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The Rise and Fall of Australia: How a great nation lost its way Paperback – 1 July 2014

by Nick Bryant (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars 127
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A forensic look at the Lucky Country, from the inside and outside.

A forensic look at the Lucky Country, from the inside and outside.

Never before has Australia enjoyed such economic, commercial, diplomatic and cultural clout. Its recession-proof economy is the envy of the world. It's the planet's great lifestyle superpower. But its politics have never been so brutal, narrow and facile, as well as such a global laughing stock. A positive national story is at odds with a deeply unattractive Canberra story.

In The Rise and Fall of Australia, BBC correspondent and author Nick Bryant offers an outsider's take on the great paradox of modern-day Australian life- of how the country has gotten richer at a time when its politics have become impoverished.

In this thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking book, dealing with politics, racism, sexism, culture, sport and the nation's place in the region and the world, Bryant sets out to describe the new Australia rather than the mythic country so often misunderstood not just by foreigners but also by Australians themselves.
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  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    BANTAM AUSTRALIA ORIGINAL
  4. Publication date
    1 July 2014
  5. Dimensions
    15.6 x 2.4 x 23.5 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    0857983784
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0857983787
  8. See all details
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Book Description

A forensic look at the Lucky Country, from the inside and outside.

About the Author

During a career spanning almost thirty years, Nick Bryant came to be regarded as one of the BBC's finest foreign correspondents and was described as 'the new Alistair Cooke'. He has been posted in Washington, South Asia, Australia and, most recently, New York, where he covered the Trump years. His writing has appeared in The Economist, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Monthly and The New Statesman. He broadcasts regularly on the BBC and ABC. Nick studied history at Cambridge and has a doctorate in American politics from Oxford. He now lives in Sydney with his wife and children. His book, When America Stopped Being Great- A History of the Present, currently resides on Joe Biden's bookshelf in the Oval Office.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ BANTAM AUSTRALIA ORIGINAL; 1st edition (1 July 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0857983784
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0857983787
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.6 x 2.4 x 23.5 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 out of 5 stars 127

About the author

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Nick Bryant

Nick Bryant

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I'm Nick Bryant, the BBC's New York correspondent, and the author of When America Stopped Being Great: A History of the Present.

My love affair with America began as a young child, but was sealed when I paid my first visit here as a teenager. It was 1984, I touched down in Los Angeles on the eve of the Olympics, and I got to experience America’s extraordinary summertime of resurgence. I marveled at 84 pianists thumping out Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and the rocketman who buzzed the Los Angeles Coliseum with a jetpack affixed to his back. Then I witnessed a modern-day gold-rush, as Team USA dominated the medals table. After the long national nightmare of Vietnam, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis, the United States reasserted its global dominance.

Later that year, Ronald Reagan won re-election in a landslide, with a ringing slogan, that perfectly captured the spirit of the times: “It’s Morning Again in America.”

My new book, When America Stopped Being Great, explains how we went from “It’s Morning Again in America” to the “American carnage” of Donald Trump’s inaugural address, the mass mourning of the Coronavirus outbreak and the storming of the US Capitol.

It also shows how each successive president, from Reagan through to Obama, contributed to the rise of Donald Trump. His presidency was not a historical accident. Given what happened over the previous 50 years, it was almost historically inescapable.

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3.9 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from Australia

