British world or new world?: Anglo-Saxonism and Australian engagement with America

Abstract

This paper suggests that in discussing the formation of national identity in the decades prior to the First World War, we should move beyond the analytic binary of ‘Australian radical nationalism’ on the one hand and ‘British race patriotism’ on the other. It is suggested, furthermore, that the recent promotion of the idea of ‘British race patriotism’ as the basis of Australian national identity misses the importance of a transnational Anglo-Saxonism — theorised by historians such as E. A. Freeman — that underpinned strong identification on the part of an influential group of Australian radical liberals — women and men — with the independent New World republic of the United States. The First..