Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923, had that same acerbic larrikin quality in his dealings with enemies at home and abroad that has become familiar to us in our current elected leader. Yet Hughes never forsook the heedless and stubborn directness that seems to have deserted Bob Hawke in recent and more sober times. Peter Spartalis’s book is about Hughes’s colourful and dynamic international role and achievements as Prime Minister and about the many protracted battles he fought in what he believed to be Australia’s diplomatic interests though there was nothing at all diplomatic about his style.