Australia - Culture Smart! The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

Australia is different--a vast island-continent with distances so great that the capital of Western Australia is closer to Singapore than it is to Sydney. The landscape embraces magnificent tropical rainforests and deserts the size of several European states. Indigenous Australians have inhabited the continent for more than fifty thousand years, yet European settlement is just over two hundred years old.

Since the end of the Second World War the country has opened its doors to a hugely diverse immigrant population and slowly shaken off the mantle of British influence, transforming what was once a relatively insular nation into one of the most vibrant and stimulating.

This new edition of Culture Smart! Australia introduces you to a young nation with one of the world's highest standards of living, where people "work to live" and enjoy a lifestyle that is rightly the envy of many across the globe. This handy guide puts a human face on the country and will help you to understand its people, to communicate, to make friends, to get under the surface, and to form lasting relationships.