Robert Michael Manne (born 31 October 1947) is an Emeritus Professor of Politics and Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is a leading Australian public intellectual.
Robert Manne was born in Melbourne to parents who were Jewish refugees from Europe. His earliest political consciousness was shaped by this fact and that both sets of grandparents were victims of The Holocaust. He was educated at the University of Melbourne (1966âÂÂ69) (BA) (Honours thesis 1969, "George Orwell: Socialist Pamphleteer") and the University of Oxford (BPhil). He joined La Trobe University in Melbourne in its early years. He served there as a professor in politics and culture until retirement in 2012. He is Vice-Chancellor's Fellow and Convenor of the Ideas and Society Program at La Trobe.
Since 1983, he has been married to journalist and social philosopher Anne Manne (née Robinson). to Keith Windschuttle's claims disputing there was genocide against Indigenous Australians and guerrilla warfare against British settlement on the continent. Contributors included Henry A. Reynolds, who writes on frontier conflict; and Lyndall Ryan, whose book The Aboriginal Tasmanians is one of the main targets of Windschuttle's work.
Manne was Chairman of the editorial board of The Monthly, a national magazine of politics, society and the arts, from February 2006 until his resignation on 18 August 2011. He wanted to focus on his writing, "including a new blog to be published on The Monthlys website." Manne's departure as chairman resulted in the editorial board's dissolution, with Monthly editor Ben Naparstek announcing, "We're not going to have one any more." Manne's blog, entitled Left, Right, Left, had its first post on 12 September.
Manne is also Chair of the Australian Book Review, a board member of The Brisbane Institute, and a member of the board of the Stolen Generations Taskforce in Victoria.