A History of Australian Defence and Foreign Policy, 1901-23: Vol. 1: The Search for Security in the Pacific, 1901-14: Vol. 2: Australia and World Crisis, 1914-23, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 2nd edition, 2009; Vol. 1 first published 1976
A key argument of Volume 2 is that Australia’s commitment to World War I was not a case of a young nation being seduced into fighting ‘other people’s wars’ but ‘the result of a settled view that Australia as a political community had a set of interests peculiar to itself and it was those interests which the Australian government had a prime responsibility to protect’. A review and comment is here. A 2010 talk by Professor Meaney on the subject of his books is here. A 2013 collection of articles in tribute to Professor Meaney is here.
