Books
The prime minister’s potato and other essays
$29.99
Postage calculated at checkout
Review in The Age 31 May 2025:
“Historian and museum curator Anne-Marie Conde says she meditated on ‘how the past can be understood through the interactions of people, places and things’. Her titular essay in this diverse and rather lovely collection tells of a curious 1942 gift from one William Frith to John Curtin as a cure for your akes and Pains.”
The prime minister’s potato and other essays
About the Book:
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.
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?
Throughout, Condé casts a patient and gently curious gaze over her subjects. Many writers are fascinated by unrecorded lives, but where there are records, Condé is sure to find them.
About the Author:
Anne-Marie Condé is a curator and historian living in Canberra. Her published work mainly concerns the history of archives, recordkeeping and museums in Australia.
ISBN: 978-1-7637331-3-8