AustLit

On finishing Larissa Behrendt’s book, Achieving Social Justice: Indigenous Rights and Australia’s Future, I was reminded of a quote from Helen Irving lamenting Australians’ ambivalence toward their own history. She said she felt

'a deep melancholy when I contemplate the approaching centenary of Federation. ... Although I am certain that there is a much greater level of ‘product recognition’ in the Australian community than there was at the beginning of the 1990s, it is also clear that Australians remain almost entirely unmoved by political history and even more so by constitutional history.'' (Introduction)