Stephens, David ‘“The Australian War Memorial is happy to let your opinion stand as it is”: the Memorial’s response to recent posts on the Honest History website‘, Honest History, 22 February 2016 Commentary on recent response from the Memorial to…
Stephens, David ‘“The Australian War Memorial is happy to let your opinion stand as it is”: the Memorial’s response to recent posts on the Honest History website‘, Honest History, 22 February 2016 Commentary on recent response from the Memorial to…
David Stephens ‘“The Australian War Memorial is happy to let your opinion stand as it is”: the Memorial’s response to recent posts on the Honest History website’, Honest History, 22 February 2016 Honest History readers will recall our articles remarking…
Gillespie, Mark ‘Friday essay: on the Sydney Mardi Gras march of 1978‘, The Conversation, 19 February 2016 updated Considers whether the original Mardi Gras marchers should get a formal apology. A motion calling for an apology was adopted unanimously in…
Update 10 March 2016: a new book by Brett Bowden on the bombing of Darwin. The new Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Dan Tehan MP, has issued his first media release. It marks the 74th anniversary today of the…
Honest History put together a small collection of articles around the prime minister’s Closing the Gap statement of earlier this month. Since the statement there have been more articles on Indigenous Australia, some of them taking a historical perspective. Here…
Michael Piggott ‘A man of the mind: John Hirst 1942-2016’, Honest History, 16 February 2016 Honest History has, over the past two years, praised and criticised various institutions’ and authors’ representations of the past, but rarely looked at an historian…
Piggott, Michael ‘A man of the mind: John Hirst 1942-2016‘, Honest History, 16 February 2016 Honest History committee member and distinguished archivist, Michael Piggott, reviews the work of John Hirst, who died recently. This obituary draws on the tributes of…
‘Einstein, gravitation and the scientists of the Empire c. 1919: highlights reel’, Honest History, 16 February 2016 The recent announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves (described as the scientific discovery of the century) set Honest History in search of…
The Prime Minister has announced his ministerial reshuffle. Dan Tehan, Liberal Member for Wannon in Western Victoria, is to be Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac. (The PM said ‘Veterans Services’…
Stuart Robert MP, the Minister for Human Services, Veterans’ Affairs and Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac is leaving the Ministry. While the departure of the Minister arises from matters unconnected with his current three jobs, it…
Arbuckle, Alex Q. ‘1965-1975 another Vietnam: unseen images of the war from the winning side‘, Mashable, 5 February 2016 Next month, 8 March, is the 50th anniversary of the Australian government’s announcement that its commitment to the Vietnam War would…
‘On the fourteenth of February, 1966 …’. The TV advertisement which softened us up for the change. That wretched song and a didactic dollar bill (the tune is ‘Click go the shears’ for those who do not recognise it). Someone…
McConnel, James & Peter Stanley ‘Fromelles: Australia picks a fresh fight with Britain over a 100-year-old battle‘, The Conversation, 10 February 2016 Riffs off Australian officials’ decision to exclude the families of British soldiers from attending the Fromelles commemoration in…
Online gem No. 6: Selected political records of the Commonwealth Parliament (11 February 2016) Any week when the Australian Parliament is sitting brings a sharpened focus on the House on the Hill, even for those Australians who do not live…
How settler Australia gets right with Indigenous Australia is a nation-shaping issue connected intricately to our shared history. The prime minister’s Closing the Gap report today will be scanned closely and judgements made as to ‘how far’ and ‘what next’.…
Update 12 February 2016: will the departure of the Minister lead to a machinery of government change affecting Veterans’ Affairs? _____________________ Honest History has ‘crossed paths’ with Minister Robert a number of times since September last year, when he took…
ISSN: 2202-5561 © New Singing country: the musical legacy of David Morrison, Australian of the Year – and a straw in the wind? A story about John Schumann’s song ‘On every Anzac Day’ and what it means for recognition of Indigenous…
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, the Hon. Stuart Robert MP, has announced the appointment of Dr Craig Stockings of UNSW Canberra as the Official Historian for the engagements in Iraq,…
Smaal, Yorick Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015 Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939-45 explores the queer dynamics of war across the Australia and forward bases…
‘Sex, soldiers and the South Pacific (review of Smaal)’, Honest History, 8 February 2016 Diane Bell* reviews Yorick Smaal’s Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939-45: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War Note: The cover of the…
‘Review note: Stephens and Seal’s Remembering the Wars: Commemoration in Western Australian Communities‘, Honest History, 6 February 2016 Anyone who’s spent time in country Australia will have noticed the centrality of a war memorial to nearly every community. Recently, memorials…
About 70 people attended this conference at ANU on 4-5 February, jointly run by the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at ANU and the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society at UNSW Canberra. Front-line conference wranglers…
Clarke, Patricia & Niki Francis ‘Canberra women in World War I: community at home, nurses abroad‘, Women Australia, December 2015 An essay about the role played in the Great War by the women of Canberra – the town was one…
David Stephens ‘Singing country: the musical legacy of David Morrison, Australian of the Year – and a straw in the wind at the Australian War Memorial?’, Honest History, 2 February 2016 Before David Morrison became Australian of the Year he…
David Stephens ‘“Visitation” numbers at the Australian War Memorial since 1991: is this joint really jumpin’?’ Honest History, 2 February 2016 updated The title of this piece needs some explanation. First, ‘visitation’. The author thought this word meant the visit…
‘It’s a system, dammit, not a horse-race’ (review of Griffith Review 51), Honest History, 2 February 2016 David Stephens reviews Griffith Review 51, ‘Fixing the system’, edited by Julianne Schultz and Anne Tiernan Once upon a time gentlemen who made…
Stephens, David ‘Singing country: the musical legacy of David Morrison, Australian of the Year – and a straw in the wind at the Australian War Memorial?’, Honest History, 2 February 2016 The article looks at the story behind the song…
Stephens, David ‘“Visitation” numbers at the Australian War Memorial since 1991: is this joint really jumpin’?’ Honest History, 2 February 2016 updated Update 7 February 2017: One year on: analysis of visitor statistics in the Memorial’s Annual Report for 2015-16. (The…
Schultz, Julianne, Anne Tiernan, et al. ‘Fixing the system‘, Griffith Review, 51, January 2016, available online to subscribers Collection of nearly thirty essays on how to foster ‘a society that really works’. Authors include the editors, Carmen Lawrence, Chris Wallace,…
‘High Commissioner Fisher talks up the war, January 1916: Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 2 February 2016 Andrew Fisher left the Australian prime ministership on 30 October 1915 and, with his family, travelled to London to take up the…
Honest History has been working (at slightly reduced capacity) over the Christmas and New Year holidays. You can track much of what has appeared on the website during that time by scrolling down Top recent posts, Reviews and Features. Look…
[Links checked 16 November 2017 and all found to be live. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Update 4 March 2016: PM’s remembrance rhetoric and alleged…
David Headon & John Uhr, ed. Eureka: Australia’s Greatest Story, Federation Press, Sydney, 2015; electronic version available Papers from a conference held in Canberra, December 2014, plus some additional papers. The editors of this book boldly proclaim that Eureka is…
Uyar, Mesut ‘Who called for a ceasefire? Gallipoli 1915‘, Wartime (Australian War Memorial) 73, Summer 2016, pp. 54-59 (pdf supplied by author) The author argues that the ceasefire of 24 May was needed, tricky to negotiate and raised issues of…
Melleuish, Gregory ‘An Australian head of state won’t save us from being a de facto monarchy‘, The Conversation, 27 January 2016 Prime ministers have become quasi-monarchs (despite their elected status) which is a particular worry given the poor quality of…
ABC Radio National ‘Feeding curiosity‘, Ockham’s Razor, 24 January 2016 Robyn Williams introduces Peter Macinnis, former science teacher and now writer of history books, who talks whimsically about he enjoys and writes history. Audio and transcript.
Update: 27 January 2016 More came through today on Australia Day and related matters. There was: a video on Guardian Australia of Indigenous protest rallies to mark Invasion Day; a music critic, Andy Hazel, punting for 12 ‘classic’ Australian songs…
The Director of the Australian War Memorial, Dr Brendan Nelson, has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day honours. Dr Nelson’s award is for service to the Parliament of Australia, to the community, to…
Kelly, Sean ‘It’s time to change our traditions: let’s celebrate Australia – but not on 26 January‘, The Monthly Today, 25 January 2016 One of a number of articles (this year and previous years) on the theme of finding a…
David Morrison, formerly Chief of Army and now Australian of the Year 2016 and head of Diversity Council Australia, has made a number of speeches in recent years: March 2013 UN speech on sexism in the Australian Defence Force (with…
Pilger, John ‘Australia’s day for secrets, flags and cowards‘, New Matilda, 23 January 2016 The original Australians are the oldest human presence. To the European invaders, they did not exist because their continent had been declared terra nullius: empty land. To…
As reported in Guardian Australia (and in the Sydney Morning Herald and Junkee) going viral today is a You Tube video of a great speech made by Indigenous journalist Stan Grant in a debate in Sydney. Grant argues for the…
Organ, Michael K. ‘Secret service: Governor Macquarie’s Aboriginal War of 1816: Proceedings of the National Conference of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Mittagong, 25-26 October 2014‘, University of Wollongong Research Online Detailed analysis of Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s punitive actions against…
McLoughlin, Liam ‘Australia Day: barbecues and beer goggles and Oi, Oi, Oi,’ New Matilda, 20 January 2016 Young writer surveys the big day, looking at jingoism, toxic masculinity, a horror movie from 1988, an Ocker video and a parody thereof,…
Patience, Allan ‘Can we continue to afford Australia’s federal system?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 18 January 2016 The article looks at the issues facing Australia and anticipates the forthcoming White Paper on the reform of federalism. It is now more obvious…
Tidwell, Alan ‘Leaders weigh up a challenging year of transitions in the Australia-US relationship‘, The Conversation, 20 January 2016 updated US-based Australian analyst looks at prospects as Prime Minister Turnbull and President Obama meet. Includes a link to the prime…
Browne, Peter ‘Postwar boomer‘, Inside Story, 18 January 2016 Long essay looking back from Sir Robert Menzies’ retirement 50 years ago to the events of his 16-year reign (and even glances at his earlier time in office in 1939-41). Menzies…
Update 25 October 2017: the publicity machine cranks up as the opening of the centre approaches. Update 21 January 2016: augmented version now up on Independent Australia. FRENCH COVERAGE NOW ADDED; SEE BELOW Anzac centenary minister, Stuart Robert, has wielded…
Dean, Peter J. ‘Commemoration, memory, and forgotten histories: complexity and limitations of Australian army biography‘, War and Society, 29, 2, October 2010, pp. 118-36 Addresses the question ‘how far has biography been utilized in understanding the history of the Australian…
Ozakinci, Cengiz ‘The tale of “the Anzacs who took Mustafa Kemal prisoner” in the Australian press’, Butun Dunya (Ankara), December 2015 (English translation: part I; part II) Chauvel, 1919 (AWM ART03340/JP Quinn) This is a translation provided by the author…
Sparrow, Jeff ‘The real problem is not the lamb ad but the militarisation of Australian nationalism‘, Guardian Australia, 12 January 2016 Examines a Meat and Livestock Australia advertisement showing paramilitary forces ensuring expatriate Australians are home to eat lamb on…
Macken, Julie ‘The long journey to Nauru‘, New Matilda, 12 January 2016 Long article by former MSM (Financial Review) journalist on the history of Australian policy towards asylum seekers over the last 30 years or so. 30 years ago, it…
Wilkie, Douglas ‘Exodus and panic: Melbourne’s reaction to the Bathurst gold discoveries of May 1851‘, Victorian Historical Journal, 85, 2, December 2014, pp. 189-218 Sober consideration of the evidence confirms what was known at the time – that reactions to…
Connor, John, Peter Stanley & Peter Yule The War at Home: The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War Volume 4, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2015 The War at Home interprets the experience of the Australian people during the…
[Note: this post was originally published in January 2016] Nick Walsh Kokoda Track, The author, 2nd edition, Melbourne 2012 This little book (70 pages, a dozen photographs, two clear maps) was written by a veteran who died recently aged 100…
Nicholas, Frank ‘Charles Darwin’s evolutionary revelation in Australia‘, The Conversation, 12 January 2016 Looks at the contributions of Darwin’s work in Australia (New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia) in 1836 to what ultimately became his famous work On the…
Kahn, Andrew & Rebecca Onion ‘Is history written by men, about men?‘ Slate, 6 January 2016 We examined a set of 614 works of popular history from 80 houses, which either published books we defined as trade history or landed…
Marshall, Colin ‘The New York Public Library lets you download 180,000 images in High Resolution: historic photographs, maps, letters & more‘, Open Culture, 7 January 2016 At a time when far too many online resources are still littered with the…
Australia’s projected spend on the Anzac centenary-century of service now stands at an estimated $561.8 million, following an announcement today of a $10 million donation by Rio Tinto to the Anzac Centenary Public Fund. Anzac centenary minister, Stuart Robert, said:…
Peter FitzSimons Fromelles and Pozières: In the Trenches of Hell, Random House, Sydney, 2015; electronic version available On 19 July 1916, 7000 Australian soldiers – in the first major action of the AIF on the Western Front – attacked entrenched…
‘The Fitzkrieg reaches Fromelles and Pozières’, Honest History, 11 January 2016 David Stephens reviews Peter FitzSimons’ Fromelles and Pozières: In the Trenches of Hell. This is a better book than this reviewer expected. He edited a trenchant but balanced review…
O’ Regan, Tom ‘Kenneth Slessor goes to the movies‘, Inside Story, 4 January 2016 Renowned Australian poet and war correspondent, Kenneth Slessor, also liked going to ‘the pictures’ and writing about it in a special way, according to O’Regan in…
Vaughan, Jill, Katie Jepson & Rosey Billington ‘Togs or swimmers? Why Australians use different words to describe the same things‘, The Conversation, 5 January 2016 Uses maps to show the different words used by Australians to describe common items. It’s…
Dr Burcin Cakir is a Turkish post-doctoral student and an associate of Honest History who is working on Turkish materials relating to the Gallipoli campaign and its aftermath. She has a book in the works on memory and commemoration of…
Update 26 December 2015. It is interesting that the Minister’s media release says nothing about the cost of the project ($A100m) but mentions employment and investment benefits in Picardy, France, where the project is located. Meanwhile, the Minister’s announcement has…
