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…
Sentiment, thought and jingoism in war commemoration
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Stephens, David: rebooting Anzac
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 words about Anzacs shrouded in doubt
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…
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Tracking Ataturk: Honest History research note
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…
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Honest History miscellany: angles on Anzac 100
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…
Freedom of speech in Burwood: Honest History Factsheet
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…
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TV3NZ News: Australia’s Anzac obsession
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…
Aubusson, Kate: Gen Y on questioning Anzac
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…
Honest History list: Armenian genocide
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…
Anzac commemoration spending around $500 million – and rising: Factsheet
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…
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Schultz, Julianne, Peter Cochrane, et al.: Enduring legacies
Schultz, Julianne, Peter Cochrane, et al. ‘Enduring legacies‘, Griffith Review, 48, 2015; available online to subscribers Update 7 May 2015: Honest History attended a discussion at the National Library with about 150 others. Julianne Schultz, editor of this volume, wrangled…
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Investing our legacies
‘Investing our legacies’, Honest History, 16 April 2015 David Stephens reviews Griffith Review 48, ‘Enduring legacies’, edited by Julianne Schultz and Peter Cochrane The title of this excellent collection is, at one level, obvious but, at another, full of possibilities.…
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ABC Four Corners: Anzac to Afghanistan
ABC TV ‘Anzac to Afghanistan’, Four Corners, 13 April 2015 Chris Masters intersperses interviews with Gallipoli veterans from 1988 and Afghanistan veterans from recent years, noting the similarities and differences in their experience. Also contributing are James Brown, author of…
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Then and now: two sad affairs
Then and now: two sad affairs, Honest History, 15 April 2015 Alison Broinowski reviews the Four Corners episode, ‘Anzac to Afghanistan‘ Fran Kelly is off to join the re-invasion at Gallipoli next week. So the count-down begins and pent-up excitement…
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Bucket tipped on Raise a Glass
[Note: related material is in this post. Some of the material below could just have easily gone in the other post or in both but we decided just to keep one updated after about 18 April. HH] Someone, possibly in…
Rotten fresh: can it get more crass?
Woolworths thought they had a great idea. It created an online gizmo which allowed punters to upload their chosen images of people killed or maimed or made mad by war. The gizmo then created an image with the words ‘Lest…
Mutton, Katy: Post War project
Mutton, Katy The Post War Project The Post War Project is a year-long art/research project being undertaken by Australian Visual Artist Katy Mutton over 2015. It is a year of research and art making based largely around the Australian Soldier Settlement scheme…
Babkenian, Vicken: Gallipoli’s inconvenient ‘other side’
Babkenian, Vicken ‘Gallipoli’s inconvenient “other side”‘, Pearls and Irritations, 10 April 2015 The author is an independent scholar at the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Sydney. The article examines the history of the Armenian genocide, looking at the…
Wise, Nathan: Anzac Labour
Wise, Nathan Anzac Labour: Workplace Cultures in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2014 Anzac Labour explores the horror, frustration and exhaustion surrounding working life in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War.…
Anzac Labour reviewed
‘Anzac Labour reviewed’, Honest History, 14 April 2014 Paddy Gourley reviews Nathan Wise’s book Anzac Labour: Workplace Cultures in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War If most books about the military in war concentrate on the description…
Gallipoli: a necessary mythology?
Bill Edgar ‘Gallipoli: a necessary mythology?’ Honest History, 13 April 2015 Some years ago a group of history students were discussing the proposition of a group of psychologists that it is an emotional imperative for individuals to ally themselves with…
Edgar, Bill: Gallipoli: a necessary mythology?
