Australia celebrates 100 years as a nation in 2001. This book - part
history, part travelogue, part memoir - tells the inspiring story of how a
colony with only two sorts of citizens, convicts and gaolers, became a
confident modern country.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.
