A New Britannia'Cock-eyed and parochial' Donald Horne labelled this provocative book when it was first published - a few years after his own celebrated "Lucky Country."This stimulating new edition of Humphrey McQueen's irreverent classic charts the origins of the Australian Labor Party. In tracing the social forces that produced the ALP, he shows it was anti-socialst from the very start. Along the way he reveals a colonial passion for pianos and uncovers the proto-fascist ideas behind Henry Lawson's popular writings. An expanded Afterword brings the ALP into the current phase of globalising.Racism rears its many heads throughout this challenging story, and Humphrey McQueen shows that the desire for land was the basis for much of what passed as radicalism and socialism. For Australians, it would seem the land boom has never ended. |
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