Stephens, David ‘A century since we stole quietly away‘, Honest History, 23 December 2015 updated Marks the centenary of the evacuation of ANZAC troops from Gallipoli and describes the commemorative ceremony at the Australian War Memorial. Anzac remains, according to…
David Stephens ‘A century since we stole quietly away’, Honest History, 23 December 2015 To judge from Trove (the National Library’s newspaper database) the first news of the successful evacuation from Gallipoli arrived in time for the evening editions of…
Latimore, Jack, Allan Clarke, Paul Daley, Amy McQuire, and Steve Hodder Watt ‘New News 2015: From the ground up: New Media and Indigenous reporting’, Wheeler Centre, 10 October 2015 One hour video of panel discussion, chaired by Latimore, who is…
‘Honest History Christmas miscellany 2015: lots to read and ponder’, Honest History, 20 December 2015 Christmas often brings a reckoning and it is the same in our compact little enterprise. We would have loved to have afforded some of the…
What happens in Marrickville today would have been of interest to the enforcers of the War Precautions Act 1914 had it happened a century ago. Sunday, 22 November 2015, saw the Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign (GCPC) and St Brigid’s Parish…
Ronno pulls the plug Victorian Senator Michael Ronaldson is to resign from Parliament. The former Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac (and Special Minister of State) announced his intentions today. Honest…
Part of Australia’s history that is still being uncovered is the incidence and effect of nuclear testing by the United Kingdom government (with the support of the Australian government) in remote parts of Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. No-one…
Rowan Cahill ‘Two poets (Denis Kevans and Henry Weston Pryce), war and a manuscript: a review essay’, Honest History, 17 December 2015 In the Special Collections of the Australian Defence Force Academy’s (ADFA) Academic Library is a manuscript by poet…
The annual Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) has been released, along with the list of Budget tweaks. The Treasurer claimed $10.6 billion in savings, offset by $10.2 billion in new spending since the May Budget, which amounts to net…
‘A Jauncey Christmas bonus’, Honest History, 15 December 2015 Old Honest History hands will recall our regular column Jauncey’s View, featuring the exploits and opinions of Leslie Cyril Jauncey (1899-1959), his wife Beatrice Eva Edmonds Fripp Jauncey (1895-1996) and other…
The Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for 2015 have been announced, including the PM’s Prize for Australian History. The history prize was shared (as in 2014) this time between Ross Coulthart for his Charles Bean and David Horner for The Spy…
Eltham, Ben ‘Malcolm “Boom Boom” Turnbull is an old ideas man‘, New Matilda, 10 December 2015 Anyone older than 40 should be able to remember at least three ‘innovation statements’ by Australian governments. They may also have a shelf of…
Appleby, Gabrielle ‘What say do our elected representatives have in going to war?‘ The Conversation, 10 December 2015 updated The authorisation of military force is one of the most serious and consequential powers that governments possess. This power should be…
‘Review note: where are all the war books this Anzac centenary Christmas?’ Honest History, 13 December 2015 Any bookshop these days seems to include a lot of military history books. The present reviewer is duty bound (as a website wrangler)…
Brown, Claire ‘What’s the best, most effective way to take notes?‘ The Conversation, 22 May 2015 Education researcher gives some useful tips for students and researchers. Also links to a later piece by the same author on taking notes on…
Update 14 December 2015: the World Socialist Web Site weighs in with some detailed analysis of the court decision on the proposed Cronulla commemorative barbecue by the Party for Freedom. WSWS has also sent us a link to its 2006…
Last week we had the 161st anniversary of Eureka. This week there is the news that Ruby Entertainment has optioned the film and television rights for Clare Wright’s book The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka. The details are here and here.…
Powell, Graeme with Stuart Macintyre Land of Opportunity: Australia’s Post-War Reconstruction, National Archives of Australia, Canberra, 2015 This is 336 pages (30 chapters) of guidance to the files of the National Archives of Australia on a crucial decade of Australia’s…
Vatsikopoulos, Helen ‘Australian Women War Reporters review: how female journalists made it to battle‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 December 2015 Reviews Jeannine Baker’s Australian Women War Reporters: Boer War to Vietnam. Australian women journalists might have been granted equal pay…
Grishin, Sasha ‘Art review: Tom Roberts at the National Gallery of Australia, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 December 2015 Reviews the recently opened exhibition, which is open until March 2016. The chief aim of this exhibition is to take a fresh…
Walker, Andrew ‘Shift away from “publish or perish” puts the public back into publication‘, The Conversation, 4 December 2015 Article riffing off suggestions that governments will make research publication less important – and public engagement more important – in calculations…
Whiteford, Peter ‘Is welfare sustainable?‘ Inside Story, 22 November 2015 Looks at recent government statements about social services expenditure then moves on to detailed historical consideration of the issue. Most of the graphs go back to 1995 and cover, for…
Baker, Patrick, Chris Turney & Jonathan Palmer ‘500 years of drought and flood: trees and corals reveal Australia’s climate history‘, The Conversation, 4 December 2015 The authors have published in a recent paper the most detailed record of Australia’s droughts…
We don’t often get public responses from government (though we see evidence from time to time of official attitudes to our work – there’s a list below) so it was nice to hear from the Hon. Stuart Robert MP, Minister for…
McKenna, Mark & Stuart Ward ‘An Anzac myth: the creative memorialisation of Gallipoli‘, The Monthly, December 2015 (temporary pay-wall) Australian-Turkish friendship has become in 2015 a pillar of the Anzac legend. The work of Paul Daley and Cengiz Ozakinci (and,…
‘Eureka 161 years on: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 Thursday this week, 3 December, is the 161st anniversary of Eureka. Honest History has collected resources on Eureka over the last couple of years and here are links…
Dr Carolyn Holbrook, author of Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography has joined the committee of Honest History Incorporated. Dr Holbrook is a Research Fellow at Monash University, working with Professor James Walter on a history of Australian policy-making. Her Anzac book…
Scates, Bruce, Rebecca Wheatley & Laura James World War One: A History in 100 Stories, Penguin, Melbourne, 2015 A long-awaited product of a complex project to tell the stories of many people affected by the Great War. There is also…
Stephens, David ‘Will the new Anzac centenary minister be too busy to bother?‘ Honest History, 1 December 2015 Update 4 December 2015: the Minister has responded on Twitter. The article looks at the ministerial workload implications of the machinery of…
Bongiorno, Frank The Eighties: The Decade that Transformed Australia, Black Inc, Collingwood, Vic, 2015; hardback and electronic It was the era of Hawke and Keating, Kylie and INXS, the America’s Cup and the Bicentenary. It was perhaps the most controversial…
‘What is history? An old question; a new answer?’ Honest History, 1 December 2015 Jim Windeyer* reviews World War One: A History in 100 Stories by Bruce Scates, Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James. Another review by David Stephens. Jim Windeyer…
‘Subversive stories of an old war’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 David Stephens reviews World War One: A History in 100 Stories, by Bruce Scates, Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James. Another review by Jim Windeyer. __________________________________ This book is sentimental…
David Stephens ‘Will the new Anzac centenary minister be too busy to bother?’ Honest History, 1 December 2015 updated [Note: earlier, edited versions of this article appear in the Public Servant Informant supplement of the Canberra Times for 1 December 2015,…
‘Gold, rum but no sign of Ataturk’s minister at Anzac, April-May 1934’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 We return to the provenance of the famous ‘Ataturk words’ of 1934 – the ones commencing ‘Those heroes that shed their blood and…
Vladiv-Glover, Slobodanka (Millicent), ed. ‘Writings from the Balkan Theatre of War by Miles Franklin (Extracted from the Archives of the Mitchell Library)’, Transcultural Studies: A Series in Interdisciplinary Research, Special Issue: The Serbs and Miles Franklin in World War I…
‘The eighties in nine chapters’ (review of Bongiorno), Honest History, 1 December 2015 Janet Wilson* reviews The Eighties: The Decade that Transformed Australia by Frank Bongiorno __________________________ Among the words and phrases that entered the lexicon in the 1980s are…
Diane Bell* ‘Miles Franklin and the Serbs still matter: a review essay’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 [Publication details of the work reviewed: Vladiv-Glover, Slobodanka. (Editor). (2014). ‘Writings from the Balkan Theatre of War by Miles Franklin (Extracted from the Archives…
[Links checked 15 November 2017 and a few were found to be broken, due to removal of material from websites or simply the passage of time. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link…
‘Going to the Flicks, Brisbane, November 1915: highlights reel’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 Brisbane Courier 26 November 1915 26 November 1915 was a Friday and it was the final night of the ‘stirring military program’ at the Strand Theatre…
November 2015 marked two years since the Honest History website was launched by journalist and author, Paul Daley. To mark this anniversary, we have made some changes to the look of our home page. There is less text but more…
Eales, Robert ‘Morant, the expendable icon‘ (and other Boer War resources), Boer War Topics (website) Update 28 November 2020: Military historian Tom Richardson reviews Peter FitzSimons’ Morant book in Nine Newspapers and gives it a mixed report. ‘Still, for all…
Wilkie, Douglas ‘The convict ship “Hashemy” at Port Phillip: a case study in historical error‘, Victorian Historical Journal, 85, 1, June 2014, pp. 31-53 Received history is that the convict ship Hashemy was turned away from Melbourne in 1849 and…
Last night the prime minister told Leigh Sales on 7.30 that Australia had a ‘strong, egalitarian, fair-go culture’ and that whatever was done with tax reform had to fit with that culture. Is the prime minister too boffo about our…
Daley, Paul ‘“He should have died”: the Vietnam veteran who never really returned‘, Guardian Australia, 25 November 2015 Partly a review of historian Michael McKernan’s memoir (When this Thing Happened) about his brother-in-law, Joe Stawyskyj, a national servicemen, injured for…
Online gem No. 5: Medico-Legal Society of Victoria: the experience of war (26 November 2015) Here are some more items from the extensive holdings of the Medico-Legal Society of Victoria (MLSV). Online gem No. 4 also included papers from the…
Beaumont, Joan, Lachlan Grant & Aaron Pegram, ed. Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century, Melbourne University Press, Carlton Vic. 2015; available electronically Over the twentieth century 35,000 Australians suffered as prisoners of war in conflicts ranging…
‘Fitting POWs into our skewed Anzac legend’ (review of Beyond Surrender), Honest History, 25 November 2015 Kristen Alexander* reviews Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century, edited by Joan Beaumont, Lachlan Grant and Aaron Pegram _____________________ As…
Henry, Adam ‘The nation-state, killing and death‘, Library of Social Science Guest Newsletter, 7 October 2015 The author examines some paradoxes and hypocrisies in how nations, even ‘modern’ nations, rationalise their involvement with war. Despite the fact that graphic images…
White, Hugh ‘Principle of self-reliance more important now than it has ever been‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 November 2015 The article looks at the implications of the government announcement that the Defence White Paper will not now be released until…
The Annual General Meeting of Honest History Incorporated was held on 19 November. All committee members, except Professor Melanie Oppenheimer, were available to continue in 2015-16 and were duly nominated and elected. A motion was passed thanking Professor Oppenheimer for…
Small Reclaim Australia rallies in a number of centres at the weekend were notable for featuring Anzac-related slogans and flags. At Melton, near Melbourne, Reclaim Australia demonstrators carried a banner bearing poppies, silhouettes of marching troops and the words ‘Lest…
Verghis, Sharon ‘Tom Roberts masterpieces on show at the National Gallery, Canberra‘, The Australian, 21 November 2015 Detailed background article on the exhibition which opens at the NGA on 4 December, gathering works from many state galleries. On show will…
Spittel, Christina* ‘Australia in the Great War‘, reCollections, vol. 10, no. 2, October 2015 This review of the refurbished World War I galleries at the Australian War Memorial was published in the online journal of the National Museum of Australia.…
Stayner, Guy ‘State Library makes public up to 70,000 never-seen photos of Melbourne and country Victoria‘, ABC News, 18 November 2015 The SLV has begun digitising rolls of film taken of streets, houses and other buildings in Melbourne and rural…
Tognolini, John A History Man’s Past & Other People’s Stories: A Shared Memoir. Part One: Other People’s Wars, The author, Wellington, NSW, 2015; Brothers, Part One: Gallipoli 1915, The author, Wellington, NSW, 2015 The first book draws upon the author’s interviews…
‘A history man’s view of war’, Honest History, 18 November 2015 Derek Abbott* reviews A History Man’s Past & Other People’s Stories: A Shared Memoir. Part One: Other People’s Wars and Brothers, Part One: Gallipoli 1915, both by John Tognolini.…
Woolombi Waters, Marcus ‘Whether you’re listening or not, Australia is a nation of white privilege‘, The Conversation, 17 November 2015 The author is a Kamilaroi man who has recently returned from travelling overseas for work. This article received more than…
Bottoms, Timothy Cairns: City of the South Pacific: a History 1770-1995, Bunu Bunu Press, Cairns, 2015 The township of Cairns was established in the wake of the Palmer River Gold rush of 1873, and established as a port for the…
Cochrane, Peter ‘Book review: Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the birth of a dynasty‘, The Conversation, 13 November 2015 Cochrane reviews this new book by Tom DC Roberts. The book starts with Murdoch’s ‘Gallipoli letter’ but goes much further. It is…
Honest History has received confirmation from MSF Sweden that they have a ‘collaboration’ with perfumier Byredo on the Rose of No Man’s Land product. Neither MSF nor Byredo have said what proportion of the profits is being donated. The fragrance…
Tycoon and philanthropist Kerry Stokes has been appointed as Chair of the Council of the Australian War Memorial. Mr Stokes was recently elected to the position by his fellow Council members, replacing Rear Admiral Ken Doolan, who had served for…
Smith, Evan ‘Australia and the fascist idea of Greater Britain‘, Imperial & Global Forum, 9 November 2015 Guest blog by an Australian scholar. Shows how important to Oswald Mosley’s 1930s British Union of Fascists (BUF) was to the maintenance of…
Jeremy Lindsay Taylor and Sarah Snook are to star in a new film by Jennifer Perrott, the proceeds from which will go to help veterans suffering from PTSD. The short film is called The Ravens and Nick Galvin writes about…
Nelson, Robert ‘We should honour those who refused to go to war‘, Age, 11 November 2015 The author considers who and what is worthy of remembrance, noting the recently published book World War One: a History in 100 Stories. The…
World War One: a History in 100 Stories has been written by Bruce Scates, professor at Monash, and Monash PhD students Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James, but the clearest message that emerged from its launch this evening in Melbourne was…
