Fear of Abandonment

Updated edition, covering Brexit, Trump, Xi’s ambitions for China, and the geopolitical implications of the COVID-19 pandemic

Everything Australia wants to achieve as a country depends on its capacity to understand the world outside and to respond effectively to it.

In Fear of Abandonment, expert and insider Allan Gyngell tells the story of how Australia has shaped the world and been shaped by it since it established an independent foreign policy during the dangerous days of 1942. Gyngell argues that the fear of being abandoned — originally by Britain, and later by our most powerful ally, the United States — has been an important driver of how Australia acts in the world.

Covering everything from the White Australia policy to the South China sea dispute, this is a gripping and authoritative account of the way Australians and their governments have helped create the world we now inhabit in the twenty-first century. In revealing the history of Australian foreign affairs, it lays the foundation for how it should change.

Today Australia confronts a more difficult set of international challenges than any we have faced since 1942 — this new edition brings the story up to date.

Allan Gyngell is National President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and an honorary professor at the Australian National University. His long career in Australian international relations included appointments as director-general of the Office of National Assessments and founding executive director of the Lowy Institute. He worked as a diplomat, policy officer and analyst in several government departments and as international adviser to Paul Keating. He is the co-author of Making Australian Foreign Policy and the author of Fear of Abandonment.