Review of 'Australians in Britain: The Twentieth Century Experience', ed. by Carl Bridge, Robert Crawford and David Dunstan (Clayton, Vic.: Monash University ePress, 2009). 256 pp. ISBN 9780980464863 (pbk), 9780980464870 (online). RRP A$34.95 (pbk).

Abstract

This is either a fascinating - or a deeply frustrating collection for the travelled /'exiled' reader - being a set of some 16 [separately paginated] essays. Its impetus and source come alike from the Australian Menzies Centre, in London, one based at 'the heart of things' - or is it a return to the Colonial Office and other modes of population for the Australian continent? But this last is a digression. Of course, the collection comes from the Australian [return] cultural bridgehead at Kings College, University of London. And the endpapers tell us, very helpfully, that this ebook belongs in a Monash University sequence - one already to be seen to be: - looking at 'Australians in Italy'; - considering perspectives on the ever more significant genre of cartooning; - treating of historical settlement systems; - discovering/ writing the obituary for our nation's rural ideals; - treating of the 21st century's possible learning discourses; - looking at transport and social disadvantage in Australian communities; - or the matter of secular art .../ but also of its 'sacramental' roots. Thus the whole series - or what is so far available - is clearly intended to bookend a period and so to be a fin de siecle type of survey and sweep of its changing mental climates, perhaps, as in similar and climacteric British publication efforts.