The Lucky Culture: And the Rise of An Australian Ruling Class by Nick Cater

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. A few marks on back cover.

A bold and provocative book about Australia's national identity and how the rise of a ruling class threatens it.

Nick Cater, a senior editor at The Australian, tracks the seismic changes in Australian culture and outlook since Donald Horne wrote The Lucky Country in 1964.

He believes that countries don't get lucky; people do. The secret of Australia's good fortune is not found in its geography or history. The key to its success is the Australian character, the nation's greatest renewable resource.

Liberated from the constraints of the old world, Australia's pioneers mined their reserves of enterprise, energy and ingenuity to build the great civilization of the south. Their overriding principle was fairness: everybody had a right to a fair go and was obliged to do the right thing by others.

Today that spirit of egalitarianism is threatened by the rise of a new breed of sophisticated Australians who claim to understand the demands of the age better. Their presumption of superior virtue tempts them to look down on others and assert the right to rule.

Half a century after Donald Horne named Australia The Lucky Country, Nick Cater takes stock of the new battle to define Australia and the rift that divides a presumptive ruling class from a people who refuse to be ruled.