Celebrating the Nation offers the first major critical retrospective on Australia's Bicentenary. The editors have collected a series of essays focusing on the different ways in which 1988 was celebrated. From the soccer Gold Cup to literary commissions, from Expo 88 to the Travelling Exhibition and the Stockman's Hall of Fame, it examines the cultural and ideological frameworks which shaped the discourses and rhetoric of those celebrations.

The contributors also put the Australian Bicentenary of 1988 in historical and international perspective, comparing the celebrations of 1988 with earlier Australian anniversary celebrations, and with recent national celebrations in France, Canada and the United States.

Drawing on the findings of a major research project organised by the Institute for Cultural Policy Studies at Griffith University, Celebrating the Nation provides a provocative and insightful analysis of the cultural and political processes through which modern nations organise and symbolise their histories and identities.