Made in England: Australia’s British Inheritance: Quarterly Essay 12

In the fourthQuarterly Essayof 2003, David Malouf looks at Australia’s bond with Britain and wonders whether it wasn’t the Mother Country which did most of the giving. This is an essay which presents British civilisation, the civilisation of Shakespeare and the Enlightenment and the Westminster system, as the irreducible ground on which any Australian achievement is based. Britain has always been the tolerant parent, and an older Australia could be both intensely patriotic and see itself as what it was, a transplantation of Britain. This relationship did not exclude America but it made for a sometimes complicated threesome of nations. This is a brilliant, deeply meditated essay by one of our finest writers about the traditions that shaped Australia and which connect it to one of the mightier traditions in world history.
‘…Made in Englandis … a case of one of Australia’s most eminent novelists allowing himself to imagine, and by imagining to analyse, the hopes and glories, once and future, that were part of this new Britannia.’ -Peter Craven,Introduction
‘Any argument for the republic based on the need to make a final break with Britain will fail.’ -David Malouf,Made In England