Lion and Kangaroo: The Initiation of Australia

Lion and Kangaroo is one of Australias great works of history, a rich chronicle of the nations coming-of-age.With intelligence, wisdom and wit, Gavin Souter captures all the milestones of Australias first decades, from the constitutional conventions of the nineteenth century to the turbulent years that followed the Great War. Painting unforgettable portraits of scores of the most fascinating participants, he traces a national character in evolution.Profound and insightful, it is impossible to comprehend contemporary Australia without first reading Lion and Kangaroo.Reviews of Lion and KangarooSouter is a writer of great distinction ... This book is the work of a man who can impose on the chaos of the past an order that lifts the work into the realms of art without doing violence to the events or sacrificing the standards of scholarship as defined by the academics. It is a great achievement. Manning ClarkA superb evocation of Australian life in the years between federation and the First World War, showing how imperial sentiment dominated our lives and left a vacuum in Australias national identity ... Souters book is beautifully written, lucid, witty and compelling. Gough WhitlamSouter has written a masterpiece ... The book, assiduously researched for its making, is materially explosive ... Souter lets the material do its own erupting, then shapes it to his magnificent control. A mighty work of history. The Courier-Mail