This second edition surveys the dramatic social and cultural shifts occuring amongst Australians as they approach the centenary of federation in 2001. The book explores the way in which a distinctive national culture was built up between 1901 and the outbreak of World War Two, and how that culture has been modified and challenged in the postwar era. A chronological survey from the centuries of Aboriginal habitation before the coming of the Europeans, through to the present, charts the evolution of Australia's social and political institutions against the changing imperial relationship.