Although Australia is a constitutional monarchy, the move to a republic is gathering momentum. Such momentum requires conceptual clarity. Peter Nugus maps the ideological and discursive contours of the contemporary Australian debate to their ancient lineage of Aristotle, Cicero, Plato, Polybius, Harrington, Montesquieu, Machiavelli and the founders of the American republic. The book provides fine-grained analysis of the texts and speeches of political parties and organized movements leading up to the referendum in 1999 in which Australians voted to retain the constitutional...