Daley, Paul ‘Australia’s lavish spending on Anzac memorials cloaks a more distasteful reality‘, Guardian Australia, 11 November 2015 [A] century after the first world war began, I think it is well and truly time to reflect on how it is,…
Wellings, Ben ‘Only the conscription referendums made Australia’s Great War experience different‘, The Conversation, 10 November 2015 ‘Relegating the global and transnational dimensions and reiterating familiar – if erroneous – national narratives’, the author argues, ‘creates distortions in the image…
Cashen, Phil ‘Anti-German sentiment in the Shire of Alberton to the end of 1915‘, Shire at War, 7 November 2015 Thorough local research from this Gippsland-based blogger on the degree that people used the anti-German hysteria to flaunt their patriotism.…
Remembrance Day is on Wednesday. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs is marking remembrance with a massive poppy in the windows of its Canberra building, Lovett Tower. It is a simple but imaginative gesture. The Department’s Dave Chalmers, speaking this morning…
Wilkie, Benjamin ‘This continent of smoke‘, Meanjin, 3 November 2015 The article looks back from an impending El Nino episode to the historic effects of fire on Victoria’s Western District. In some parts–and it’s a story replicated across the country–the…
Jakubowicz, Andrew ‘How national multicultural legislation would strengthen Australian society‘, The Conversation, 5 November 2015 The author looks at 40 years of history of how governments, state and federal, have dealt with multiculturalism. He finds they have lacked ‘the courage…
Hassan, Toni ‘The War Memorial: what’s it good for?‘ Age, 6 November 2015 Also in other Fairfax papers, this piece takes up themes common in Honest History: the Australian War Memorial shies away from recognising the Frontier Wars, it plays…
Today saw the launch by Ross Gittins of a collection of articles on potential new policy directions for Australia. The articles originally appeared on John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations, and a number of them were linked from Honest History.…
Menadue, John ‘The Dismissal: how John Kerr saved Malcolm Fraser forty years ago‘, Pearls and Irritations, 5 November 2015 John Menadue, close to the events of the Dismissal, recalls some key events and attitudes. Malcolm Fraser’s political life was saved…
We noted the latest Scanlon Foundation Social Cohesion Survey report. There was an interesting result on this question at page 44 of the report: ‘In Australia today, the gap between those with high incomes and those with low incomes is too large’. Of respondents…
Abjorensen, Norman The Manner of Their Going: Prime Ministerial Exits from Lyne to Abbott, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2015 A study of the departures of all our prime ministers, from the one who was commissioned but never served (Lyne)…
‘Parting not such sweet sorrow’, Honest History, 4 November 2015 Michael Piggott reviews Norman Abjorensen’s The Manner of Their Going: Prime Ministerial Exits from Lyne to Abbott I was in a bus on a group tour in Turkey when the news…
Markus, Andrew ‘Social cohesion survey puts Abbott’s final months as PM in a new light‘, The Conversation, 29 October 2015 The author runs this annual survey and here summarises its main findings this time around. Links to the full report…
Update 20 September 2019: Ferdinand Mount on Powell Readers of a certain age and erudition will be aware of the ‘rivers of blood’ speech by senior British Conservative, Enoch Powell, in 1968. Powell warned of the dangers of ‘coloured’ and…
Archives A.C.T. Find of the Month 2008- This is a treasure trove of local (in this case, Canberra and A.C.T.) history as found in files in the A.C.T. Archives. The idea is simple: pull out a file and present the…
Daley, Paul ‘Gough Whitlam: 40 years on, the Dismissal’s bastardry still intrigues‘, Guardian Australia, 31 October 2015 Grows out of the author’s involvement in the ‘Live Tweeting the Dismissal‘ exercise run by the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament…
For those who want to splash out: 100 ml of Rose of No Man’s Land will cost you a smidgen over $A300 ($US200) and 50 ml will cost you around $A200 ($US145). For our earlier kicking up a stink on…
Lots of things happen late at night in Parliament House, Canberra: destructive testing of furniture; plotting against leaders; inappropriate propositions in the private dining rooms. And Additional Estimates hearings by Senate Committees. Typically, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the…
Kevin, Tony ‘Legislating for War Powers Reform: a report‘, Australians for War Powers Reform, 23 October 2015 and updated This is a report of a seminar held at the Australian National University on 23 October. It is reprinted here in…
Perlez, Jane ‘China pushes back against U.S. influence in the seas of East Asia‘, New York Times, 28 October 2015 (updated) Update 1 November 2015: Honest History linked to this important article two days before the Australian Financial Review reproduced…
Menadue, John ‘The Dismissal – forty years on: a smoking gun‘, Pearls and Irritations, 29 October 2015 Menadue was the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet at the time of The Dismissal. Here he comments on the…
Monteath, Peter & Valerie Munt Red Professor: the Cold War Life of Fred Rose, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2015 Fred Rose’s life takes us through rip-roaring tales from Australia’s northern frontier to enthralling intellectual tussles over kinship systems and political dramas…
John Moses* ‘Red professor in a cold war’ (review of Monteath and Munt), Honest History, 28 October 2015 John Moses reviews Red Professor: the Cold War Life of Fred Rose, by Peter Monteath and Valerie Munt In an extensively researched…
Online gem No. 4: Medico-Legal Society of Victoria (26 October 2015) The Medico-Legal Society of Victoria, founded in Melbourne in 1931, was intended as a common meeting ground for the legal and medical professions and to promote discussion and understanding…
Fairfax columnist Ian Warden (Gang-Gang) has picked up Honest History’s item about Rose of No Man’s Land perfume, the new low in crass commercial ‘commemoration’ of the Great War. Readers who wish to express an opinion to Byredo, the Swedish…
Lever, Susan ‘Lawrence’s Australian experiment‘, Inside Story, 22 October 2015 Almost a century on, there is still a nagging feeling that DH Lawrence, in some ways the archetypal ‘Pom passing through’ (he was here for just three months), still ‘got’…
Update 13 November 2015: questions remain about the proportion of profits going to charity, though MSF Sweden has confirmed there is a ‘collaboration’. Update 10 November 2015: Fairfax columnist Ian Warden has been advised by perfume blogger Jessica that the…
Diamadis, Panayiotis Personal Experience, Public Memory: Rockdale’s Monuments to Military Service (Entry for 2015 Ron Rathbone Local History Prize), The author, Rockdale, 2015 The author provides a detailed examination of monuments and memorials in this Sydney suburb, covering street and…
McKinney, JP Crucible: a Novel of an Australian in World War I, BWM Books, Canberra, 2012; first published Angus & Robertson 1935; available electronically Insightful, humorous and confronting, “Crucible” is a delicate portrait of the thoughts and emotions of a…
‘Into the crucible’ (review of McKinney), Honest History, 20 October 2015 Christina Spittel reviews JP McKinney’s Crucible, republished in 2012 after 77 years ‘It is curious’, writes Rodney Hall in the Australian Book Review, ‘that the Great War (generally credited…
Evershed, Nick & Michael Safi ‘All of Australia’s national security changes since 9/11 in a timeline‘, Guardian Australia, 19 October 2015 (updated) In case you haven’t been keeping up surveillance on recent history, here is a useful guide to 2002-15,…
Honest History vice president Alison Broinowski will be a panellist on the ABC’s QandA this evening at 9.35 pm Eastern. Other panellists are former foreign minister Bob Carr, the Lowy Institute’s Michael Fullilove, Emily Howie from the Human Rights Law…
During November ABC TV Education is re-running the education pieces spun off the excellent doco Lest We Forget What? with presenter Kate Aubusson and historians Joan Beaumont and Robin Prior. The doco was an eye-opener when first shown in April…
Greg Raymond ‘Rhetoric on South China Sea sets dangerous tone‘, New Mandala, 16 October 2015 (updated) The author warns about over-hyping Chinese activities in the South China Sea and about downplaying what can be done by regional bodies, such as…
The ABC among other outlets runs a piece today on the 40th anniversary of the deaths of the Balibo Five, working journalists (Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart) taken out by Indonesian special forces in East…
Menadue, John ‘Radicalism and terrorism‘, Pearls and Irritations, 15 October 2015 The author makes an important distinction, noting that radicalism and terrorism are not the same thing. Radical politics and radical religion are surely acceptable and widespread. But what is…
Update 3 November 2015: and the winner is … General Morrison. Congratulations to him. Former Chief of Army, David Morrison, and current Australian War Memorial Director-General, Brendan Nelson, are among ACT nominees for Australian of the Year. Honest History congratulates…
Canberra Youth Theatre & Long Cloud Youth Theatre, New Zealand Dead Men’s Wars A play by Ralph McCubbin Howell, directed by Brett Adam, a joint Aotearoa New Zealand-Australia production, which premiered in Canberra, 14 October 2015 with support from The…
‘Trans-Tasman youth production asks important questions about Anzac’, Honest History, 15 October 2015 David Stephens reviews Dead Men’s Wars by Ralph McCubbin Howell, presented by Canberra Youth Theatre (Australia) and Long Cloud Youth Theatre (New Zealand) Like another co-production a…
Starting today and running till 11 November, the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, Canberra, with the assistance of journalist and author Paul Daley, is live tweeting the events leading up to the dismissal of the Whitlam Government…
[Links checked 15 November 2017 and all were live. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Update 20 November 2015: missing the target in the AWM’s Great…
‘The first Anzac Day? Adelaide 1915: highlights reel’, Honest History, 13 October 2015 updated This year, 2015, as surely everyone knows now, is one hundred years since the Gallipoli landing/invasion, 25 April 1915, popularised as ‘Anzac’. But when was the…
Wesley, Michael Restless Continent: Wealth, Rivalry, and Asia’s New Geopolitics, BlackInc, Melbourne, 2015; available electronically The world has never seen economic development as rapid or significant as Asia’s during recent decades. Home to three-fifths of humanity, this restless continent will…
‘Watching the neighbours’ (review of Wesley), Honest History, 13 October 2015 Derek Abbott* reviews Michael Wesley’s Restless Continent: Wealth, Rivalry and Asia’s New Geopolitics Robert Burns enjoined us to see ourselves as others see us; Michael Wesley would also have…
Anonymous (Frank Morton?) ‘A new use for Central Australia: it’s “potentialities” as a scrapping ground‘, The Triad, 10 March 1917 This semi-humorous piece, apparently just the single page, suggests that Central Australia would provide a more spacious, less cluttered battleground…
‘What’s the best way into Australian history resources?’ Honest History, 13 October 2015 First, there’s the Honest History website. There’s a guide to the site and we recommend browsing. You will see that, while we target issues of current relevance,…
Online gem No. 3: Canberra’s 1940 air crash (13 October 2015 updated) On the morning of 13 August 1940 a Hudson A16-97 aircraft flying from Melbourne to Canberra crashed on the eastern approaches to Canberra’s airport. All ten people on…
Online gem No. 2: Royalty in the Australian Women’s Weekly (13 October 2015) In September 2015 Queen Elizabeth II became the longest-reigning monarch in British history. During the Queen’s long reign many Australians have maintained a particular fascination with her…
The Myall Creek massacre of June 1838 led to the death of 28 Aboriginal men, women and children and to the trial of 11 of their white assailants. Seven were found guilty and were executed in December 1838. The first…
‘Change and continuity at Honest History’, Honest History, 13 October 2015 There are some changes under way at Honest History, leading up to the second anniversary of our website early in November. But there is continuity as well. Let us…
Flitton, Daniel ‘ANZAC centenary: the costly price of history lessons‘, The Age, 10 October 2015 Discusses the politics of the Monash interpretive centre at Villers-Bretonneux, quoting historians Joan Beaumont, Bruce Scates and Peter Stanley with criticisms. The Department of Veterans’…
Congratulations to Honest History distinguished supporter, Carolyn Holbrook, who has won a 2015 Queensland Literary Award for her book, Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography. The book won the University of Southern Queensland History Book Award, worth $10 000. The thesis on…
Hudson, Marc ‘25 years ago the Australian government promised deep emissions cuts, and yet here we still are‘, The Conversation, 9 October 2015 Looks at ‘the largely forgotten history’ of the 25 years since the then minister brought Australia’s first…
Hardie, Giles ‘Why Australians are addicted to family dramas‘, New Daily, 7 October 2015 Summaries of 40 years of the ‘most iconic’ Australian TV soap operas. As a country, we’ve long loved drama series but our family dramas have a special…
Delaney, Brigid ‘Cold Chisel: writing Australia’s unofficial national anthems since 1973‘, Guardian Australia, 6 October 2015 Historical look at the songs of an Australian rock band. Cold Chisel’s lyrics always felt like stories – Carveresque with an Australian accent –…
Australian author and commentator, Gideon Haigh, has agreed to become a distinguished supporter of Honest History. Gideon has written more than 30 books, on subjects ranging from cricket to the car industry and from digital media to working in offices.…
Dunera News, No. 95, October 2015 This long-standing publication tracks the progress of a group of men and boys of even longer standing, those who came to Australia in 1940 on the vessel HMT Dunera. They had been rounded up…
Bueskens, Petra ‘Malcolm Turnbull, Immanuel Kant and the Conundrum of small and big L Liberals‘, New Matilda, 6 October 2015 updated The article is interesting because it juggles shades of meaning in Kant, strains of opinion in the Liberal Party…
Benbow, Heather Merle ‘Feeding the troops: the emotional meaning of food in wartime‘, The Conversation, 30 September 2015 Food is central to experiences of war [the author says], and not just for the soldiers for whom it is a daily…
Kevin, Tony ‘Australian foreign policy needs a shake-up after two decades of sclerotic decline‘, The Conversation, 1 October 2015 The author, a commentator and former diplomat, argues that the last two decades were years of sclerosis and decline in Australia’s once creative…
‘Fifty years since Indonesia coup: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 1 October 2015(updated) On the night of 30 September-1 October 1965 anti-communist forces in Indonesia quelled an alleged nascent coup attributed to the Indonesian communist party, the PKI. The coup…
‘After all these years: Wilfred Burchett highlights reel’, Honest History, 30 September 2015 Wilfred Burchett shouldered his way back into Honest History’s consideration recently, first, when we revived his justly famous article about Hiroshima and, secondly, when we were pointed…
‘Wilfred Burchett recalled by Rupert Lockwood: highlights reel (II)’, Honest History, 30 September 2015 This post follows on from our earlier extracts from a long, undated (but circa 1994) essay by Rupert Lockwood (1908-97), another Australian internationalist, in which he…
Today it is exactly 100 years since a notice appeared on page 2 of The Register, an Adelaide newspaper. The notice commenced: ANZAC DAY IMPORTANT PUBLIC NOTICE CERTAIN MISLEADING STATEMENTS have been circulated regarding the objects of the Anzac Day…
Burnside, Julian ‘What sort of country are we?‘ The Conversation, 29 September 2015 Article based on the Hamer Oration, delivered 28 September. Examines incidents in Australia’s treatment of refugees over the last decade and a half, considering Tampa, the Pacific…
