Cold Light

Synopsis

The third of the Edith Campbell Berry Trilogy. A large-scale, research-based, historical novel set in post-war Australia beginning in 1950. The two companion novels, Grand Days and Dark Palace, precede Cold Light. In these two books, their central character, an Australian woman, Edith Campbell Berry, works for the League of Nations and the books have as their background the evolution of multi-national diplomacy and Australian diplomacy, and the failure of the League to stop World War II. Cold Light continues Edith's story after the collapse of the League and her return to Australia to seek a position in the Department of External Affairs in Canberra in the 1950s. Through her friendship with John Latham and Stanley Bruce (established in the first two books) and connections with the Menzies government we follow the story of the Cold War through the Communist Party Dissolution Act, the High Court decision, and the referendum, as well, as Australia's involvement in the Korean War. The novel uses as background the Canberra Vision uathe political and aesthetic struggle to establish a new capital in the bushlands of Australia and explore the need for symbolic sites, for great civic enterprises, in this case, both the UN and its search for a suitable city for its headquarters and Australia's final commitment to the creation of a capital city. The novel also explores the evolution of the significant moral and social revolution in Australia and other Western countries in the late 1960s.