Making It National Nationalism and Australian popular culture

Making it National argues that we need to rethink the way national identity is constructed in Australia today. Graeme Turner takes a series of recent instances - the mythologising of Bond and the larrikin entrepreneurs, the Spycatcher trials, Maralinga and the Bicentenary - showing how popular images of national identity are used to serve specific rather than national interests.'Graeme Turner's writing has a remarkable power to engage its readers with all the immediacy, vividness and drama of our very best journalism, while putting cultural theory to work in new and creative ways.' - Meaghan Morris'Making it National could be to the 1990s what Richard White's Inventing Australia was to the 1980s.' - Tony Bennett, Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University

Acknowledgements1 Introduction: making it national2 Bond-ing: business, boast and the national character3 A taste of the colonial birch: the British connection4 Picnic at Ayers Rock: the Bicentenary5 Looking to America: the Crocodile Dundee factor6 Redefining the nation: from purity to hybridity7 The media, the nation... and conclusionNotesReferencesIndex

Graeme Turner is Professor of Cultural Studies in the Department of English at the University of Queensland. He is author and editor of numerous titles including National Fictions, Media in Australia, Australian Television and Myths of Oz.