The excellent online publication The Conversation provides an opportunity for academics of sprightly mind to engage in evidence-based public debate and get their views to a large, mostly non-academic audience. (Audience figures here are not too shabby, with a claim…
Triggs, Gillian, et al War and Peace: the ANZAC Spirit and Human Rights, Australian Human Rights Commission, Sydney 2015 Papers from a conference held by the Commission in May 2014. There is an introduction from Professor Triggs and papers from…
Grudnoff, Matt & Dan Gilchrist Charity Ends at Home: the Decline of Foreign Aid in Australia – Policy Brief, September 2015, Australia Institute & Jubilee Australia Research Centre, Canberra, 2015 A brief historical view of Australia’s foreign aid performance over…
Leslie, Tim, Louis Stowasser, Ben Spraggon & Matthew Liddy ‘From Menzies to Malcolm: the careers of Australia’s prime ministers visualised‘, ABC News, 25 September 2015 Handy graphic version on one screen of the careers of 18 prime ministers, showing periods…
Adoniou, Misty, Bill Louden & Glenn C. Savage ‘What will changes to the national curriculum mean for schools? experts respond‘, The Conversation, 23 September 2015 We have been following this issue closely, particularly in relation to the history curriculum, ever…
Honest History went along last evening to a session at the National Museum of Australia on its ‘Defining Moments’ project. We have followed this initiative closely – partly because of the way it contrasts with the narrowly conservative interpretation of…
Nolan, Melanie ‘Coral Magnolia Lansbury, 1929-1991‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, online edition, 2015 Coral Lansbury was a distinguished Australian radio scriptwriter, academic and novelist. Her son, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, is Australia’s 29th prime minister. Nolan also presented a seminar on…
Update 25 October 2015: extract from Jeannine Baker’s Australian Women War Reporters: Boer War to Vietnam Update 26 September 2015: more from Nicholas Stuart and Gai Brodtmann MP. Update 25 September 2015: Helen Vatsikopoulos writes. A cheeky reflection from Mark…
Honest History has followed intermittently developments in the South China Sea, partly because of their potential to escalate but also because of the echoes they evoke of long-standing Australian attitudes to Asia and long-standing Australian concerns to ensure we benefit…
Victoria, Brian ‘War remembrance in Japan’s Buddhist cemeteries, Part I: Kannon hears the cries of war‘, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 13, Issue 31, No. 3, August 3, 2015; ‘Part II: Transforming war criminals into Martyrs: “true words” on Mt.…
One of Honest History’s closest followers in Federal Parliament, Andrew Nikolic, MP for the Tasmanian seat of Bass, has lost his position as Deputy Liberal Party Whip, following the change of Liberal leadership. Honest History would have liked to send…
Arrow, Michelle ‘Damned Whores and God’s Police is still relevant to Australia 40 years on – more’s the pity‘, The Conversation, 21 September 2015 The article marks four decades since Anne Summers’ book. A conference is under way. Anne Summers’…
[Manne, Anne, Robyn Davidson & Raimond Gaita] ‘Words and images: Robyn Davidson and Raimond Gaita on film adaptation‘, The Monthly, 21 September 2015 In this La Trobe University Ideas and Society event at the Bendigo Writers Festival 2015, authors Robyn…
‘Review note: commemoration theme sits lightly on an old Canberra perennial’, Honest History, 22 September 2015 When an event has been going for 27 years it will be looking for new twists. Canberra’s venerable Floriade spring festival has done night-time…
Jericho, Greg ‘As the “rising tide” of living standards starts to ebb, the poorest will go under‘, Guardian Australia, 19 September 2015 Close summary analysis of the NATSEM report recently released. See also our collection of material on inequality, with…
Update 21 September 2015: farewell media release from Senator Ronaldson. Prime Minister Turnbull’s new ministry does not include Senator Michael Ronaldson, formerly Miniser for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac. The prime minister…
New prime minister, new war, old war powers, a long history of Australian involvement in wars. Time for a change? Friday, 23 October, sees an all day seminar at the Australian National University, Canberra, on Legislating reform of the war…
Hynd, Doug ‘St Mark’s remembers Anzac Day’, Honest History, 19 September 2015 Doug Hynd reviews the April 2015 issue of St Mark’s Review, published by St Mark’s National Theological Centre, Canberra. The table of contents of the issue are here…
‘St Mark’s remembers Anzac Day’, Honest History, 19 September 2015 Doug Hynd reviews the April 2015 issue of St Mark’s Review __________________________ This thematic issue ‘St Mark’s remembers’ on ‘remembering Anzac Day’ is, in the best sense of the term,…
Ferns, Nicholas ‘PNG marks 40 years of independence, still feeling the effects of Australian colonialism‘, The Conversation, 16 September 2015 September 16 marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the sovereign nation of Papua New Guinea. Celebrations are being held throughout…
Beams, Nick ‘Foreign policy dilemmas confront new Australian PM over China‘, World Socialist Web Site, 18 September 2015 Long article dissecting the new prime minister’s attitudes to China taking note of some key speeches. A useful addition to whatever analysis…
Phillips, Ben Living Standard Trends in Australia: Report for Anglicare Australia, NATSEM, University of Canberra, September 1915 The report compares the living standards of different household types across the country: how they have changed since 2004 and how they are…
Honest History has been a fan of the Defining Moments project at the National Museum of Australia. We are pleased to see a program of events around Defining Moments is getting under way in Canberra next week, 24 September, with…
Stephens, David ‘Less twaddling by the lake: three art exhibitions in Canberra‘, Honest History, 16 September 2015 A review of Reality in flames at the Australian War Memorial, Heroes and villians: William Strutt’s Australia at the National Library of Australia…
David Stephens ‘Less twaddling by the lake: three art exhibitions in Canberra’, Honest History, 16 September 2015 The three exhibitions covered in this review offer a multi-hued picture of parts of our history. The first show, Reality in flames, has…
Brangwin, Nicole, Nathan Church, Steve Dyer & David Watt Defending Australia: a History of Australia’s Defence White Papers: Parliamentary Library Research Paper 2015-16, 20 August 2015 This is a timely publication, given the recent extended commitment to Iraq-Syria, defence spending…
Abjorensen, Norman ‘Uneasy lies the head‘, Inside Story, 15 September 2015 Australia’s leading scholar of prime ministerial departures examines the latest one in its historical context, noting the difficulty that recent prime ministers (Hawke, Rudd, Gillard) have had in surviving…
Liddy, Matthew, Ben Spraggon, Lucy Fahey, Simon Elvery & Colin Gourlay ‘Australia’s political rollercoaster: 13 years, 66 changes‘, ABC News, 14 September 2015 Useful backgrounder on changes of leadership in all Australian jurisdictions over recent years. One more to add.…
Not the most memorable output from Parliament House today, but worth noting nevertheless, was a media release from Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Senator Michael Ronaldson, entitled ‘Funding round opens for Vietnam War Commemorative Grants’. The release provided details…
Honest History is pleased to mark two important stages in a project it has been following for more than two years, 100 Stories, wrangled from Monash University by Professor Bruce Scates and his team. First, from 12 October, an online…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 2 June 1915 Our final insight into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915, 12 May 1915, 19 May 1915, 26 May 1915. Again, thanks to Vicken Babkenian for unearthing…
‘Echevarria’s trouble with (military) history: highlights reel’, Honest History, 12 September 2015 This post offers highlights from an article that is at once a decade old and more broadly relevant than just to the teaching of military history. Antulio J.…
Ozakinci, Cengiz ‘One hundred years of error: Ataturk, Birdwood, Harington and Canakkale 1915‘, Butun Dunya (Ankara), September 2015 (translated into English) In this article, Ozakinci busts the myth that Ataturk and British General Birdwood met in Istanbul in October 1918 and…
Honest History’s secretary and editor, David Stephens, writes in Fairfax today about the obsession with blood sacrifice that has characterised the thoughts and actions of authority figures and their acolytes down the ages. He finds plenty of examples in the…
Professor Bruce Scates of Monash University points out that only five per cent of the cost of digitising the World War I repatriation files has been found as part of Australia’s Anzac commemoration budget. ‘One thing is without dispute about…
Gorman, Sean, et al ‘Indigenous writing’, Griffith Review We apologise for not discovering this portal earlier. It links (at the time of posting, September 2015) to 54 articles from Griffith Review on Indigenous affairs and another 33 articles from the…
Froggatt, Emma ‘Australian Life prize 2015: the colour, the joy, the weird and wonderful – in pictures‘, Guardian Australia, 2 September 2015 Finalists in this photographic exhibition, which is on in Sydney from 18 September to 11 October. There is…
Update 11 September 2015: Senator Ludlam speaks Greens Senator Scott Ludlam (WA) makes the case for Parliament having a role in decisions to go to war. Update 6 September 2015: Alison Broinowski writes Alison Broinowski, Honest History vice president and…
Ian McPhedran’s article on the News website ‘Government spending more than $8800 for every digger killed during WW1‘ draws upon material on the Honest History site about commemoration spending (especially here and here) and quotes Honest History’s David Stephens along…
The Canberra Times reports progress on a plan to erect in the grounds of the Australian War Memorial a shrine or monument to the families of Australian service personnel. Public and corporate donations will be sought. The leader of the…
An ABC story on Honest History’s critique of Audacity, a publication by the Australian War Memorial and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, was very popular on social media in the week 24-30 August. Facebook: 82 839 people reached; 422 likes/comments/shares;…
‘Last orders, Mr James’, Honest History, 1 September 2015 Paddy Gourley* reviews Clive James, Latest Readings If Clive James had written nothing other than his book Cultural Amnesia he would have secured a prominent place in Australian letters. It’s a…
Summers, Julie Fashion on the Ration: Style in the Second World War, Profile Books, London, 2015 From the young woman who avoided the dreaded ‘forces bloomers’ by making knickers from military-issue silk maps, to Vogue’s indomitable editor Audrey Withers, who…
Radojević, Mira & Ljubodrag Dimić Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918: a Short History, Srpska knjizevna zadruga (Serbian Literary Cooperative), Belgrade, 2nd edition, 2014 Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918 is a book of facts based on well-known sources and documents. Affirming…
Gluckstein, Donny, ed. Fighting on All Fronts: Popular Resistance in the Second World War, Bookmarks, London, 2015 Collection of ten articles and introduction. Fighting on All Fronts brings together ten writers to take up the story of popular resistance. The…
[Links checked 15 November 2017 and a couple were found to be broken, due to the passage of time. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Update…
Stephens, David ‘Freedom and the Australian War Memorial: is Honest History not a force for good?‘, Honest History, 1 September 2015 Honest History’s secretary and editor traces the often fraught relationship between Honest History and the Australian War Memorial, which…
David Stephens ‘Freedom and the Australian War Memorial: is Honest History not a force for good?’, Honest History, 1 September 2015 Communication has always been central to warfare. Carrier pigeons, flags, field telephones, Mel Gibson rushing through the trenches in…
‘Finding a thing to wear during World War II’, Honest History, 1 September 2015 Janet Wilson* reviews Fashion on the Ration: Style in the Second World War by Julie Summers This book accompanied an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum…
James, Clive Latest Readings, Yale University Press, New Haven CT & London, 2015 In 2010, Clive James was diagnosed with terminal leukemia. Deciding that “if you don’t know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as…
‘Redressing historical inadequacies?’ Honest History, 1 September 2015 Derek Abbott* reviews Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918, by Mira Radojevic and Ljubodrag Dimic, and Fighting on All Fronts: Popular Resistance in the Second World War, edited by Donny Gluckstein. These…
‘Wilfred Burchett recalled by Rupert Lockwood: highlights reel (I)’, Honest History, 1 September 2015 Recently we ran Wilfred Burchett’s famous report of the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima. That post included some links to material on this enigmatic…
‘Inequality – six of the best from Andrew Leigh, MP: highlights reel’, Honest History, 1 September 2015 updated Inequality has been a special interest of Honest History, as we have noted the procession of reporting organisations confirming Australia’s growing reputation…
Leslie Cyril Jauncey has surprised us all. When we first planned the Honest History website two years ago we thought it would be nice to have a column, a place where various invited authors could write about things that interested…
If, as a loyal supporter of the Honest History enterprise, you have not yet seen the way clear to make a modest donation to the venture, we would love to take some of your money. We are pushed along entirely…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 26 May 1915 More insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915, 12 May 1915, 19 May 1915. In this edition: [Translated from Ikdam:] While the English papers…
Taylor, Alan ‘Syria’s children‘, The Atlantic, 27 August 2015 Contains 35 photographs of the effects of the war in Syria on children. It must be a question for countries contemplating involvement whether this will make things on the ground better…
John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations, contains three articles on developments in Syria. Former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Stuart Harris, believes Australia should turn down the United States request to join in airstrikes. Former Ambassador to the…
Australia. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade FOI disclosure log reference nos 15/25024 and others, Freedom of Information This material was disclosed under FOI to Vache Kahramanian on behalf of the Armenian National Committee of Australia. Reference number 15/25024 is…
Radio New Zealand National ‘Easter over Anzac‘, The Panel, 26 August 2015 Brief (five minute) chat between panellists Ali Jones, Damon Salesa and Joe Mora about the relative merits of Easter, Waitangi Day and Anzac Day as occasions for commemoration…
Furst, David, Tomas Munita, Jodi Rudoren, Isabel Kershner, Jon Huang, Sergio Pecanha ‘Walking in war’s path‘, New York Times, 22 August 2015 We don’t normally feature the Gaza Strip on Honest History but this is an exceptional piece of reportage…
Cowlishaw, Gillian ‘Friend or foe? anthropology’s encounter with Aborigines‘, Inside Story, 19 August 2015 A reassessment of classical anthropological research (1890s to mid twentieth century). Condemnation of objectionable aspects of colonial power structures should not preclude appreciation of this research.…
David Stephens ‘Anzackery: parochial puffery a century on‘, Honest History, 25 August 2015 This speech, including Powerpoint slides, was prepared for a professional development session for Museums of New South Wales. The session was cancelled but the speech has been…
Honest History’s criticism of a Children’s Book Council award to the book Audacity was reported on the ABC today. Honest History secretary and editor, David Stephens, described the book as sanitised, distorted and bizarre war history. He gave the example…
David Stephens ‘“There will be blood”: ministerial remarks on the responsibility of children‘, Pearls and Irritations, 22 August 2015 Traces the fascination of authority figures with the concept of blood sacrifice. The blood sacrifice of children was evident in ancient…
