The Land of Plenty

Australia in the 2000s

Mark Davis

The book that tells the story of Australia today: how we got here, and where we're going. A blistering exposé and manifesto for every Australian.

About this Title

'There is an Australian dream that is collective. It goes to the roots of what it means to be Australian, since it's imprinted in Australia's history, the collective acts of its peoples, their attitudes, their gestures, what and how they eat, how they spend their leisure time, and the way such things reflect upon and derive from who they are.'

In The Land of Plenty Mark Davis argues that this dream has been forsaken.

Over the past few decades Australians have felt the ground shift beneath their feet. Many people are asking why Australia is no longer the egalitarian place it once was. While the airwaves sing and newspaper front pages burst with news of how prosperous Australians are, many people wonder why they are working harder and longer, for so little, while important social agendas have fallen by the wayside.

The Land of Plenty is at once a devastating record of the changes that have taken place in Australian society since the 1980s, and a goldmine of ideas for change.

Insightful, provocative and thoroughly original, The Land of Plenty is a manifesto for our times.

VISIT www.thelandofplenty.com.au FOR THE AUTHOR'S BLOG, PODCASTS, ADDITIONAL MATERIALS, EVENT INFO AND MORE . . .

Table of Contents

Prologue: A Prosperous Place
1 The Australian Dream
2 The Quiet Revolution
3 The Enduring Politics of Us and Them
4 New Mythologies
5 Trouble in the Suburbs
6 A Changed Nation
7 A Sense of Place
8 The Elements
9 Border Wars and Ghost Ships
10 An Economic Fool's Paradise
11 The Howard Legacy
12 The Land of Plenty
Notes
Index
Acknowledgements

About the Author

Mark Davis is the author of Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism. He teaches in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.