Robert Manne is professor of politics at La Trobe University and a regular commentator with the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC radio and television.

His most recent books include Goodbye to All That?: On the Failure of Neo-liberalism and the Urgency of Change, Left, Right, Left: Political Essays 1977–2005, Dear Mr Rudd: Ideas for a Better Australia (ed.), W.E.H. Stanner: The Dreaming and Other Essays (ed.), Making Trouble: Essays Against the New Australian Complacency, Quarterly Essay 43 Bad News: Murdoch's Australian and the Shaping of the Nation (2012) and The Words That Made Australia: How a Nation Came to Know Itself (2012.)

In 2012 he was shortlisted for the Melbourne Prize for Literature.