The Bradman Myth

A manager in a client's business gave me this book to read to change my thinking about having chosen Sir Donald Bradman as the "flagship" in the Character Works navy. See Character Works Hero Gallery. He was suggesting I had chosen poorly and that the book would prove to me that Bradman wasn't the man of good character I portrayed him as being.



The book is no ground breaker, often repetitive and doesn't seem to say much about what I already knew. Basically it's a study, not of Bradman, but of the times and culture in which he lived and the social forces that caused writers, commentators and the common bloke and blokess to regard Bradman in such glowing terms as "the Don", "the boy from the bush" and "the simple country lad who is bringing down the house".

Brett Hutchins the author is at pains to say the book is not really about Bradman nor does he set out to take anything from his character. It's about how mythology is created.

I therefore can't change my position. Bradman's still my flagship.