Content provided in partnership with

Advance Australia Fair - Review

Contemporary Review, July, 2001 by Edward Bradbury

Australia. A Biography of a Nation. Phillip Knightley. Jonathan Cape. [pound]20.00. 373 pages. ISBN 0-224-05006-0.

This year the Dominion of Australia celebrates its centenary when the former colonies were united into a single Commonwealth. This is excuse enough, if excuse were needed, for a plethora of books to be published. In addition, the recent referendum debates over Australia's becoming a republic means that Australia has loomed rather larger than the other dominions in British newspapers.

Most Popular Articles in News: The Ten Best Laptop bags; Tata plans cheapest-ever car for Indian market; GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD; Corn is good for you; Corn is not only a tasty treat, but also a cereal that ...; THE 50 BEST STYLISH HANDBAGS TO CARRY; More »

This latest book is based on the author's own time in Australia where he grew up and where he now lives for part of each year. His study stands out from some of the other books that have appeared because he has spent most of his working life outside Australia without, however, losing touch with his birth-place. This gives him the base for a wider view and what would be called a sympathetic detachment than others, who have never left the country, might have. Significantly, his approach lacks the occasional acidity or 'pommy-bashing' tone that other writers show. Finally, he has no private agenda to argue over the constitutional future of Australia and this makes his book not only more readable but more balanced and trustworthy. He has his own views -- he dislikes Mrs Hanson's One Nation Party and shares the intelligentsia's love-affair with the Aborigines. But these do not affect his objectivity.

Mr Knightley, a seasoned journalist and writer with nine titles to his credit, adopts a 'slice of life' approach combined with a basic history of the Dominion. His concentration, and his best writing, is on the daily life of Australians and he gives those who have never visited the country an enjoyable survey of life there. Whether dealing with history or with surveying the country today, the journalist comes out: he concentrates on people rather than institutions and this gives his book a vibrant sense of colour. He departs from the old view of Australia as a place where Englishmen, whether the original convicts or the waves of immigrants from the British Isles who followed them, were condemned to live far from the Mother Country.

This book argues that from the start, the combination of landscape and geographic location meant that from the beginning, Australia was becoming a nation. This puts the sometimes tiresome (to Britons) chip on the shoulder attitude, based on a love-hate relationship with Britain, into a slightly different context. The author also makes some interesting comparisons between Australia and America, both of which started life as English colonies but each of which developed differently.

One aspect which could have been developed more is the number of parallels between the two countries and their relations with Britain. Even though America staged a successful rebellion, for decades Americans kept looking over their shoulders to Britain and kept up attitudes which made no sense within an independent nation. A sense of inferiority, whether justified or not, leads to boastfulness. In many ways, however, America, like Australia, was intellectually and for many years, economically dependent on. Britain.

In both countries one saw the Englishman set free in a virgin territory and liberated from traditional restraints. Both had, and still have, a certain robustness which has apparently disappeared back home. Both share with the Mother Country the same intellectual milieu: the Americans feel sorry for their treatment of the Indians; the Australians feel sorry for their treatment of the Aborigines; Britons just tend to feel sorry for themselves and, if they have a sense of history, for their loss of pride in themselves.

Having said that, there are major differences. From the outset, and despite the image of the rough and tough cattle farmers braving all in the outback, Australia's history has largely been an urban one. America's, if one begins with the earliest settlers, was a rural history. Secondly, and more importantly, there is the difference in approach to society, a difference shared with New Zealand. The dominating mark of Australians, unlike Americans, is their sense of collective life.

Of the books that will be produced to mark the centenary of Australia's becoming a federated nation, this must rank as the best.

Advance Australia Fair - Review

Contemporary Review, July, 2001 by Edward Bradbury

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Reference

Most Popular Articles in News

Most Popular Publications in News