September 20th, 2007
Great Southern Land: A New History of Australia
Great Southern Land: A New History of Australia. Frank Welsh. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxxviii + 720 pages. ISBN 0-713-99450-9. The (English) author’s enthusiasm for Australia–’probably the most successful society in the world and the most agreeable to live in’–should reassure any suspicious Aussie afraid of Pommie superiority.
He supports his assertion with UN statistics and uses his book to ‘explain the reasons for Australia’s success’. His references, however, are wider than his subject and he writes to explain Austrialia’s history to the rest of the world. All, however, is not perfect: there is a continuing sense of ’spiritual isolation’, an over-powerful Senate (at least to the author) and the question of the Aborigines: what is needed is a Commission to advise on a partial reconstruction of government. Mr Welsh has given us an exhaustive, and occasionally, exhausting, account of Austrialia’s history which is fully rounded and on the whole, quite balanced. (R.L.H.)