‘Talking about Turkey in the 1960s: highlights reel’, Honest History, 22 August 2015 The Returned and Services League (RSL) papers in the National Library of Australia constitute about the largest of that cultural institution’s massive collection of manuscripts. And about…
Diamond, Marion ‘Street names and naming conventions‘, Historians are Past Caring, 20 August 2015 Whimsical but well-informed piece about how our capital city streets came to get the names they bear today. Street names say a lot about who and…
Banivanua Mar, Tracey ‘Remember the Pacific’s people when we remember the war in the Pacific‘, The Conversation, 19 August 2015 Summarises the story of war in the Pacific from the point-of-view of the people who lived there and had to…
Update 24 August 2015: ABC report ‘It is disgraceful that a piece of sanitised war propaganda has won a Children’s Book Council Award’, the Honest History coalition said today. ‘Giving a prize to the book Audacity endorses promotional material from…
Broinowski, Alison ‘Borderless war or, when you get in a hole, stop digging‘, Pearls and Irritations, 15 August 2015 The United States has formally asked for Australian involvement in Syria. Honest History vice president had already posted this article on…
Less marked in Australia but nevertheless significant in the sweep of world history is the 75th anniversary of the assassination of Trotsky in Mexico, 20 August 2015. An important figure in Soviet Russia in the earlier years after the 1917…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 19 May 1915 We continue these insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915, presenting a different, English-language, view of the Dardanelles campaign. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915, 12 May…
‘Review note: Stuart Macintyre’s Australia’s Boldest Experiment‘, Honest History, 19 August 2015 updated World War I is far enough back for spruikers of a particular view of it to extract bits selectively from, say, the ambivalent Charles Bean and impress…
Stephens, David ‘Public Works Committee’s paddle in Monash museum‘, Honest History, 19 August 2015 Our third article on the Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre proposed for Villers-Bretonneux in France. It briefly analyses the Public Works Committee report, tabled in the…
David Stephens ‘Public Works Committee’s paddle in the Monash museum’, Honest History, 19 August 2015 This is the third in our series considering the Monash project at Villers-Bretonneux, France. Earlier articles looked at the submission from the Department of Veterans’…
Battistella, Edwin ‘How to write a compelling book review‘, OUPBlog, 11 August 2015 We normally write and/or publish the things but this seemed such good advice we thought we’d post it for the edification of all. The author kicks off…
We presented these items in our e-Newsletter no. 28 earlier in the month on the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima-Nagasaki (and the 100th anniversary of Lone Pine). We wanted to run them through again. Also, given today’s 49th anniversary of Long…
University of Melbourne Professor, Janet McCalman, is wrangling an important research project on the repatriation records of the First AIF. She talked about the project to Geraldine Doogue on the ABC. Called Diggers to Veterans: Risk, Resilience and Recovery in…
Pegram, Aaron ‘Politicians at war: the experiences of Australian parliamentarians in the First World War‘, Parliament of Australia, 10 April 2015 A lunchtime lecture. The author summarises: 119 Australian MPs saw active service in the First World War: 72 were members…
‘VP Day 70th anniversary: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 16 August 2015 Anniversary Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Japan in 1945, commemorated as Victory in the Pacific Day. ABC News provided a comprehensive round-up. Geraldine Doogue…
Mike Bowers ‘Anzac Cove and Gallipoli: then and now – interactive‘, Guardian Australia, 25 April 2015 We missed it earlier but are running it now as it, briefly, won an award, until it was realised there had been a mistake.…
Spurling, Tom & John Mark Webb ‘The Great War brought us tragedy but it also birthed Australian science‘, The Conversation, 13 August 2013 Shows how the war enabled Australia to embrace science and technology innovation in a national way. Traces…
Reid, Elizabeth ‘Maintaining the rage: address to Vintage Reds, Canberra, 16 June 2015‘, Vintage Reds Elizabeth Reid was the first women’s adviser to an Australian prime minister, appointed by Gough Whitlam in 1973. There is more about her here and…
David Stephens ‘Comments on Salahi Sonyel’s 1989 Ataturk biography’, Honest History, 14 August 2015 Thank you to Turkish correspondents on Twitter for passing on details of the book by Salahi R. Sonyel, Ataturk: the Father of Modern Turkey, Turkish Historical…
An important episode of Australia’s wartime history remembered again at Hay, where the Dunera boys were first sent after arrival in Australia. Details are in our What’s On information, look under Hay, NSW. The Dunera Association in conjunction with Dunera…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 12 May 1915 We continue our presentation of these fascinating insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915. Our colleague, Vicken Babkenian, who has sourced…
Springtime it seems to bring on the seminars. In Sydney on 8 September there is an all day session at the State Library on public and popular histories of Anzac. So what do ordinary Australians think about Anzac? What sorts…
Rollo, Stuart ‘In the most unlikely of places, anti-semitic tropes find new life‘, New Matilda, 11 August 2015 The author notes slogans ‘Victims of the Rothschilds’ on signs at the Light Horse Interchange, a war memorial road exchange at Eastern…
Ozakinci, Cengiz Updates 14 August 2015: (1) we provide a comment on Turkish-supplied information about a 1989 book; (2) note that, for footnote 5 to the second (August) Ozakinci article, you need to go to the notes in the original…
Rollison, Kay ‘Book review: Ideas for Australian Cities, by Hugh Stretton‘, Australian Independent Media Network, 11 August 2015 Marks the death last month at 91 of Australian public intellectual, Hugh Stretton, author of the pioneering The Political Sciences (1969), Ideas…
Cashen, Phil ‘John Henry Adams‘, Shire at War, 11 August 2015 To further mark the centenary of Lone Pine, another cameo from the Shire at War blog from the Yarram area, Gippsland, Victoria. Adams is interesting because of his divided…
Leadbeater, Tim ‘Anzac Day and the politics of forgetting‘, 100yearsoftrenches.blogspot, 8 August 2015 Text of (long) speech delivered to International Socialist Organisation meetings in Wellington and Dunedin. It is a fascinating ‘compare and contrast’ exercise for readers on the western…
Sparrow, Jeff ‘If black lives really matter in Australia, it’s time we owned up to our history’, Guardian Australia, 7 August 2015 Weaves together Adam Goodes, the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign in the United States, the treatment of Pacific Islander…
‘Wilfred Burchett in Hiroshima: highlights reel’, Honest History, 9 August 2015 Today is the 70th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. By the end of 1945 up to 80 000 people in Nagasaki had died…
Stanley, Peter, et al ‘Speak across the century with the soldiers who fought at Gallipoli’s Battle of Lone Pine‘, News.com.au, 6 August 2015 This blog is over but worth a read. Honest History’s president Peter Stanley, who participated as the…
Nevius, James ‘To teach only “American exceptionalism” is to ignore half the country’s story‘, Guardian Australia, 3 August 2015 Ostensibly an American story but relevant to every country, including Australia, where it is a theme Honest History has returned to…
Glover, Dennis ‘The unmaking of the Australian working class – and their right to resist‘, The Conversation, 3 August 2015 An edited extract from the author’s book, An Economy is Not a Society: Winners and Losers in the New Australia.…
‘Hiroshima-Nagasaki and Lone Pine: miscellany’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 Battle of Lone Pine (Battle of Kanlı Sırt), 6-10 August 1915 Bombing of Hiroshima, 6 August 1945 Bombing of Nagasaki, 9 August 1945 (Images warning) Update 12 August 2015: a…
Stephens, David ‘Monash interpretive centre (Immersion II of II): Public Works Committee dips toe in water‘, Honest History, 4 August 2015 The article considers further the proposal to build the Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre at Villers-Bretonneux, France, at a…
Stanley, Peter ‘Headphones, genocide and Fanta: reflections on the Çanakkale Gallipoli conference’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 This is an extended report of a major international conference held at Çanakkale, Turkey, in May 2015, with participants from many countries. The…
Stephens, David ‘“And the children went”: Hands on History at the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 4 August 2015 A description of a ‘Hands on History’ session for school children on holidays, leading in to an assessment of how the…
Heaton, Barbara Carol* ‘A history of unrest and turmoil: coal miners during World War II’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 An examination of coal mining in wartime, drawing heavily on resources collected by former mining official, Jim Comerford, and now…
[Links checked 14 November 2017 and a couple were found to be broken, due to the passage of time. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Update…
David Stephens ‘Monash interpretive centre (Immersion II of II): Public Works Committee dips toe in water’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 updated We find it difficult to treat this project as anything other than a massively self-indulgent and boastful boondoggle*,…
David Stephens ‘”And the children went”: Hands on History at the Australian War Memorial in the school holidays’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 During the last school holidays, the Australian War Memorial ran some ‘Hands on History’ sessions for children.…
Peter Stanley ‘Headphones, genocide and Fanta: reflections on the Çanakkale Gallipoli conference’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 ‘International’ conferences are often hard work, hard to organise, hard to fund, hard to run and hard to attend, especially as an ‘international’…
Barbara Carol Heaton* ‘A history of unrest and turmoil: coal miners during World War II’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 Controversy continues over the role of militant unions in Australia during World War II. While the sharpest focus has been…
‘The War Census of 1915: Honest History highlights reel (Part II)’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 War worries are added to by the census, which probes into the pockets and the soul of every citizen, asking him in plain print…
‘Great War chaplains after the tumult and shouting’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 John A. Moses* reviews Linda Parker’s Shellshocked Prophets: Former Anglican Army Chaplains in Inter-War Britain _______________________________________ At a time when all denominations are being pilloried for the…
Parker, Linda Shellshocked Prophets: Former Anglican Army Chaplains in Inter-War Britain, Helion (Wolverhampton Military Studies), Solihull, UK, 2015 The Anglican chaplains who served in the Great War were changed by their experience of total war. They returned determined to revitalize…
Ian Buckley ‘”Australia’s foreign wars: origins, costs, future?! and other essays”‘, Honest History, 4 August 2015 While we have categorised this as one post, it actually links to a trove of articles by this deep-thinking now 90-year-old. (The author made…
‘Les Jauncey visits the socialist paradise, 1935’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 Our persistent Jaunceyphile, Steve Flora, has been keeping this in reserve. It is based on a report in the Melbourne-based Labor Call (2 April 1936) of Leslie Jauncey’s…
Alert readers will have noticed (and many will have read) our offerings over the last few months from the archives of noted Australian historian, Humphrey McQueen. Some time ago, Humphrey made available to us much of his out-of-copyright material, some…
Australian-Armenian man Sassoon Grigorian is going on a charity walk to Mount Ararat in Turkey to raise money for Syrian refugees of Armenian background. This effort recalls a history of Australian assistance to people in the origin, dating back to…
‘Two Australians of the Year: highlights reel’, Honest History, 1 August 2015 Adam Goodes, AFL footballer and Indigenous activist, was Australian of the Year 2013. Rosie Batty, mother and domestic violence activist, was Australian of the Year 2014. Both have…
We wanted to run these again, particularly a week ahead of the simultaneous (pretty much) anniversaries of Lone Pine and Hiroshima. The first two items put our war history in perspective; the third might look like an easy mark but…
These four quotes from our Whizzbangs collection suggest that, while the Bush may have made us, we’ve moved on to drier country. We ignite Whizzbangs in our monthly newsletters. Before. ‘It is easy enough to see why men went to the…
We hope that both The Monthly Today and The Conversation are these days getting more readers than the venerable organs (or the organs owned by the venerable) but, just in case you missed them, here are links to Sean Kelly…
Menadue, John ‘Militarisation, the new norm‘, Pearls and Irritations, 27 July 2015 Menadue, distinguished former senior public servant, writes on his blog about the increasing militarisation of Australia, through the creation of the Australian Border Force, military vice-regal appointments, warlike…
Kelly, T. Mills ‘Teaching students to lie: historical method through hoaxes‘, The Conversation, 18 August 2012 Fifty-one posters commented on this article which claims that, when you teach students how to lie, they become better historians. Kelly’s aim is to…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 5 May 2015 This is the complete edition for the date shown of an English language weekly newsletter published by the American missionaries in Constantinople. The issues from 1915 provide great insight from the ‘other side’…
Griffiths, Tom ‘The story behind the story’, Inside Story, 24 July 2015 A long essay on Graeme Davison’s new book, Lost Relations: Fortunes of My Family in Australia’s Golden Age, which also provokes musings by Griffiths about the nature of…
Robert Ørsted-Jensen Webpage of resources related to his book Frontier History Revisited Brings together a collection of resources related to the author’s 2011 book, Frontier History Revisited: Colonial Queensland and the History War. There are extracts from the book, as well…
Ashley Kalagian Blunt ‘Life after genocide: legacies of a shattered culture‘, Griffith Review, July 2015 A Canadian-Armenian now living in Australia examines her heritage and touches on Australian connections as well. She notes how the Armenian genocide provided lessons for…
Sparrow, Jeff ‘If you oppose Reclaim Australia, remember fascism wasn’t always a freak show‘, Guardian Australia, 22 July 2015 Riffs off a minor ‘scandal’ over film of Queen Elizabeth as a seven-year-old essaying a Nazi salute (links to other articles…
One of the recurring themes of Australian political history has been the rise and fall of Labour newspapers. The ALP has relaunched the Labor Herald as an online journal, a few years after its previous incarnation was executed or fell…
Australian War Memorial Reality in Flames: Modern Australian Art & the Second World War Opened on 3 July 2015, this is ‘the first exhibition dedicated exclusively to exploring how Australian modernist artists responded creatively to the Second World War’. Modern…
Robertson, Tim ‘Foreign fighter with the “Anzac spirit”‘, Eureka Street, 12 July 2015 Brief article on Reece Harding, killed fighting with Kurdish Peshmerga forces against Islamic State. Harding was technically in breach of Australian law, though Robertson describes the factors…
Edgar, Bill ‘The Western Australian convicts: a crucial phase in the British convict transportation phenomenon‘, Honest History, 19 July 2015 Much has been handed down about the severity and iniquities of the Australian convict system, but much has been falsely…
