Here is an indispensable first reckoning with what the Howard years have meant for Australia.

Since 1996, we have seen Pauline Hanson rise and fall and threaten to rise again, and Reconciliation fade away. We have paid the GST and voted down the Republic. We have seen border protection win an election, and the War on Terror hijack the political agenda. And all the while, our natural environment, our sense of community, our universities and our relationships with the rest of the world, have been transformed in ways that will affect the nation for years to come.

This powerful book examines the record of the Howard government. In a series of engaging and accessible essays by some of our leading thinkers, it critically assesses how the government has performed on the key issues and tracks its larger influence on Australian society. It shows how the \most conservative leader the Liberal Party has ever had\ has re-made, and divided, the nation.

Contributors include: Mungo MacCallum, Judith Brett, Helen Irving, Mick Dodson, William Maley, John Quiggin, Julian Disney, Simon Marginson, Ian Lowe, M.C. Ricklefs, Tony Kevin and Robert Manne.