The March of Patriots looks at the creation of a modern Australia during the 1991–2007 era of Paul Keating and John Howard.

Keating and Howard were the first two Australian prime ministers of the globalised age. They were raised together, fashioned by the same forces with careers that paralleled each other. They sought to create a new set of faiths for their parties, Labor and Liberal, in an age where the old beliefs were obsolete. In this sense they were prophets for their tribes offering a fresh interpretation of Labor and Liberal ideology for a new century.

Keating and Howard are best understood as change agents, adapting their parties and their nation to a new course. This is the story of two experiments in prime ministerial power and of two leaders divided by temperament, cultural outlook and perceptions of national identity, yet united in much of their economic and social policy. It describes their efforts to devise a fresh policy framework for Australia and to invest their decaying parties with new faiths.

Paul Kelly is Editor-at-Large of The Australian. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of The Australian (1991–1996). He is the author of The Unmaking of Gough (1976), later titled The Dismissal (1982), The Hawke Ascendancy (1984), The End of Certainty (1992), November 1975 (1995) and Paradise Divided (2000).