Kidd, Briony ‘Reading between the credits for Australian women directors‘, SBS Movies, 14 July 2015 Asks why women film-makers are consistently overlooked in Australian cinema. Examines possible answers to this question, looks at some history, discusses the work of many…
Cashen, Phil ‘Pressed to enlist in the first half of 1915‘, Shire at War, 1 July 2015 From the excellent Shire at War blog, out of Alberton, Gippsland, Victoria, comes this forensic examination of a war of letters to the…
‘ANZUS-China miscellany’, Honest History, 17 July 2015 Update 18 July 2015: Chinese Ambassador Ma attempts to reassure Australia about China’s benign intentions. _____________________________ Recently Honest History collected some material on China-Japan-Australia-US relations and ran it under the heading ‘Spratlyswatch’. While…
Broinowski, Alison ‘Toxic warfare: Agent Orange revisited‘, Honest History, 16 July 2015 The article comments on the decision by the Australian War Memorial Council to commission a further volume on the medical aspects of the Vietnam War. Also relevant are…
Alison Broinowski ‘Toxic warfare: revisiting Agent Orange’, Honest History, 16 July 2015 Soon after the Australian War Memorial announced that three new histories of the wars in East Timor, Afghanistan, and Iraq (to 2014) are to be written in the…
Tavan, Gwenda ‘Remembering the “old” Department of Immigration’s nation-building traditions‘, The Conversation, 14 July 2015 As the old Immigration department merges with the Customs service to form a fully-fledged border protection operation, this article (and two associated ones linked to…
Minister Ronaldson has publicised the annual fundraising appeal for the Weary Dunlop Foundation. Honest History is making a modest donation to the appeal. The Foundation focuses on the prevention and treatment of illnesses affecting veterans and their families. The appeal…
The Australian War Memorial has announced that a further volume is to be produced on the medical aspects of the Vietnam War, with particular reference to the effects of Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant alleged to have affected the health…
Former senior Commonwealth public servants, John Menadue and Michael Keating, have completed their wrangling of a large collection of papers on policy options for Australia. The papers, produced by a number of distinguished authors, are to be published shortly in…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 28 April 1915 An unusual post for Honest History but a fascinating one, this is the complete edition for the date shown of an English language weekly newsletter published by the American missionaries in Constantinople. The…
‘Review note: AHS Classics virtual issue “Australia and the First World War” (Australian Historical Studies)’, Honest History, 12 July 2015 This virtual issue ‘reprints’ seven articles with an introductory essay from Bart Ziino. They are all free access until end…
Broinowski, Alison ‘Officially acceptable war history‘, Honest History, 11 July 2015 The article discusses the projected official histories of the Australian involvements in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq. Dr Broinowski is Vice President of Honest History and of Australians for…
Alison Broinowski ‘Officially acceptable war history’, Honest History, 11 July 2015 The government is soon to announce who will write the official history of Australia’s three latest military interventions in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs,…
Halloran, Neil ‘The fallen of World War II‘, Vimeo, 4 May 2015 Fifteen minute interactive video illustrating comparative deaths, military and civilian, by country. Comparisons with other wars. Should be compulsory viewing for Australians fixated on our national figures. David…
Rasmussen, Sune Engel ‘All that remains: our questionable legacy in Afghanistan‘, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Good Weekend’, 4 July 2015 Article by a Kabul-based Danish journalist, which notes the growing strength of the Taliban since Australia left Oruzgan province. On the…
Malcolm Turnbull’s website contains the full text of his speech last night to the Sydney Institute. There is also a pdf. The speech has been widely reported (Australian, ABC, Fairfax, Guardian). The speech is entitled ‘Magna Carta and the rule…
Jones, Ann ‘Australian lighthouses in the spotlight‘, ABC Radio National ‘Off Track’, 6 July 2015 (audio and story) Australia’s first lighthouse (Macquarie Lighthouse in Sydney) lit up in 1818 (though it was rebuilt later) but 2015 marks the centenary of…
[Links checked 14 November 2017 and none were found to be broken. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where they find a link is broken. Please contact admin@honesthistory.net.au. HH] Update 7 July 2015: Minister still…
Stephens, David ‘Money, Monash and motive: the Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux (Immersion I of II)‘, Honest History, 7 July 2015 An analysis of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs submission to the Public Works Committee hearing on the Monash centre…
Tooze, Adam The Deluge: the Great War and the Remaking of Global Order 1916-1931, Allen Lane, London, 2014; electronic version available; US edition has different title Adam Tooze’s panoramic new book tells a radical, new story of the struggle for…
Terzis, Gillian ‘Death trends: hashtag activism and the rise of online grief‘, Kill Your Darlings, July 2015 Our constant connection to the news and to the opinions of others means that grief can easily become a viral phenomenon … I…
David Stephens ‘Money, Monash and motive: the Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux (Immersion I of II)’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works (PWC) considered the Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre on 26 June and…
‘Deluge: Great War and remaking global order’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 Adam Tooze’s book is reviewed by Derek Abbott* ________________ The causes of World War I are the source of seemingly endless debate. From Prussian military hubris or German…
Ian Buckley ‘A case history: Britain, Empire decline, and the origins of WW1, or, might the lessons of the Boer War have saved the day?‘ Honest History, 7 July 2015 Boer women and children in a British concentration camp during…
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Quadrant and the CIA’, Gallipoli to Petrov: Arguing with Australian History, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1984, pp. 180-95 (pdf of out-of-copyright material made available by the author) This piece was originally written in 1977. (You will need…
‘Review note: World War I in Australia (Journal of Australian Studies, virtual special issue, April 2015)’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 We recently noted difficulties of access with some online journals. This issue of the Journal of Australian Studies, published…
Our dedicated researcher, Steve Flora, continues his search for the essential Leslie Jauncey, this time again with the help of Flinders University Library. This letter was written to Labor leader, Dr HV Evatt, just after Labor’s defeat in the 1958…
Daley, Paul ‘Anthony Martin Fernando: the Aboriginal activist who took his people’s fight to London‘, Guardian Australia, 3 July 2015 [Fernando] is probably the first Indigenous Australian to dedicate his life to activism in Europe … His attempt to petition…
Little, Daniel & Donkin, Chris ‘The numbers reveal the government didn’t play “god” with the Vietnam draft‘, The Conversation, 2 July 2015 Despite the claims of former conscript and former deputy prime minister, Tim Fischer, mathematical analysis suggests that the…
Australian Teachers of Media Metro Magazine Screen Education Study Guides The site contains links to many resources, notably study guides to many Australian television productions, including The War That Changed Us, Gallipoli, and Australia: the Story of Us, all reviewed…
‘Review note: Penleigh Boyd’s Salvage – sketching and writing on the Western Front’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 Theodore Penleigh Boyd (1890-1923) was a landscape artist and member of the multi-talented Boyd family. The Wikipedia entry is also useful. Bridge…
‘The War Census of 1915: Honest History highlights reel (Part I)’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 Some historians and observers say that Gallipoli saw the birth of the Australian nation as men flocked to the colours. Others argue that the…
Houlbrook, Matt ‘On being a one trick historian‘, The Trickster Prince, 29 June 2015 The author looks at why he always ends up writing the same sort of history. Habits shape and constrain how we work as historians. From the…
Honest History tries to draw links between current events and their precedents and analogues. EJ (Ted) Dionne is a liberal American political commentator who thinks along similar lines. These two paragraphs come from his most recent book, Our Divided Political…
Sometimes the connections within our monthly collections of Whizzbangs only become clear after they are posted and we look at them again on their way to our Choice Whizzbangs section. Some, indeed, have quite long fuses. Some are timeless; some…
Torre, Dan ‘From ads to Oscar winners: a century of Australian animation‘, The Conversation, 26 June 2015 2015 is one hundred years since Harry Julius began ‘Cartoons of the Moment’, animations accompanying feature films shown in Australia and New Zealand.…
‘”Whose side are you on?” (II): Honest History Factsheet’, Honest History, 27 June 2015 Some recent askers of the question ‘Whose side are they on?’ may not have been aware of the distinguished pedigree of these words or words very…
Newton, Douglas ‘“Whose side are you on?”‘ Honest History, 27 June 2015 To cast doubt on the patriotism of those who do not participate in a hate-the-enemy auction has a long and ignoble history. Those who defend civil liberties, those…
Douglas Newton ‘”Whose side are you on?”‘ Honest History, 27 June 2015 Saluting the flag, New York 1942 (Wikimedia Commons/Marie Winn) ‘Again, I say, the issue for the ABC, our national broadcaster, is “whose side are you on?” Because all too…
John Menadue’s blog Pearls and Irritations has been assembling a collection of articles to fill the policy vacuum which many people believe exists in modern Australia. The collection is now complete. There are 49 articles in 15 policy areas from…
Moore, Tony ‘Larrikin carnival: an Australian style of cultural subversion‘, The Conversation, 23 June 2015 The article is based on an essay in the collection On Happiness, which launched this month. I want to recast happiness as a form of…
Update 13 August 2015: extracts in Pearls and Irritations John Menadue’s blog Pearls and Irritations reprints the chapters by Michael McKinley on ‘Alliance ideology, the myth of sacrifice and the national security culture‘ and the late Malcolm Fraser on ‘We…
ACOSS Inequality in Australia: a Nation Divided, Australian Council of Social Services, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2015 Summary of key findings Income Inequality Inequality in Australia is higher than the OECD average – a person in the top 20% income group…
Kerkhove, Ray ‘Barriers and bastions: fortified frontiers and white and black tactics: paper presented at “Our shared history: resistance and reconciliation”, CQU seminar, Noosa, 11 June 2015‘, Honest History, 22 June 2015 Nineteenth century Australia had fortifications erected to protect…
Bosler, Danae ‘Labour in vain: the forgotten novels of Australia’s radical women‘, Overland, 16 June 2015 Brief survey of novels by Betty Collins, Jean Devanny, Dorothy Hewett, Amanda Lohrey and others. These novels are seminal Australian texts because of their…
Dr Adele Chynoweth is a Visitor within ANU’s Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies and she is doing a survey as part of her research on the public history of Forgotten Australians. The survey is targeted at academic researchers in the…
Stephens, David ‘Why is Australia spending so much more on the Great War centenary than any other country?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 20 June 2015 Honest History’s David Stephens writes for John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations. The article compares Australia’s…
There has been a lot of discussion recently about whether one side of politics is trying to wedge the other on national security issues. For example, Jack Waterford in Fairfax: There has been nothing subtle about the innuendo that Labor…
Evans, Mark ‘Evidence-based policy making: what Westminster policy officers say they do and why‘, The Policy Space, 16 June 2015 This article appears in a blog from the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis at the University of Canberra. It…
Oliver, Alex ‘Lowy Institute Poll 2015‘, Lowy Institute, 16 June 2015 KEY FINDINGS:This year’s Poll has recorded the lowest feeling of safety among Australians, and the sharpest decline in optimism about the nation’s economic performance in the world, in our…
The Hume Leader reports Honest History’s opinion that there is no evidence that Ataturk ever said the ‘Johnnies and Mehmets’ words attributed to him. Hume City Council plans to include the words on a memorial to be built in Broadmeadows.…
O’Brien, Patricia ‘The ANZACs in the Pacific – myths in Empire‘, Australian Outlook, 12 June 2015 Notes the 1914 actions by New Zealand in Samoa and Australia in New Guinea and how they developed into post-war colonialism. The end of…
Mascall-Dare, Sharon ‘All is not lost: ethical journalism during the Anzac centenary‘, Honest History, 18 June 2015 A journalist and journalism educator looks at the possibilities for ethnographic journalism to replace the formulaic, cut-and-paste methods that have been typical of…
Sharon Mascall-Dare ‘All is not lost: the case for ethical journalism during the Anzac centenary’, Honest History, 18 June 2015 The following is an extract from a presentation at the Canakkale-Gallipoli Wars Conference held in Canakkale, Turkey, 21-24 May 2015.…
‘Sheralyn Rose responds to Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 18 June 2015 Dr Sheralyn Rose, the wife of a Vietnam veteran, has responded to our highlights reel on Vietnam mythbusting. Rather than ask her to provide this material as…
Curby, Pauline ‘An urban myth or surfing history?‘, Honest History, 17 June 2015 The author explores the story surrounding a famous change to the rules regarding sea-bathing in pre-Great War Sydney. As this story is part of our surfing history,…
Pauline Curby ‘An urban myth or surfing history?’ Honest History, 17 June 2015 The Australian Dictionary of Biography is a marvellous resource, especially since it has been available online. Written by a wide range of authors, its entries sometimes require…
Sangha, Laura ‘What is history for? Or: doing history/thinking historically‘, The Many-headed Monster, 16 June 2015 Blog piece based on a lecture to a second year university class. Researching, says the author, ‘I was struck by the fact that the…
Curran, James Unholy Fury: Whitlam and Nixon at War, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2015 (e-book available) In the early 1970s, two titans of Australian and American politics, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and President Richard Nixon, clashed over the end…
‘No-go zones: review of James Curran’s Unholy Fury’, Honest History, 15 June 2015 Alison Broinowski reviews James Curran, Unholy Fury: Whitlam and Nixon at War Has anyone else noticed that the world has a growing number of places that are…
Ian Warden (‘Gang-Gang’) in Fairfax uses our City of Hume Ataturk material in a piece about the battle between truth and sentimentality. (We’d prefer to say the battle between history and myth or the battle between honest and dishonest history.)…
We have tracked (particularly here under the heading Update 12 May) the government’s commitment to the wizzo new Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre (high tech museum) at Villers-Bretonneux. This project will cost nearly $A100 million, mostly from the coffers of…
‘Vietnam Veterans’ Federation responds to Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 12 June 2015 The Vietnam Veterans’ Federation through its national research officer, Graham Walker, has responded to our highlights reel on Vietnam mythbusting. Rather than ask Graham Walker to…
We had a slight technical glitch this month. You can find the latest Centenary Watch updates for June 2015 here with links to archived material. For latest updates go to Centenary Watch link on our homepage.
