Donald Horne was well known as an editor, author and academic. He was chairman of numerous organisations including the Australia Council and Chancellor of the University of Canberra.

Horne wrote 24 books including an autobiographical trilogy, three novels and social criticism including The Lucky Country and God is an Englishman. In works such as Money Made Us and The Intelligent Tourist he broke new ground in Australian cultural studies.

As an academic, he introduced the idea of 'political culture' to Australian political science. One of his persistent arguments was that Australia should have a plainly written republican Constitution that all Australians can understand.