This thesis examines the networks of interaction and systems of exchange, both within the cultural field and across broader national and international fields of power that are involved in the production and circulation of the Australian literary estate. It covers aspects of globalisation and national identity, cultural policy and an extensive discussion of the publishing industry since 1960. It includes a case study of the National Library of Australia and, as a conflation of all sections of the thesis, an analysis of the intersections across intellectual, social, political and legal environments that surround the work of the historian, Henry Reynolds.