The Lucky Country: Australia In The Sixties
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
What does it truly mean to live in a lucky nation — and is luck alone ever enough? Donald Horne's landmark work of social criticism, The Lucky Country, presents a provocative and incisive portrait of Australia in the 1960s, a nation riding a wave of prosperity it did little to engineer, governed by second-rate men who got away with it simply because the land itself was so abundant. Horne chronicles the complacency, cultural cringe, and political mediocrity he saw embedded in the Australian character, arguing with sharp wit and unflinching candour that the country's good fortune was masking a profound failure of imagination and leadership. First published in 1964, The Lucky Country became one of the most quoted — and most misunderstood — books in Australian history; its ironic title was so readily embraced as a badge of pride that it inverted Horne's original satirical intent. Written with the authority of a seasoned journalist and public intellectual, the work sits at a compelling intersection of cultural critique, political analysis, and national self-examination. Horne's style is direct and aphoristic, delivering uncomfortable truths with the precision of a scalpel, and his central question — whether Australia would ever mature beyond its lucky inheritance — remains as urgent and unanswered today as it was six decades ago.
Author: Donald Horne
Format: Hardback
Genre: Australian history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
What does it truly mean to live in a lucky nation — and is luck alone ever enough? Donald Horne's landmark work of social criticism, The Lucky Country, presents a provocative and incisive portrait of Australia in the 1960s, a nation riding a wave of prosperity it did little to engineer, governed by second-rate men who got away with it simply because the land itself was so abundant. Horne chronicles the complacency, cultural cringe, and political mediocrity he saw embedded in the Australian character, arguing with sharp wit and unflinching candour that the country's good fortune was masking a profound failure of imagination and leadership. First published in 1964, The Lucky Country became one of the most quoted — and most misunderstood — books in Australian history; its ironic title was so readily embraced as a badge of pride that it inverted Horne's original satirical intent. Written with the authority of a seasoned journalist and public intellectual, the work sits at a compelling intersection of cultural critique, political analysis, and national self-examination. Horne's style is direct and aphoristic, delivering uncomfortable truths with the precision of a scalpel, and his central question — whether Australia would ever mature beyond its lucky inheritance — remains as urgent and unanswered today as it was six decades ago.