ABSTRACT
The question of Australian identity has usually been seen as a tug-of-war between Australianness and Britishness, between the impulse to be distinctively Australian and the lingering sense of a British heritage. The ideas of America, as the archetypal new society, and as one end of the spectrum, were bound up with and often confused in the continual comparison of Australia with America. America was also a model for the landscape, and for the type of civilisation—the small farms, the pioneer families—to be imposed upon it. The view of America as a model for new societies was particularly relevant to the political relationship between Britain and the Australian colonies. What applied to America also applied to Australia. American democracy remained the standard by which the local variety was judged, for better or worse, for the rest of the century. Ultimately, the political implications of Democracy in America were to be less damaging than its cultural implications.
