"Jim Cairns is a familiar sight around the markets of Melbourne, seated at a table stacked with copies of his latest book. It seems an unlikely occupation for a man who was once the driving force and major thinker in the Labor Party Left, a man who reached the positions of Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer in Australia s most reformist government under Gough Whitlam. Cairns' post-1975 trajectory bewildered many of his one-time followers, not least the significant section of the baby-boomer generation who rallied behind him during the Moratoriums against the Vietnam War. To some he is a tragic fallen hero; to others, a relic of an earlier age of idealism. But Cairns was never a conventional politician. In this mature and sophisticated biography, Paul Strangio draws a compelling picture of the inner man, revealing a consistent thread running through the apparent contradictions of Cairns public career. He explains how a policeman turned into a counter-culture guru; how an opponent of capitalism became Treasurer of Australia; how a devoted husband could feel a kind of love for Junie Morosi. Both highly readable and carefully researched, Keeper of the Fai