The Quarantined Culture: Australian Reactions to Modernism, 1913-1939

In 1913 the Australian press displayed a cosmopolitan openness to the culture of the modern world. By 1919, however, Australia had become an inward-looking society bent on keeping the outside world out - a quarantined culture. This book looks at the impact of the First World War on Australian culture, focusing on reactions to modernist art. John Williams argues that the creation of the Anzac legend, the back-to-the-land movement, notions of racial superiority and the mythology of the mascul...