Visiting the Neighbours Australians in Asia

A million Australians went to Bali last year, following the millions of others who have made their way across Asia over the past century. Many travelers returned thinking they knew Asia and their personal experiences helped shape popular attitudes. This absorbing book unpacks their experiences, showing how their encounters changed the way Australians thought about themselves in the world. Visiting the Neighbours tells the story of Australian relations with Asia from the bottom up, examining the experiences of some of the millions of travelers and tourists who headed to the region for more than a hundred years. Merchants, missionaries, pilgrims, soldiers, hippies, diplomats, and backpackers all had an impact on diplomacy and international relations and Agnieszka Sobocinska’s book is a bold and important step in understanding the intersection between popular opinion, prejudice, and international relations as Australia stands at the precipice of the Asian Century.

Agnieszka Sobocinska is the deputy director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University. She is an historian who works on Australian cultural relations with Asia and the Pacific and she is the coeditor of Australia’s Asia: From Yellow Peril to Asian Century.