Book review: Anglo-Australian relations and the 'Turn to Europe': 1961-1972

The seminal decisions made by British governments in the 1960s to withdraw from a military role east of Suez and to apply to enter the European Economic Community effectively ended the British Empire. For Australian governments and their officials these decisions caused a seismic shift in Australia’s place in the world. Andrea Benvenuti’s Anglo-Australian Relations and the ‘Turn to Europe’: 1961 1972 tells the story of how successive Australian governments struggled against the United Kingdom’s decisions to withdraw from its worldwide imperial role to a strategic and economic future based in Europe. Benvenuti demonstrates how the actions of Coalition governments of the 1960s varied from active and sometimes angry diplomacy to reverse the direction of British policy to passive and sullen acceptance of a new world order in which the British Empire was no more. This fine book skilfully analyses the end of empire from the official perspectives of both Canberra and London.