“The global role of the United States is perhaps the ultimate chapter in that long period of European expansion which had begun in western Europe, and especially on the Atlantic seaboard, during the 15th century. Europe slowly had outgrown its homeland. Its cultural empire eventually formed a long band traversing most of the Northern Hemisphere and dipping far into the Southern. The modern hub of the peoples and ideas of European origin is now New York as much as Paris, or Los Angeles as much as London. In the history of the European peoples the city of Washington is perhaps what Constantinople - the infant city of Emperor Constantine - was to the last phase of the Roman Empire; for it is unlikely that Europeans, a century hence, will continue to stamp the world so decisively with their ideas and inventions.”
“Mapmakers of Europe and navigators of the Indies once thought Australian seas washed the isles of gold. Even after navigators had seen the north-west coast of Australia it was named on one map the coa...”
Geoffrey Blainey
“With the help of hindsight it is easy to imagine the stone-age migrants moving along the shortest possible route to Australia, but there is no reason why they should have taken the shortest route. Aus...”
Geoffrey Blainey
“The convict era gave Australia a high English and Irish population and a predominance of men, a tendency to disdain authority and resent policemen, and probably a love of leisure and an indifference t...”
Geoffrey Blainey
“The continent had to be discovered emotionally. It had to become a homeland and feel like home. The sense of overpowering space, the isolation, the warmth of summer, the garish light, the shiny-leafed...”
Geoffrey Blainey
“I do not accept the view, widely held in the Federal Cabinet, that some kind of slow Asian takeover of Australia is inevitable. I do not believe that we are powerless. I do believe that we can with go...”
Geoffrey Blainey