The Australia-First Movement

A powerful and insightful historical expose of ultra-right politics in Australian during the Second World War, this book exposes the people behind the Sydney s Publicist newspaper. This thought-provoking work deconstructs the inner workings of a political group and considers how the ideologies of a collective of quasi-intellectuals transformed from a nationalistic, anti-British movement, simply advocating an Australian society free of Imperial rule, to eventually descend into a right-wing, anti-Semitic assembly of Nazi and Japanese sympathizers. This book considers the roots of right-wing political organisations that still prosper in our country and how one such organisation led both the intelligent and the unstable astray. Far from presenting a dry academic work, the author succeeds in humanising the people involved, with all their faults and foibles, and shows what a immense impact the White Australia Policy had, and still has, in shaping the beliefs of everyday Australians. This book is suitable for university level study and as a reference for extension work by Secondary students. It will also be of great interest to general readers who are fascinated with history and politics.