A Concise History of Australia (Cambridge Concise Histories). This item is unavailable.A Concise History of Australia (Cambridge Concise Histories)

Australia 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 describes how they 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. Now, with the realisation that colonisation began with invasion, present-day Australians are - more than ever before - coming to terms with their past and recognising the need to redefine and reposition Australia in a changing world. This is the most up-to-date single-volume Australian history available.

' ... a lively, intelligent, opinionated and very well written one-volume history, traversing some well-covered territory of colonial and 20th-century Australia with a fresh eye that doesn't fail to observe the big and small picture.' Australian Bookseller and Publisher

'As one of a series of works of reference, concise national histories, the book is an interesting, often brilliant combination of new and conventional scholarship, of information, opinion and ideas.' Journal of Australian Colonial History

'... a most impressive contribution to Australian historical literature'. Australian Book Review

'This volume will become the standard text for many university courses in Australian history. Researchers, students and general readers will appreciate Macintrye's deft coverage and insights.' Michael Sturma, History

'Macintyre's book is the best short history of Australia since Manning Clark's classic of 1963.' The Times Literary Supplement

'This excellent, compact volume ... Macintye gives a perceptive account of the culture of sacrifice, made for the mother country in two world wars, the making of the modern, multicultural society, and, of course, looks at the unifying role of cricket.' BBC History Magazine