in the tropics. If they could not then the concept of a "White Australia" was doomed and the "Asianisation" of Australia was likely. Australian politicians and medical scientists spent significant time and resources in attempting to resolve this question. Crucially Walker shows that Australians were fascinated by the people and cultures of Asia. He argues that, while negative perceptions of Asia were common, they were not universally held nor uncontested. The currency of the Japonisme and Chinoiserie aesthetic movements and the warm welcome given to a Japanese Naval Squadron in 1906 show that at least some Australians were willing to consider the positive aspects of Asian culture. In particular, Walker shows that Prime Minister Alfred Deakin had a comprehensive knowledge and interest in Indian religions and philosophies. Walker also argues that, despite the isolationism implied by the White Australia policy, Australia developed trade, cultural and diplomatic ties with the emerging Asian nations during the period studied. Professor Walker is currently working on a follow-up volume which continues this work into the present day. Awards and prizes Anxious Nation was awarded the 2001 Ernest Scott Prize for History for the best history of Australia or New Zealand published in the preceding two years. Critical response Anxious Nation received an extensive and positive critical response. Al Grassby, a former Minister for Immigration who dismantled the White Australia Policy, described the book as “evocative and compelling prose …which shows how bigotry and myth making shaped the question of race which dominated the public and private discourse.” John Shaumer of The Age called it "a sweeping but considered overview of the cultural influences that continue to dictate many aspects of the Asian-Australian discourse", while Tom Griffith of the Australian National University found it to be "a searching history of ideas and intrigue that probes the political and literary dimensions of blood, heat, sun, nerves, sex and dreams. Feverish fears and imaginings are reviewed with sensitivity and cool eloquence". David Carter in The Journal of Australian Studies believed that Anxious Nation had an important place in Australian historiography. He argued that it "shifts Australian perceptions of Asia from the margins to the centre of any concerns with the history -- the intellectual, cultural, political or diplomatic histories -- of the nation. In something of the same way that the complex of issues around `Aboriginal Australia' has moved over the last decade to the very centre