1. Orienting Australia: David Walker's Anxious Nation in the historiographies of Australia and Asia.
- Author
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Sobocinska, Agnieszka
- Subjects
ANXIETY ,AUSTRALIAN history ,NATIONAL character ,HISTORIOGRAPHY ,WHITE men ,NEUROSES - Abstract
David Walker's 'Anxious Nation' had had its greatest influence on scholars working on Australian encounters with Asia. But the book's most significant achievement was to identify the central importance occupied by Asia – or, more precisely, the spectre of Asia – in Australian history. It diagnosed Australia's desperate search for security, its defensive posturing as a 'White Man's Country', and the longstanding search for 'engagement' as part of the same malady: a hyperawareness of Asia's proximity and power, and the sense that it would determine Australia's future. This was less a book about Asia than it was about Australia. Until it is recognised as such, and fully drawn into mainstream Australian histories and survey courses, the task of understanding Australia's national character in light of its neuroses remains incomplete. A quarter century after its publication, historians of Australia still have a lot to learn about their anxious nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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