'An energetic and multifaceted history of Australia that illuminates a rich national story interlinked within an international context...the book achieves its aim of rendering Australia's past, and the challenges the country has faced and met, with aplomb.' - Patricia O'Brien, Visiting Associate Professor, Georgetown University, USA 'History as it should be -- informed and judicious, but conveyed with zest, purpose and enviable clarity. Peel and Twomey weave the myriad strands of Australia's story into a thoroughly absorbing read' - Professor Stuart Ward, University of Copenhagen.

MARK PEEL is Professor of Modern Cultural and Social History and Head of History at the University of Liverpool, UK, having previously been a Professor and Head of School at Monash University, Australia. He is the author of Good Times, Hard Times: The Past and the Future in Elizabeth, The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty and Miss Cutler and the Case of the Resurrected Horse: Dramatising Poverty in American, Australian and British Social Work. CHRISTINA TWOMEY is Associate Professor of History at Monash University, Australia. She has published widely on the cultural history of war, and is the author of Australia's Forgotten Prisoners: Civilians Interned by the Japanese in World War II and Deserted and Destitute: Motherhood, Wife Desertion and Colonial Welfare.

List of Illustrations List of Maps, Tables and Figures Acknowledgements Introduction First People The Great South Land: 1500-1800 Britain's Prison: Convicts, Settlers and Indigenous People: 1788-1802 Free and Unfree: Reforming New South Wales: 1803-1829 New Australias: 1829-1849 The Golden Lands: 1850-1868 At the Forefront of the Race: 1868-1888 A Truly New World: 1888-1901 A Protective Nation: 1901-1914 A Nation at War: 1914-1918 A Nation Divided: 1919-1939 Defending Australia: 1939-1949 Security: 1949-1963 Dissent and Social Change: 1964-1979 Global Nation: 1980-2010 Notes Further Reading Index