The Prime Minister's Potato and other essays

<p><span style=color: rgba(35 31 32 1)>After thirty years confined within museum walls a restless history curator steps out for air. In this book of essays Anne-Marie Condé grants herself freedom to ask fresh questions about the significance of objects and places within the lives of ordinary people. Cemeteries junk shops war memorials. Stones and scraps and scrawls. These are where this author goes for inspiration.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(35 31 32 1)>Whether it's a wet greasy pavement in Hobart or a message in chalk in Sydney: Condé can coax a historical narrative out of the most meagre sources. Along the way she asks why anyone would offer a potato as a gift to a prime minister? How could this humble vegetable help us think about Australia's past?</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(35 31 32 1)>Throughout Condé casts a patient and gently curious gaze over her subjects. Many writers are fascinated by unrecorded lives but where there</span><em style=color: rgba(35 31 32 1)> are</em><span style=color: rgba(35 31 32 1)> records Condé is sure to find them.</span></p><p></p>