A new book by US Studies Centre research associate James Curran will be launched by the former Australian minister for foreign affairs Bob Carr in Sydney tomorrow night, Friday 1 May.

Unholy Fury: Whitlam and Nixon at War, looks at the clashes between Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and US President Richard Nixon over the end of the Vietnam War and the shape of a new Asia.

Described by journalist Alan Ramsey as “one of the most important books in recent memory,” Unholy Fury uses newly unclassified documents to reveal just how close Australia came to losing the US alliance. As Richard Nixon's White House went increasingly on the defensive in early 1973, reeling from the lethal drip of the Watergate revelations, Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam looked to redefine the ANZUS treaty and Australia’s global stance. The result was a fractured alliance and an enraged US president, seemingly hell bent on tearing apart the fabric of a treaty that had become the first principle of Australian foreign policy.

Unholy Fury is published by Melbourne University Press and will be released for sale on 1 May. Further details can be found at the Melbourne University Press website.