Abstract
In this article I investigate four phases in Australian non-fiction publishing between the late 1950s and early 2000s, focused on works of current affairs, politics and popular history. Many such books, I argue, were published as part of a âcultural missionâ in Australian non-fiction book publishing, where an imperative for reform motivated many publishers to publish books they believed to be of greater than commercial importance. The paper first defines âcultural missionâ publishing. I then argue that such publishing has played a crucial role in Australian culture wars and struggles over national identity since the late 1950s and that these struggles have played out in four overlapping phases that reflect shifts in national debate and the commercial imperatives of book publishing. These consist of, first, a ârenaissanceâ phase from the late 1950s until roughly the late 1960s; second, an âinsurrectionistâ phase from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s; third, a âreactionâ phase from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, and fourth a âcorporatistâ phase that gathered pace in the late 1990s.
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