Australia

(Paperback)

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Description

Australia celebrates one hundred years as a nation in 2001. This book - part history, part travelogue, part memoir - tells the inspiring story of how a one-time British colony with only two sorts of citizens, convicts and gaolers, turned itself into a proud, prosperous and confident country, the greatest sporting nation on earth, where the citizens of its high-leisure cities enjoy a lifestyle that is the envy of the world. The original hostile factions of British Protestants and Irish Catholics were joined by gold rush adventurers, waves of migrants seeking a new life, war-shattered Europeans and then - in a make-over the speed of which surprised the world - new settlers from all over Asia. Despite the appalling bloodshed of two world wars, the horror of the great depression, strikes, riots, secret armies and near civil wars, out of this amazing mix grew a new and unique character, the Australian. Through the eyes of ordinary people struggling with their passions, hopes, dreams and ambitions, Phillip Knightley describes the journey that has taken the Great South Land from a dark, racist and often murderous past to a working multi-cultural society.

Reviews

Catches the feel of Australia brilliantly. His 350 pages tell you more of Australia's public history and secret life than any academic study ever could. Wonderful * The Times *
Knightley deals skilfully and generously with all the great issues his country has faced * Independent *
Gripping and comprehensive * Irish Times *
A fine book...fascinating * Economist *

Author Bio

Phillip Knightley is the author of ten non-fiction books. He is best known for The Second Oldest Profession and The First Casualty- The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker. He has met nearly every spy chief on both sides in the spy Cold War and spent one week with the British traitor Kim Philby in Moscow in 1988 debriefing him just before he died. For twenty years he was a special correspondent of The Sunday Times and a member of the Insight Team. He is now representative in Europe for the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and spends most of him time writing books and articles for publications around the world.