'An Immigrant Nation Seeks Cohesion' is based on current events and developments in Australia and seeks to illuminate them using historical and contemporary issues. It is not a formal or chronological 'history book'. Its sources are soundly based on the scholarship of existing history books. The transformation of Australia into a complex multicultural society comparable to the United States or Canada has not been fully dealt with by most conventional historians or taught extensively in schools and universities. Many conservative scholars either ignore this or even deplore the changes which have become so noticeable since the 1950s.

Preface; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; Part I; 1. Prisons in the Pacific, 1788-1850; 2. The British Inheritance; 3. White Australia and the Golden Age; 4. Peace, Order and Good Government; 5. Indigenous Australia and the South Pacific; 6. Rural Settlers, the Irish and the Chinese; 7. Radicals and Rebels; 8. Communists and their Allies; 9. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization; 10. Refugees before the UN Convention and Enemy Aliens; 11. Crime, Corruption and Terrorism; 12. The Multicultural Era; 13. Islam as the New Threat; Part II; 14. The Post-War Promise Ends; 15. Refugees and War; 16. The United Nations and Refugees; 17. Mandatory Detention; 18. 'Stop the Boats'; 19. Finding a Decent Dumping Ground; 20. History as Tragedy and Farce; 21. Facing the Real World; 22. Cohesion and Humanity; 23. From Nation-Building to Border Protection; 24. An Unstable World; Chronology; References; Index.