Chris Bull
4.0 out of 5 stars Nick Byant has a good perspective on Australian politics.
Reviewed in Australia on 29 July 2014
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The Rise and Fall of Australia is timely and a bit disturbing. Is this the way politics is going worldwide? I'm thinking here of The Tea Party in the US and UKIP in the UK. The 24 hour news cycle is destroying real policy debate, the loudest angriest voices are the ones that make the news. Scary. At the end of the book Nick mentions his wife and young child. I couldn't believe it. He'd married Fleur Woods who was literally our girl next door in suburban Lane Cove! 6 degrees of separation?
3 people found this helpful
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Ron
5.0 out of 5 stars Good book good price good delivery
Reviewed in Australia on 30 October 2021
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Amazon - safe company to deal with.
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Peter Campbell
3.0 out of 5 stars Great topic, needs more work
Reviewed in Australia on 25 August 2014
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More like a newspaper article than a book. Still interesting for Australians and Brits in particular to read.
One person found this helpful
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David SLOMAN
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in Australia on 4 August 2014
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Well written and highly insightful look at Australian politics.
One person found this helpful
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wazbud
5.0 out of 5 stars An affectionate portrait of Oz
Reviewed in Australia on 12 July 2014
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Very readable and thoroughly researched, this is a friendly but insightful review of contemporary Australia. Nick Bryant's analysis of the hot house that is Canberra is unique.
5 people found this helpful
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Peter Elliott
1.0 out of 5 stars One Star
Reviewed in Australia on 4 September 2015
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Started out as reasonably entertaining, then just became another left wing rant.
7 people found this helpful
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R Harding
1.0 out of 5 stars Rubbish
Reviewed in Australia on 15 September 2014
This book is nothing more than a rant by a POM who clearly does not get Australia and should bugger off back home.
I'm an Expat Brit living in Australia for over 30 years, and what Nick clearly does not understand is that every criticism he makes of Australia is EXCATLY what makes Australia the country it is.
Don't waste your time or money on this book
12 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Ian Richardson
4.0 out of 5 stars Must-read for every Australian who cares about their country
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 October 2016
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A most perceptive easy-to-read study of what is right and what is wrong with Australia. Every Aussie should read this book -- especially the country's politicians who get a severe well-deserved kicking from Bryant.
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MR C P TUBB
4.0 out of 5 stars This book is a interesting inteligent insight from a non Australian on the state of Australian politics
Reviewed in the United States on 6 February 2015
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I enjoyed Nicks reporting for the BBC when he was stationed in Australian & this book is a interesting inteligent insight from a non Australian on the state of Australian politics & its political leaders.
Some of the things he writes about are not unique to us-the 24/7 cycle or about national identity etc (e.g. UK-English, Scott Welsh etc).
If there is a re-print he will already have a new chapter on the Queensland 2015 election result, 2 by-elections in SA that favoured a stale 12 year labor government due to the Abbott factor & now the leadership spill on Abbott, which has always been a matter of when (Nicks mentions how vandictive & negative Abbott was in Oppostion, he did not mention that Abbott also as PM refused to appoint anyone appointed by Labor regardless of the job they did & continue to lie & break promises he never intended to keep & only made them to get elected).
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Dan zammit
5.0 out of 5 stars It takes an outsider to be so insightful.
Reviewed in the United States on 8 September 2014
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I was sceptical about a Pom telling me about my own country. We are holding the Ashes at the moment so I had little to lose to give this Oxbridge chap a fair go.

The title is a little bit misleading. The fall refers to the horrific politics, the rise refers to almost everything else. It isnt an attack on the country's cultural fabric or its economics, rather its an attempt by an outsider (who is a fan) to comprehend it all.

Since reading it two months ago I've started to refer to it, and even to depend on it. I was taken aback by the searing insight into the slow decline of English culture in Ausralia and saddened by the too-slow rise of Asian culture. My memories of Rudd07 and Julia are starting to fade. Nick's book has many casual facts dropping into each sentence that I dare say I'll be passing off his commentary as my own recollections.

Best chapters were the first about What the World Gets Wrong About Australia and the second last about Cultural Cringe. If every tourist read those two chapters then they'd have a much better time in Oz, and be able to appreciate us locals even more.

We don't have the politicians we deserve but we get the foreign correspondants we want. I'm a better informed and wittier commentator on my own Aussie experience since reading his book.

And we've got the Ashes back.
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Adzlor
3.0 out of 5 stars Good and insightful - but probably needed another edit.
Reviewed in the United States on 22 September 2014
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This is a good book, and I really liked Nick Bryant as a journo when he was in Oz. However, Peter Hartcher's book 'the Sweet Spot' is probably better. And Bill Bryson's Down Under probably does a better job of looking at the social aspects of Australia.

Nick makes some good points throughout the book, but his prose had a habit of making incredibly long lists of things that proved his point. This became fairly tiresome after a while.

All up, it is a good first start to understanding this current moment in Australian history, particularly as it is from the perspective of a foreigner (which Peter Hartcher's is not.)
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David Swann
4.0 out of 5 stars Really interesting book about how politics in Australia has gone feral.
Reviewed in the United States on 29 August 2014
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Sitting across the Tasman here in New Zealand, we get the occasional whiff of something nasty in Australian politics. We'll see a politician saying something which the average Kiwi will react to with a face-palm and a 'what are you thinking' shake of the head.

This book explains why this is so. It's actually very troublesome and could equally be titled "when democracy goes bad". I have a much better understanding of how politics in Australia has become unrepresentative of either citizen or business interests. Where I felt Nick Bryant could have done a better job is in developing fuller hypotheses about what comes next.

As it is, the book ends up being depressing since in the absence of any explanation about how things might improve, the pessimist in me comes to the fore. If the "lucky country" gets any unluckier in its choice of politicians, that probably doesn't augur well for us Kiwis.
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