This is not a book of documents, snippets or worthy speeches. Instead it presents the original essays and the moments of insight that told us what Australia is and could be.

These are the essential statements - from historians, reporters, novelists, mavericks and visionaries - that take us from Federation to the present-day, and tell a story of national self-discovery.

There is the Frenchman who saw that Australia was a 'workingman's paradise', and the historian who explained why.

The two reporters who realised the true significance of Gallipoli and conveyed it to the nation.

Russel Ward on the Australian Legend, Robin Boyd on the Australian Ugliness, Donald Horne on the Lucky Country, W.E.H. Stanner on the Great Australian Silence and Anne Summers on Manzone Country.

Real Matildas, Cultural Cringers, Future Eaters and Forgotten People - and much more.

Memorably written and cohesive, this is the essential sourcebook of the words that made Australia.  

Robert Manne is professor of politics at La Trobe University and a regular writer for the Monthly. His books include Making Trouble: Essays Against the New Australian Complacency and, as editor, The Australian Century and W.E.H. Stanner: The Dreaming & Other Essays.

Chris Feik is editor of Quarterly Essay, associate editor of the Monthly and publisher at Black Inc.

Miles Franklin
Albert Metin
Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett
Keith Murdoch
Maybanke Anderson
D.H. Lawrence
W.K. Hancock
P.R. Stephensen
Vance Palmer
Robert Menzies
A.A. Phillips
Manning Clark
Russel Ward
Barry Humphries
Robin Boyd
Donald Horne
W.E.H. Stanner
Humphrey McQueen
Hugh Stretton
Anne Summers
Miriam Dixson
Bernard Smith
Paul Kelly
Geoffrey Blainey
Tim Flannery
David Malouf
Inga Clendinnen
Noel Pearson
Judith Brett
Ghassan Hage