This book examines the neglected career of Australian prime minister, Joseph Lyons. It is a dramatic story set in the turbulent 1930s and involves many well-known figures, as well as many more obscure. It accounts a quest for peace which involved efforts in Washington, London, Tokyo and Rome.

Will regional powers in the Asia-Pacific have to choose between China and the United States? In Independent Ally, Shannon Tow challenges this prevailing view. She explores how one key regional power, Australia, has repeatedly developed a strong relationship with a rising power while simultaneously preserving its alliance with a dominant global power. Far from being a ‘dependent ally’ that simply follows the policies of its great and powerful friends, Australia has consistently developed and pursued an independent foreign policy toward those great powers that have played an important role in shaping its destiny. It has proactively negotiated the terms of its relationships with those powers in ways that have been mutually complementary and that have supported its strategic interests in regional order. The extent to which Australia can do so in future relates directly to the findings and lessons this study provides. Drawing on newly released archival material and interviews with prominent former policymakers, this book examines how six different Australian Prime Ministers successfully navigated these great power relationships over the last century.

The prime ministership is indisputably the most closely observed and keenly contested office in Australia. How did it grow to become the pivot of national political power? Settling the Office chronicles the development of the prime ministership from its rudimentary early days following Federation through to the powerful, institutionalised prime-ministerial leadership of the postwar era.

By the time of the Armistice, Villers-Bretonneux - once a lively and flourishing French town - had been largely destroyed, and half its population had fled or died. From March to August 1918, Villers-Bretonneux formed part of an active front line, at which Australian troops were heavily involved. As a result, it holds a significant place in Australian history. Villers-Bretonneux has since become an open-air memorial to Australia's participation in the First World War. Successive Australian governments have valourised the Australian engagement, contributing to an evolving Anzac narrative that has become entrenched in Australia's national identity. Our Corner of the Somme provides an eye-opening analysis of the memorialisation of Australia's role on the Western Front and the Anzac mythology that so heavily contributes to Australians' understanding of themselves. In this rigorous and richly detailed study, Romain Fathi challenges accepted historiography by examining the assembly, projection and performance of Australia's national identity in northern France.

The years 1921–57 marked a period of immense upheaval for Australia as the nation navigated economic crises, the threat of aggressive Japanese expansion and shifting power distributions with the world transitioning from British leadership to that of the US. This book offers a reassessment of Australia’s foreign policy origins and maturation during these tumultuous years. Successive Australian governments carefully observed these global and regional forces. The policy that developed in response was an integrated one—that is, one that sought to balance Australia’s particular geopolitical circumstances with great power relationships and, in assessing the value of these relationships, ensure that the nation’s trade, security and diplomatic interests were served. Amid the economic and strategic uncertainty of the interwar years, the Australian government acknowledged the shifting power distributions in the global and Asia-Pacific orders and that neither the policies of Britain nor the US completely served the national interest. The nation, accordingly, sought to intervene within the policies of the great powers to ensure its particular interests were secured. This geopolitically informed, interventionist approach, which had its genesis in the 1930s, is traced throughout the 1940s and 1950s, highlighting Australia’s gradual and uneven transition from the British world order to that of the US and the frank assessments made about which relationship best served Australia’s interests. The Genesis of a Policy identifies a comprehensive and pragmatic approach—albeit not always effectively executed—in Australian foreign policy tradition that has not been previously examined.

Australia's Prime Minister and premier diplomat in the 1930/1940s, this new biography presents him as a consistent internationalist and places him in a global context. >