This exciting and stimulating book looks back at turning points and crucial moments in Australian history. Rather than arguing that there have been forks on a pre-determined road, the book challenges us to think about other paths or better paths that might have led to different outcomes.

South Australia has often been represented as different: convict free, more enlightened in its attitudes toward Aboriginal people, established on rational economic principles, progressive in its social/political development. Some of this is true, some not, but mostly the story is more complex. In this book, eminent historians explore these themes.

South Australia has often been represented as different: convict free, more enlightened in its attitudes toward Aboriginal people, established on rational economic principles, progressive in its social/political development. Some of this is true, some not, but mostly the story is more complex. In this book, eminent historians explore these themes.

This book features full-colour and historical black and white photographs, maps, documents, and illustrations, all brought to life by well-researched and accessible narratives. The events featured in this book changed Australia and have the nation what it is today. Events that Shaped Australia sets out the detail, the people, the images and the after effects of the most important turning points in our nation's history. Starting with the formation of Gondwanaland and the arrival of indigenous Australians, this book features events in such eras as European colonisation, the Gold Rush, Federation, two World Wars and the later part of the 20th Century. Moving into the new millennium, the Bali Bombings, the Tampa controversy and the Rudd-Gillard-Abbott government crises are all featured. Events that Shaped Australia features rare colour and black and white photographs, as well as maps, documents and illustrations brought to life by well-researched and accessible narratives.

This book is the first comprehensive account of how Australia attained the world's highest living standards within a few decades of European settlement, and how the nation has sustained an enviable level of income to the present. Why Australia Prospered is a fascinating historical examination of how Australia cultivated and sustained economic growth and success. Beginning with the Aboriginal economy at the end of the eighteenth century, Ian McLean argues that Australia's remarkable prosperity across nearly two centuries was reached and maintained by several shifting factors. These included imperial policies, favorable demographic characteristics, natural resource abundance, institutional adaptability and innovation, and growth-enhancing policy responses to major economic shocks, such as war, depression, and resource discoveries. Natural resource abundance in Australia played a prominent role in some periods and faded during others, but overall, and contrary to the conventional view of economists, it was a blessing rather than a curse. McLean shows that Australia's location was not a hindrance when the international economy was centered in the North Atlantic, and became a positive influence following Asia's modernization. Participation in the world trading system, when it flourished, brought significant benefits, and during the interwar period when it did not, Australia's protection of domestic manufacturing did not significantly stall growth. McLean also considers how the country's notorious origins as a convict settlement positively influenced early productivity levels, and how British imperial policies enhanced prosperity during the colonial period. He looks at Australia's recent resource-based prosperity in historical perspective, and reveals striking elements of continuity that have underpinned the evolution of the country's economy since the nineteenth century.