What If?

What if key episodes in Australia's past had turned out differently? If France had colonised part of Australia in the eighteenth century? If the ANZACS had played only a minor role in the Gallipoli landing in World War I? If Gough Whitlam's Labor government had been re-elected after its dismissal in 1975? If Aborigines had been granted citizenship much earlier? What new paths might our national history have followed? In this fascinating volume, leading Australian historians search for answers. Together, they reimagine Australia's environment, race relations, art, political life, and national identity, providing a play on actual and possible, action and result, result and consequence that is as rigorous as it is creative. It asks how our history has been written, what our nation has become, and what it might yet be.