Australia And The British Embrace

The Demise of the Imperial Ideal

Stuart Ward
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Australia And The British Embrace

Subjects

History

Published

18 October 2016

ISBN

9780522865875

Ebook File Size

3.7MB

Subjects

History

Imprint

Melbourne University Press

Australia And The British Embrace

The Demise of the Imperial Ideal

Stuart Ward
Australia and the British Embrace is an engrossing account of the unravelling of Britishness in Australian political life.

Until a generation ago, 'Britishness' lay at the heart of Australian political culture. How and why did this fundamental idea lose its meaning for Australians and their political institutions?

The popular view is that the British ideal succumbed to a triumphant, long-thwarted Australian nationalism. The reality is much more complex. Having weighed the documentary evidence, Stuart Ward vigorously argues that it was not Australia but the 'Mother Country' that set the pace.

The critical move was the Macmillan Government's decision in the early 1960s to seek membership of the European Economic Community. Thereafter, the ties of imperial sentiment and the dictates of national self-interest were essentially irreconcilable. Australia's attachment to being British was profoundly shaken, and the contours of Australian nationhood were irreversibly redrawn.

Australia and the British Embrace is an engrossing account of the unravelling of Britishness in Australian political life. The consequences of that unravelling continue to dominate…

Until a generation ago, 'Britishness' lay at the heart of Australian political culture. How and why did this fundamental idea lose its meaning for Australians and their political institutions?

The popular view is that the British ideal succumbed to a triumphant, long-thwarted Australian nationalism. The reality is much more complex. Having weighed the documentary evidence, Stuart Ward vigorously argues that it was not Australia but the 'Mother Country' that set the pace.

The critical move was the Macmillan Government's decision in the early 1960s to seek membership of the European Economic Community. Thereafter, the ties of imperial sentiment and the dictates of national self-interest were essentially irreconcilable. Australia's attachment to being British was profoundly shaken, and the contours of Australian nationhood were irreversibly redrawn.

Australia and the British Embrace is an engrossing account of the unravelling of Britishness in Australian political life. The consequences of that unravelling continue to dominate Australian politics—from multiculturalism to Aboriginal reconciliation, engagement with Asia and, above all, the prospect of a republic.

Stuart Ward

Stuart Ward

Stuart Ward is Professor and Head of the Saxo Institute for History, Ethnology, Archaeology and Classics at the University of Copenhagen, specializing in imperial history, particularly the political and social consequences of decolonization. His most recent publications include Embers of Empire in Brexit Britain (with Astrid Rasch, ed., 2019) and A World History of the End of Britain (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press).

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