AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE celebrates the influential Australians who made our nation great, as well as the ones who stopped us frombeing as great as we could have been but who have ended up with their own Wikipedia pages anyway. TV columnist, comedian andhistory buff Ben Pobjie recaps the history of Australia from its humble beginnings as a stinking hot colonial outpost to its modern-daystatus as a stinking hot culturally diverse Commonwealth realm.Like any good historian, Pobjie provides an intimate sense of what it was like to be there in the moment at some of our nation'sdefining events, and with the people who made them happen.
Meet Pioneers such as Charles Kingsford-Smith and Howard Florey,whose groundbreaking efforts moved the country forward; Artists and Entertainers such as Joan Sutherland and Errol Flynn, wholeft an indelible imprint on our national cultural identity; Captains of Industry such as Rupert Murdoch and Alan Bond who shapedAustralia's love affair with people who amass phenomenal quantities of personal wealth; Sporting Heroes such as Cathy Freeman andWalter Lindrum who, by being elite athletes, helped define every other Australian as just ordinary, inept and slothful as we are; theLest we Forgetters such as Weary Dunlop and Albert Jacka, who occasionally made us feel like we mattered at all to anyone; and theHumanitarians who found fame by dedicating their lives to others, such as Mary MacKillop and Caroline Chisholm. AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE is the book for any proud Australian seeking to learn more about the national heroes that make our own pathetic lives seem so insignificant.
Author Biography
Ben Pobjie studied history at the University of Western Sydney before his lust for glamour led him to comedy writing. He is known for his TV columns in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, and political satire for New Matilda, Crikey and the ABC, among others. He is the author of Superchef and The Book of Bloke and 2016's Error Australis (5,400 copies sold on bookscan). He has written for the TV shows Reality Check and The Unbelievable Truth. Ben lives in Melbourne with his wife, three children and a rising sense of panic.
