xv, 448 p.

Australia, 1888-1915 (ANB/PRECIS SIN 0497266)

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

"The grand themes of Volume V take up the topics of those preceding, and carry Australia's story forward to the tragic days of December 1915. We read of the growth of federal sentiment, resulting at last in Federation for the six colonies in 1901. In those same years Australians fought in the imperial battles of the Boer War in South Africa. It was not many years before they were fighting again, this time on the bloodier battlefield of Gallipoli. Professor Clark closes his account with their evacuation from that ill-omened peninsula, bound for greater suffering and greater glory in France. Always the historian of ideas and ideals, Clark's compassionate eye discerns the unhappy fate of the Aborigines, victims always of the triumph of 'progress'. 'Progress' was a force that also yielded little benefit to women by way of status or regard. The land boom of the 1880s and the bust of the nineties carry their own tale of disillusion and distress. The confrontation between true Australian nationalists and those who saw themselves as 'Australian-Britons' is sharply depicted. And he shows the labour movement, once fiery radical in the armed camps of the shearers, finally enveloped by the bourgeois values and moderation which have been its character ever since. As in previous volumes, the rich play of personality upon events fascinates Professor Clark as it will enthral his readers. We meet a great gallery of the men and women who made us in the fateful shaping of 1888 to 1901, when 'the people made laws'." -- Inside cover

In English.