How does Australia Go to War? is a new publication by Australians for War Powers Reform and it will be launched in Canberra on 24 June by Senator Scott Ludlam, Melissa Parke MP and Andrew Wilkie MP. The details of…
[Links checked 13 November 2017 and some were found to be broken, due to removal of material from websites or simply the passage of time. Honest History may be able to help users track down resources where a link is…
‘Magna Carta miscellany’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Update 8 July 2015: Malcolm Turnbull on Magna Carta and related issues. Update 15 June 2015: leader from the Guardian with the interesting title of ‘the magic of myth’. _________________________ Next Monday,…
Dunbar, Raden ‘“Jeune Barbarine“: sexual slavery and prostitution in Egypt circa 1914‘, Honest History, 9 June 2015 The author of The Secrets of the Anzacs tells of the human costs – and, for the entrepreneurs, the benefits – of prostitution…
Moorehead, Alan Gallipoli, Harper Collins, New York, 2002 and many other editions First published nearly 60 years ago, this classic is still in print. It is recalled by Ann Moyal for Honest History. Moorehead’s daughter (and writer) Caroline reminiscences in…
Dapin, Mark The Nashos’ War: Australia’s National Servicemen and Vietnam, Penguin Viking, Melbourne, 2014 [O]ur ideas of national service contain strange contradictions and inaccuracies: that the draft was unpopular but militarily necessary; that the nashos in Vietnam all volunteered to…
David Stephens ‘Anzac and Anzackery: speech to Kogarah Historical Society, 14 May 2015′, Honest History, 9 June 2015 I acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this land, and their elders past and present. I…
‘Ataturk in the City of Hume, Victoria: Honest History Factsheet’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Update 19 June 2015: media coverage in Hume Leader. _______________ Honest History’s research on the ‘Ataturk words’ of 1934 is here, summarised in a media…
Ann Moyal ‘Alan Moorehead’s Gallipoli’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Recalling an Anzac classic, first published in 1956. There have been at least some 70 books by individual authors published under the title Gallipoli in the century since. From the…
‘Mythbusting about Australians returned from Vietnam: Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 updated UPDATE 14 July 2015: further volume planned on medical aspects of Vietnam War service. Comment by Alison Broinowski. UPDATE 18 June 2015: Dr Sheralyn…
Raden Dunbar ‘”Jeune Barbarine”: sexual slavery and prostitution in Egypt circa 1914′, Honest History, 9 June 2015 This photograph, ‘Jeune Barbarine’, is of a Berber girl from the Barbary Coast of North Africa. It was made in Egypt shortly before…
‘Review note: accessing three special editions’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 The title of this note is chosen deliberately: while, like any review, this one will do some assessing it is also concerned with accessing – with how the reader…
Ian Buckley ‘Learning from Adam Smith: help at hand today‘, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Buckley contests the view that Adam Smith argued ‘that unalloyed selfishness aimed solely at the maximisation of production, trade and profit is in the best…
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Sentimental thoughts of “A moody bloke”‘, Gallipoli to Petrov: Arguing with Australian History, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1984, pp. 23-34 (pdf of out-of-copyright material made available by the author) This piece was originally written in 1977. (You…
Assiduous followers of Honest History will know that we have links on our home page to sections of the site that we try to update reasonably regularly. Apart from the venerable ‘Centenary Watch‘, which we know is a favourite read…
Leslie Jauncey’s work on the Commonwealth Bank and the connections he made during it remained important to him and his wife Beatrice and provoked strong feelings both positive and somewhat negative. Here is a snippet from a letter Les wrote…
‘War dances and real wars: Honest History First Peoples miscellany’, Honest History, 7 June 2015 Update 8 June 2015: Helen Davidson writes about Wayne Quilliam’s photographs of and interviews with the women of Indigenous Australia. Quilliam’s exhibition opens at UN…
Atkinson, Alan The Europeans in Australia, Volume 3: Nation, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014 Follows Volume 1: The Beginning (1997) and Volume 2: Democracy (2004). This is the third and final volume of the landmark, award-winning series The Europeans in Australia that gives an…
Edwards, Peter Australia and the Vietnam War, NewSouth and the Australian War Memorial, Sydney, 2014 The Vietnam War was Australia’s longest and most controversial military commitment of the twentieth century, ending in humiliation for the United States and its allies…
Amanda Laugesen, Director of the Australian National Dictionary Centre at the ANU, has a regular ‘Wordwatch’ column in the ANU Reporter. Her latest piece turns the spotlight on ‘Anzackery’. Dr Laugesen says the use of the word Anzackery reflects a…
Whizzbangs are Honest History’s miscellany of briefs from past and present, to stir up the entrenched and focus the mind. We fire them initially in our monthly e-newsletter (subscribe on our home page) but usually recycle them later, as most…
Dyrenfurth, Nick Mateship: A Very Australian History, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic., 2014 In the first book-length exploration of our secular creed, one of Australia’s leading young historians and public commentators turns mateship’s history upside down. Did you know that the first…
Offord, Baden, Erika Kerruish, Rob Garbutt, Adele Wessel & Kirsten Pavlovic Inside Australian Culture: Legacies of Enlightenment Values, Anthem Press, London, 2014 Given Australia’s status as an (unfinished) colonial project of the British Empire, the basic institutions that were installed…
Pembroke, Michael Arthur Phillip: Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy, Hardie Grant, Melbourne & London, 2013 This is not just a book about wooden ships and big guns, although they certainly feature. It is a story of privation and ambition, of wealthy…
Stephens, David ‘Anzac and Anzackery: speech to Kogarah Historical Society, 14 May 2015‘, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Honest History’s secretary speaks on the contrast between an Anzac ideal and the bloated caricature that is ‘Anzackery’. There are many resources…
Keys, Richard ‘The “Great” War‘, Honest History, 2 June 2015 Retired film curator Richard Keys sums up the Great War from his point of view a century on, where he detects bellicose tendencies again in today’s Australia. Read more …
Richard Keys* ‘The “Great” War’, Honest History, 2 June 2015 Brendan Nelson shamefully described the Australian War Memorial as holding the soul of Australia. Julia Gillard said Gallipoli defined us as a nation. With the government spending millions on Anzac…
Manne, Robert, Robin Prior & Carolyn Holbrook ‘What really happened at Gallipoli?’ La Trobe University Ideas and Society, Melbourne, 23 April 2015 A conversation before an audience regarding, first, events at Gallipoli up until December 1915 (Manne and Prior) then,…
Djubal, Clay, Catriona Mills, Robert Thomson & Kerry Kilner, ed. ‘World War I in Australian literary culture: from the first shot to the centenary‘, AustLit This is a major research project on the way World War I has featured in…
Smith, Tony ‘The Peace Angel’, Honest History, 29 May 2015 The song (lyrics below by Tony Smith) is sung here by Gene Smith. Maggie Thorp (Margaret Sturge Watts) was a Quaker and a life-long agitator and worker for progressive causes.…
A paragraph buried in a recent interview suggests there is more willingness at the Memorial to look beyond battles and burials, derring-do and dioramas. But will it be enough? Centenary Watch has more. 28 May 2015
John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations, continues to roll out thoughtful papers on policy options for Australia. There have been 20 or so papers already on democratic renewal, the role of government, foreign policy, the economy and retirement incomes, and…
Wilson, AN The Book of the People: How to Read the Bible, Atlantic Books, London, 2015 A. N. Wilson has been thinking about the Bible, and reading it, since he read theology for a year at university. Martin Luther King…
‘Still the good book?’ Honest History, 27 May 2015 David Stephens reviews AN Wilson’s The Book of the People: How to Read the Bible My grandmother was 96 when she died. Her eulogy mentioned that she had read her Bible…
Steffen, Will Quantifying the Effect of Climate Change on Extreme Heat in Australia, Climate Council of Australia, Sydney, 2015 Key findings: climate change is making Australia hotter; climate change has significantly worsened recent extreme heat events in Australia; the case…
Ackland, Richard ‘Mass surveillance makes us servants of the state: that’s chilling‘, Guardian Australia, 26 May 2015 Text of the PEN Free Voices lecture at the Sydney Writers Festival, 24 May 2015. There were more than 50 comments. Censorship, control…
Crispin, Judith In Noah’s Country: a Roadtrip through Post-Genocide Armenia, T & G Publishing, Sydney, 2015 Australian history has been bound up with that of Armenia and the Armenians since 24 April 1915, which saw the beginning of the archetypal…
Meyrick, Julian ‘Australian plays: how to persuade a nation to question its own soul?‘ The Conversation, 12 May 2015 The fourth in a series of long essays on Australian play-writing. The earlier ones are linked from this article. I could…
Esterman, Matt ‘Undermining education‘, My Mind’s Museum, 24 May 2015 Blog post from Sydney history teacher about the development of professional learning networks which throw open ‘the question of precisely which school one belongs to and which students are the…
OECD In It Together: Why Less Inequality Benefits All … in Australia, OECD, 21 May 2015 This is the Australia-oriented summary takeout from a broader OECD project. The material at the link includes graphs on income inequality trends and a…
Stephens, David ‘”The Next War”: two speeches on Australia 2015’, Honest History, 23 May 2015 The first speech, ‘Anzac and the militarisation of Australian society‘, was given at Politics in the Pub, Glebe, on 9 April 2015. It discussed Anzac…
David Stephens ‘Militarism, fascism, Anzacism: an Australian progress report 2015: speech to Solidarity Forum, University of Technology, Sydney, 9 May 2015’, Honest History, 23 May 2015 (For an associated speech.) I acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, the…
David Stephens ‘Anzac and the militarisation of Australian society: Politics in the Pub, Glebe, 9 April 2015’, Honest History, 23 May 2015 (A video of the speech is on the Politics in the Pub website. Q&A. An associated speech.) I…
Unofficial advice from the Veteran’s Affairs portfolio is that the error in the ministerial statement on the centenary of Anzac will be corrected in the final version of the Senate Hansard, available in a couple of weeks. The original wording…
‘Their centenary country: Honest History First Peoples miscellany’, Honest History, 20 May 2015 and updated (Note: this article contains references to Indigenous people who have died.) Updates: More from Frank Brennan. A further article from Nolan Hunter on recognition. Roslyn…
Broinowski, Alison, et al ‘Australians for War Powers Reform initiative‘, PerthIndyMedia, 11 May 2015 Alison Broinowski is with AWPR, is Honest History’s vice president and the co-editor of a book shortly to be published, How Does Australia Go to War?,…
Daley, Paul ‘Australian War Memorial: the remarkable rise and rise of the nation’s secular shrine‘, Guardian Australia, 19 May 2015 Lengthy extracts of interview with Director Brendan Nelson. He touches on the AWM’s tourism pulling power (one ahead of the…
Stephens, David ‘Constructing emotions: Australia leads world in WWI commemoration spend‘, Independent Australia, 19 May 2015 (This is an updated version of the piece here, dated 12 May.) The recently (re-)announced $100 million for a hi-tech museum in France is…
Peter Rees Bearing Witness: the Remarkable Life of CEW Bean, Australia’s Greatest War Correspondent, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2015 A full biography of the man known as CEW Bean – war correspondent and official historian of World War…
Ronaldson, Senator Michael ‘Ministerial statement on the centenary of Anzac and Anzac Day 2015‘, Minister’s Web Site, 13 May 2015 Statement tabled in the Senate, along with ministerial remarks. This is the third such statement and it reports on the…
Whizzbangs are Honest History’s miscellany of briefs from past and present, to stir up the entrenched and focus the mind. During April 2015 most of them had a war angle. Centenary. ‘Peace is not merely an absence of war. Peace…
’40 years on, reflections on the fall of Saigon: Honest History list’, Honest History, 18 May 2015 STOP PRESS: 8.00pm, 19 May: Sam Bateman of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute asks whether the US knows what it is doing sending…
‘Honest History miscellany: yet more angles on Anzac 100’, Honest History, 17 May 2015 This is our third and final round-up of centenary-related items that came to our attention around Anzac Day 2015, although some of them have been around…
Gray, Don ‘The Australian military and Anzac‘, Honest History, 17 May 2015 Former soldier, Don Gray, makes some points about commercialisation of Anzac, Anzac Day sport, the reasons soldiers serve and the entitlements they should expect. The next area I…
Don Gray* ‘The Australian military and Anzac’, Honest History, 17 May 2015 This article is intended as a supplement to the recent article by David Stephens, ‘Rebooting Anzac for the next century’. That timely article questions the hyperbole and jingoism…
’18 months of China, the United States and Australia: Honest History Factsheet’, Honest History, 16 May 2015 (updated) UPDATE 22 June 2015: James Laurenceson and Hannah Bretherton discuss the ACRI poll (see below 3 June) and other aspects. ‘What does…
