A Concise History of AustraliaAustralia is the last continent to be settled by Europeans, but it also sustains a people and a culture tens of thousands of years old. For much of the past 200 years the newcomers have sought to replace the old with the new. This book tells how they imposed themselves on the land, and brought technology, institutions and ideas to make it their own. It relates the advance from penal colony to a prosperous free nation and illustrates how, in a nation created by waves of newcomers, the search for binding traditions has long been frustrated by the feeling of rootlessness. This revised edition incorporates the most recent historical research and contemporary historical debates on frontier violence between European settlers and Aborigines and the Stolen Generations. It covers the Sydney Olympics, the refugee crisis and the 'Pacific solution'. More than ever before, Australians draw on the past to understand their future. |
Contents
Beginnings | |
Newcomers c 16001792 | 8 |
Coercion 17931821 | 26 |
Emancipation 18221850 | 44 |
In thrall to progress 18511888 | 77 |
National reconstruction 18891913 | 113 |
Sacrifice 19141945 | 148 |
Golden age 19461974 | 191 |
Reinventing Australia 19752004 | 234 |
What next? | 283 |
Sources of quotations | 290 |
Guide to further reading | 306 |
Index | 319 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal Alan Atkinson Alfred Deakin Allen & Unwin American Anzac Asian Australian history became Billy Hughes Brisbane Britain British brought Cambridge University Press Canberra celebrated cent century civilisation claim Cold War colonial colonists Commonwealth communist Concise History convicts cultural Deakin decade Diemen's Land domestic early economic election Empire European federal force Fraser Geoffrey Blainey governor Henry Lawson historians History of Australia Howard immigration imperial increased indigenous industry Island John kilometres Labor government Labor Party leader Liberal London Macquarie Malcolm Fraser Melbourne University Press ment Menzies migrants military movement numbers organisation Oxford University Press Pacific parliament pastoral Phillip political population Port prime minister production protection Queensland quoted Robert Menzies settlement settlers shearers social society South Australia South Wales Stuart Macintyre Sydney tion took trade tralian unions United Van Diemen's Land Victoria wage Western Australia women workers Zealand