Reclaiming Patriotism : Nation-Building for Australian Progressives

Reclaiming Patriotism explores the intertwining concepts of patriotism and Australian national identity. It challenges Australian progressives to speak a new language of nation building politics. Grounded in political philosophy but accessibly written, it has implications on contemporary debates about national history, Aboriginal reconciliation, multiculturalism, climate change and a republic.

Affronted by the xenophobic nationalists who stalked the land during the Howard years, many progressive Australians have rejected a love of country, forgetting that there is a patriotism of the liberal left that at different times has advanced liberty, egalitarianism, and democratic citizenship. Tim Soutphommasane, a first-generation Australian and political philosopher who has journeyed from Sydney''s western suburbs to Oxford University, re-imagines patriotism as a generous sentiment of democratic renewal and national belonging. In accessible prose, he explains why our political leaders will need to draw upon the better angels of patriotism if they hope to inspire citizens for nation-building, and indeed persuade them to make sacrifices in the hard times ahead. As we debate the twenty-first century challenges of reconciliation and a republic, citizenship and climate change, Reclaiming Patriotism proposes a narrative we have to have.