This is the first major collaborative reappraisal of Australia's experience of empire since the end of the British Empire itself. The volume examines the meaning and importance of empire in Australia across a broad spectrum of historical issues-ranging from the disinheritance of the Aborigines to the foundations of a new democratic state. The overriding theme is the distinctive Australian perspective on empire. The country's adherence to imperial ideals and aspirations involved not merely the building of a 'new Britannia' but also the forging of a distinctive new culture and society. It was Australian interests and aspirations which ultimately shaped "Australia's Empire". While modern Australians have often played down the significance of their British imperial past, the contributors to this book argue that the legacies of empire continue to influence the temper and texture of Australian society today.

Professor Deryck M Schreuder is currently Chair of the Australian Universities' Quality Agency and previously Vice Chancellor of two Australian universities, President of the Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee, and President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Australian Historical Association. An Oxford Rhodes Scholar, he was a founding Professor in History at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario and 4th Challis Professor of History in The University of Sydney. He has published widely in British imperial and colonial studies.
Professor Stuart Ward (Ph.D., Sydney) holds an Associate Professorship at the University of Copenhagen, and is currently a visiting researcher at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies in London. He is the author of Australia and the British Embrace: The Demise of the Imperial Ideal (2001); and he has edited British Culture and the End of Empire (2001). He is co-editing a documentary history of Australia's changing ties to Britain in the decolonisation era, as well as researching a major study of "The End of Greater Britain."