ISBN

0589013467

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library