Turning Points in Australian History

'If only', 'what if' and 'why didn't we' are phrases that often come to mind when we look back to the past. This exciting and stimulating book looks back at turning points and crucial moments in Australian history. Rather than arguing that there have been forks on a pre-determined road, the book challenges us to think about other paths or better paths that might have led to different outcomes. It shows that a decisive event often becomes so only in retrospect and that what seemed like a major turning point at the time often had no real impact at all.

Martin Crotty lectures in history at the University of Queensland. He is the author of Making the Australian Male and has also coedited a number of other works on Australian history, including The Great Mistakes of Australian History, and he is coeditor of the Journal of Australian Studies.