I am a lover of Austraian history and history in general (Thanks to Mrs Edwards Deni high year 8 1978)I have found the series on Thurs nights ABC to be compelling and was overjoyed to study Australian history 3 years ago at Uni Newcastle and am tempted to re enrol as an Australian history undergrad somewhere next year . We have a history IMO that is intrigueuing and thickly intertwined to who we are today.I would highly recommend that anyone who is interested in who we are today watch this series on ABC catchup.
Part of how we got here includes our Viet Nam experience.
Have a look at "All the Way" to see how good our American "allies" are.
They sucked us into that one and have done it again with Iraq and Afghanistan.
We should be making good friends with China who owns America right now.
not sure whose worse these days. china or usa...... the people are awesome, the govt not so sure. although the communist ideals are not quite there in my books 
Good friends with China ? You have got to be kidding! We should be very cautious there remember Tiananmen square, you would not be able to say half the political comments you do here on seabreeze if you were in China, their human rights abuse record is longer than just about every other country torture is commonplace.
China is a good trading partner but remember if you disagree with the government you disappear, remember they still have aspirations to take back Taiwan, remember they along with Russia block just about every UN resolution, remember they ( government) control the media even the Internet is censored ( and we are not talking porn )
Having said that China are doing a reasonable job at giving ther people some freedoms gradually but they still wave the big stick and think nothing of getting rid of troublesome citizens.
Yes Australian history is incredibly interesting.
Recently I read two books on Australian history and the natural environment, The Future Eaters by Tim Flannery and The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes. Both in their own way show how Australia is an amazing country full of amazing people, both past and present.
