Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850–1939, written by David Walker, has been described as a "landmark" analysis of the history of Australian perceptions of Asian people and their cultures. It was first published by the University of Queensland Press in 1999 and has subsequently been reprinted in an Indian edition (SSS publishing, New Delhi, 2009) and translated into Chinese (China Renmin University Press, Beijing, 2009). Walker, who has been the professor of Australian Studies at Deakin University since 1991, is a leading authority in the field of Australian images of Asia and this work is the culmination of several years of his research and observation. Summary Walker's premise is that Australian culture did not develop in isolation from Asia; Australians, while often considering themselves to be living in an outpost of Britain, have always had a fascination with the nations to their near north. Walker argues that many of the perceptions that Australians had of Asia were negative and that the Chinese, in particular, were feared because of the size of their population and the proximity of their homeland to Australia. Australians worried that their society would be overrun by the Chinese and contaminated by their supposed vices; exotic diseases, industrial “sweating”, gambling, sexual deviation and opium abuse. Japan was also feared because of its apparent imperial ambitions and the strength of its military forces. Walker illustrates these fears by analysing the neglected literary genre of invasion narratives. These novels, of which William Lane's White or Yellow? is characteristic, were popular in the 1890s and 1900s and described the enslavement of white Australians by invading Asian armies. Further images of the Chinese as a cunning but cruel race appeared in the Fu Manchu novels and films of the 1920s and 30s. Walker argues that "Australia came to nationhood at a time when the growing power of the East was arousing increasing concern". Consequently, Anxious Nation places popular perceptions of Asia within the context of the political and cultural changes that led to the development of a distinctive Australian nationalism and the implementation of the White Australia policy. This inevitably leads to an analysis of Australian contributions to the philosophical and scientific theories, particularly Eugenics and Social Darwinism, that underlined concepts of race during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Within this setting a peculiarly Australian concern was whether white men could perform manual labour and prosper