Bipartisan wrap-up yesterday from prime minister and opposition leader on recent Anzac commemorations at Gallipoli, which they both attended. The speeches were similar, revealing the bipartisan approach to Anzac – almost as if both sides fear wedging by the other…
Update 12 May 2017: after 2017 Budget: The additional $19.6 million in the Budget for DVA, would take the [total commemoration] figure [from $566. 8 million] to $586.4 million, comprising around $351 million Commonwealth, $140 million states and territories, and…
Sparrow, Jeff ‘Not entirely innocent‘, Sydney Review of Books, 17 April 2015 updated This is a lengthy review article of Inside Australia’s Anti-Terrorism Laws and Trials by Andrew Lynch, Nicola McGarrity and George Williams, recently published by NewSouth. The blurb for…
Batt, Peter J. et al ‘Five pillar economy,’ The Conversation, 27 April-11 May 2015 The articles take up a 2013 theme of prime minister Abbott (‘the five pillar economy’) and look at agriculture (Batt), education (Michael Coelli), mining (Anne Garnett),…
Douglas Newton ‘Two Anzac speeches 2015’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 updated Douglas Newton spoke on 22 April 2015 at Petersham Town Hall, Sydney, to a meeting of the Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign, based in Marrickville. The speech covered respect…
Douglas Newton ‘Anzac Day talk at Crows Nest Uniting Church, 26 April 2015, Honest History, 12 May 2015 (Note: this is one of two related speeches) 1. Respect The Great War was such a sprawling catastrophe that I am sure…
Douglas Newton ‘Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign Talk: Petersham Town Hall, 22 April 2015’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 (Note: one of two related speeches) 1. Respect At the outset I should say that I do not presume to tell anyone…
Committee for Economic Development of Australia Addressing Economic Disadvantage in Australia, CEDA, Melbourne, 2015 This report was released on 21 April 2015. It was described as ‘a policy perspective examining issues associated with the economics of disadvantage’. In other words,…
Dunbar, Raden The Secrets of the Anzacs: the Untold Story of Venereal Disease in the Australian Army, 1914-1919, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic., 2014 During World War I, about 60 000 soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force were treated for venereal diseases,…
‘La nef des fous: review of Dunbar’s Secrets of the Anzacs‘, Honest History, 12 May 2015 Diane Bell* reviews Raden Dunbar, The Secrets of the ANZACS: the Untold Story of Venereal Disease in the Australian Army, 1914-1919. (La nef des…
National Museum of Australia The Home Front: Australia during the First World War The exhibition opened on 3 April 2015 and will run till 11 October. The Home Front explores the pride, sorrow, passion, wonder and joy experienced by Australians far…
‘Gamut of emotions: the Home Front at the National Museum’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 Michael Piggott reviews the National Museum of Australia’s exhibition, The Home Front. Here’s a challenge to think about over the next ten minutes. If you…
Philpott, William Attrition: Fighting the First World War, Little Brown, London, 2014 The First World War was too big to be grasped by its participants. In the retelling of their war in the competing memories of leaders and commanders, and…
‘War in the long run’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 Derek Abbott* reviews William Philpott’s Attrition: Fighting the First World War The historiography of World War I is a bitterly contested area: a necessary war to defeat Prussian militarism; a…
We at Honest History are gradually building up our Facebook presence. For now, we are just using Facebook as another means of posting material that is also on the website – both new material and good stuff from the vault…
Keating, Michael & John Menadue, ed. ‘Fairness, opportunity and security: a policy series‘, Pearls and Irritations, 11 May 2015 (updated) Update 27 May 2015: There have been 20 or so papers already on democratic renewal, the role of government, foreign…
Tuck, John & Anthony Forsyth ‘”Maybe I shouldn’t have tweeted that!” social media misuse in the workplace‘, Corrs Thinking Insights, 1 May 2015 Employers should take away three lessons from this [Scott McIntyre] incident. First, you must have a clear…
‘Honest History poet: Mary Gilmore, two wars, four poems’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 Mary Gilmore (born Cameron) was born in 1865, spent a few years in South America seeking utopia, married and had a child, was a friend of…
Our assiduous researcher, Steve Flora, in cooperation with Flinders University Library, has unearthed the letter extracted below, in which Les Jauncey passes on his observations of the presidential election to Dr Herbert Vere Evatt, Leader of the Opposition. ‘Jauncey’s letter…
McQueen, Humphrey ‘The “Spanish” influenza pandemic in Australia, 1912-19’, Jill Roe, ed., Social Policy in Australia: some Perspectives 1901-1975, Cassell Australia, Stanmore NSW, 1976, pp. 131-147 (pdf of out-of-copyright material made available by the author) This article was originally delivered…
McAuley, Ian ‘Busting the myth that Australia has “big government”‘, The Conversation, 8 May 2015 The reality is that Australia’s public expenditure, as a percentage of GDP, has shown no discernible upward trend for the last 35 years, and that…
Bacon, Wendy ‘Getting Scott McIntyre: lest we forget the role of pundits, politicians and a social media mob‘, New Matilda, 6 May 2015 (updated) The author exhaustively analyses Twitter streams leading up to the sacking of SBS journalist, Scott McIntyre,…
Faber, David ‘Anzac Day, Gallipoli and the Great War: a futurological retrospective‘, Honest History, 7 May 2015 The author takes a tour d’horizon of the world of 1914-15 with sallies forward to the world of today. He touches on imperialism,…
David Faber* ‘Anzac Day, Gallipoli and the Great War: a futurological retrospective’, Honest History, 7 May 2015 Why are we liable/to die for survival?/Why is our nation/fighting? Mick Hucknell, ‘Simply Red’, 2011 The end of the soldier is not, as…
Holman, Brett ‘The one day of the century‘, Airminded, 3 May 2015 A level-headed description of the writer’s personal ‘Anzac journey’ plus a comment on Anzac commemoration 2015. The comment on screaming military jets in fly-past deserves quoting: So why…
Reid, David ‘Reconciliation, please, but don’t mention the war‘, Honest History, 6 May 2015 Canberran David Reid recalls a family history incident and reflects on how we remember some of our wars but not others. The magical but as yet…
David Reid* ‘Reconciliation, please, but don’t mention the war’, Honest History, 6 May 2015 I pen this as a descendant of a Scottish surgeon who came by ship to Terra Australis 195 years ago. His son, who arrived with him…
Willy Bach ‘Anzac-ed out 2015’, Honest History, 5 May 2015 As we know…. They shall grow not old, Lives cut short Terminated Denied parenthood Pleasure, creativity Reflection Grandchildren as we that are left grow old: Lamely, sullenly Prematurely Age shall…
Bach, Willy ‘Anzac-ed out 2015‘, Honest History, 5 May 2015 Willy Bach is a postgraduate research student, School of History, University of Queensland. He says this poem was written ‘in response to the tidal wave of ANZAC promotion’. He has…
Fay Anderson ‘We censor war photography in Australia – more’s the pity‘, The Conversation, 4 May 2015 You may have noticed we recently marked the centenary of Anzac. One hundred years after Gallipoli, we are seeing photographs of telegenic young…
Kent, James (dir.) Testament of Youth, BBC Films and other production companies, UK, 2014 Movie adaptation of Vera Brittain’s memoir, Testament of Youth, first published in 1933. The movie is scripted by Juliette Twohidi and stars Alicia Vykander, Kit Harington,…
‘This Testament not silly at all’, Honest History, 3 May 2015 David Stephens reviews Testament of Youth, the movie adaptation of Vera Brittain‘s memoir Peter Stanley’s review of the Russell Crowe Great War movie, The Water Diviner, has been viewed…
Federal spending on the Anzac centenary is to go up by $35.5 million in this month’s 2015-16 Budget. Anzac centenary minister Ronaldson has announced the additional spend today ‘as planning for commemorative events marking the 100th anniversary of major battles…
Inglis, Ken ‘Letters from a pilgrimage‘, Inside Story, 23 April 2015 Ken Inglis introduces reprints of his seven articles for the Canberra Times reporting the Gallipoli visit of 1965 by veterans and descendants. Two are printed here and the others…
Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) ‘Statement in commemoration of World War I‘, MAPW, 27 April 2015 The Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) commemorates World War 1, including the Gallipoli landings of 25 April 1915, with a…
Waugh, Maxwell N. Soldier Boys: the Militarisation of Australian and New Zealand Schools for World War I, Melbourne Books, Melbourne, 2014 A form of compulsory cadet training was the norm in Australasian schools from 1910, unlike any other part of…
Reynolds, Jonathan T., ed. 30-Second Twentieth Century: the 50 Most Significant Ideas and Events, each Explained in Half a Minute, Pier 9, Sydney, 2015 Twentieth Century presents a unique approach to modern history, condensing 100 years of innovation and art,…
Two former heads of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet are to be joint editors of an ambitious series of policy papers on John Menadue’s blog Pearls and Irritations. Menadue was Gough Whitlam’s private secretary, then head of…
Scates, Bruce & Rebecca Wheatley ‘The search for “The Water Diviner”‘, Monash University, 23 April 2015 Short documentary tracing the story of Thomas Murray of Gippsland, Victoria, who travelled to Gallipoli after the Great War in search of his son,…
ABC TV ‘Clare Wright‘, ABC News 24 One-plus-One, 24 April 2015 (video only) Historian Clare Wright talks with Jane Hutcheon about her early life, her early work on women in the liquor industry, her Stella Prize-winning book The Forgotten Rebels…
Update 1 May 2015: Last posts? On the Mcintyre case, Gillian Triggs in Fairfax noted the limited mileage in free speech arguments, given Australia’s current legal arrangements. Anticipating some of Mcintyre’s remarks, Tasmanian Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson had his thoughtful…
Valentine, James ‘Gallipoli: the story we all grew up with‘, Age, 26 April 2015 (Story has different titles in other Fairfax outlets.) We are highlighting this one because of its remarkable resonance with the ideas that have been put forward…
Peter Stanley ‘Dawn, Emily Bay, Norfolk Island, Anzac Day‘, Honest History, 27 April 2015 Honest History’s president finds a country-town sort of Anzac Day commemoration on the island of the descendants of the Bounty. The author concludes ‘that Anzac Day…
Peter Stanley ‘Dawn, Emily Bay, Norfolk Island, Anzac Day 2015’, Honest History, 27 April 2015 What may be Australia’s first dawn service is held each Anzac Day at Emily Bay on Norfolk Island. (They may get up as early on…
Yanikdag, Yucel ‘The battle of Gallipoli: the politics of remembering and forgetting in Turkey‘, Comillas Journal of International Relations [Madrid], 2, 2015, pp. 99-115 Differences in the competing versions of public memory for the Battle of Gallipoli have become more…
Daley, Paul ‘Anzac Day should be quarantined from politicians – a solemn moment to reflect on the agony of war‘, Guardian Australia, 23 April 2015 In a generation’s time the Anzacs will have slipped from living memory entirely. None of…
We ran this post as a ‘highlights reel‘ back in September and we have quoted it a number of times since. It says such profound things about commemoration we thought it was worth running again at a time which Minister…
David Stephens ‘Rebooting Anzac for the next century‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 April 2015 (and in other Fairfax) Traditions that are not continually refreshed become quaint and irrelevant and eventually die. The Anzac tradition has waxed and waned over a…
Daley, Paul ‘Ataturk’s “Johnnies and Mehmets” words about the Anzacs are shrouded in doubt‘, Guardian Australia, 20 April 2015 and updated Examines the famous Ataturk words of 1934, drawing upon research by the Turkish scholar, Cengiz Ozakinci. Links to a…
Tracking Ataturk: Honest History research note NB: for later research on this subject go here Introduction Myths often take the place of history, particularly when stories are complex, facts are lacking, and audiences need comfort. This outcome seems to have…
So much stuff; so little time. Rather than try to recognise and categorise everything that’s whizzed past in the last couple of days, we’ve just grabbed a handful, as follows, before we settle down to take in Kate Aubusson’s Lest…
Update 7 May 2015: further light shed Open letter by Socialist Equality Party to University of Sydney. Update 28 April 2015: meetings held The Socialist Equality Party meetings were held, with audiences of workers and youth. Update 2.30 pm 18…
TV3NZ News ‘Australia’s Anzac obsession‘, The Nation, 18 April 2015 Anzackery gets introduced to the people of Aotearoa New Zealand by producer-presenter Tony Wright with interviews with Peter Stanley and David Stephens from Honest History. There is to be a…
Kate Aubusson ‘Why my generation grew up thinking it was un-Australian to question Anzac‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 April 2015 Article from a young journalist, presaging presentation of her TV documentary Lest We Forget What? (Iview for limited time) She…
UPDATE 29 July 2015: Ashley Kalagian Blunt writes about coming to terms with the genocide in Canada and Australia. UPDATE 18 June 2015: Nikki Marczak writes on how what is happening today in the Middle East repeats many historical events…
Update 7 May 2015: local spinoff in latest spend? (updated; later update estimating spend at $551.8 million) Minister Ronaldson (lifetime resident of Ballarat) has announced that $8.8 million of the additional $35.5 million (below) will go towards ceremonies including ‘major…