"Looking for Australia is a fascinating collection of essays by author and historian John Hirst. Together they form a multi-faceted portrait of Australia as a nation, with it's own political culture, its own character and style, and its own particular ways of seeing itself"-Back cover.

John Hirst was a member of the History Department at La Trobe University from 1968 to 2007. He has written many books on Australian history, including Convict Society and Its Enemies, The Strange Birth of Colonial Democracy, The Sentimental Nation, Sense and Nonsense in Australian History and The Shortest History of Europe.