Edgar, Bill ‘Gallipoli: a necessary mythology?‘ Honest History, 14 April 2015 The author compares the lives of two Lalors in order to ask whether we are neglecting our heritage from the 19th century. For the next four years we will…
National Portrait Gallery: All That Fall exhibition
National Portrait Gallery All That Fall: Sacrifice, Life and Loss in the First World War The exhibition runs from Friday, 27 March until Sunday, 26 July 2015. Focussing on the wide-ranging theme of loss and absence, this exhibition provides a…
Small but powerful: two Canberra Great War exhibitions
‘Small but powerful: two Canberra Great War exhibitions’, Honest History, 13 April 2015 David Stephens reviews All That Fall at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, and When Hall Answered the Call at the Hall School Museum, Hall, A.C.T. You only…
Bearlin, Margaret et al: Women’s power to stop war
Bearlin, Margaret with the assistance of Cynthia James and Mary Ziesak ‘Women’s power to stop war: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 1915 to 2015‘, Honest History, 14 April 2015 The article marks the centenary of the International Congress…
Women’s power to stop war
Margaret Bearlin in association with Cynthia James and Mary Ziesak ‘Women’s power to stop war: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 1915 to 2015’, Honest History, 14 April 2015 2015 marks not only the centenary of Anzac; it is…
Stanley, Peter: Gallipoli 1915: a century on – conference report
Stanley, Peter ‘Gallipoli 1915: a century on – conference report‘, Honest History, 14 April 2015 A report on the Australian War Memorial-Australian National University conference held in Canberra in March 2015. The conference attracted some 4oo participants, who heard from…
Gallipoli 1915: a century on – conference report
Peter Stanley ‘Gallipoli 1915: a century on – conference report’, Honest History, 14 April 2015 Those interested in Gallipoli had been anticipating the conference convened jointly by the Australian National University and the Australian War Memorial and held in Canberra…
Jauncey and the meat trade in the year of Jubilee (14 April 2015)
Our Jauncey editor, Steve Flora, has returned to 1934 to track Les and Beatrice from the Antipodes to London to the Antipodes and back again (with marriage and a visit to South Africa included). Now Leslie sharpens his pen to…
Neuhaus, Susan & Sharon Mascall-Dare: Not for Glory
Neuhaus, Susan & Sharon Mascall-Dare Not for Glory: a Century of Service by Medical Women to the Australian Army and its Allies, Boolarong Press, Brisbane, 2014 From the trenches of the Western Front to the ricefields and jungles of South-east…
Medical women at war: Not for Glory reviewed
‘Medical women in war’, Honest History, 14 April 2015 Carolyn Holbrook reviews Susan J. Neuhaus and Sharon Mascall-Dare, Not for Glory: a Century of Service by Medical Women to the Australian Army and its Allies When Dr Agnes Bennett tried…
Horner, David: The Spy Catchers: ASIO
Horner, David The Spy Catchers: the Official History of ASIO, 1949-1963, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2014; available electronically David Horner’s book is the first of three volumes on ASIO. (The next two volumes are by John Blaxland.) ‘For…
Is David Horner’s official history of ASIO ‘honest history’?
‘Is David Horner’s official history of ASIO “honest history”? Was Colonel Spry a traitor?’, Honest History, 14 April 2015 Ernst Willheim discusses The Spy Catchers: the Official History of ASIO, 1949-1963, by David Horner . The article was originally an…
McQueen, Humphrey: the novels of Eleanor Dark (1973)
McQueen, Humphrey ‘The novels of Eleanor Dark’, Hemisphere, 17, 1, January 1973, pp. 38-41 (pdf of out-of-copyright material made available by the author) The piece is interesting as a relatively early discussion of this writer (1901-85) and as an indication…
Broadbent, Harvey: Defending Gallipoli: Turkish story
Broadbent, Harvey Defending Gallipoli: the Turkish Story, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2015; electronic version available Based on exclusive access to Turkish archives, Defending Gallipoli reveals how the Turks reacted and defended Gallipoli. Author and Turkish-language expert Harvey Broadbent spent five years…
Stanley, Peter: Broadbent’s Defending Gallipoli reviewed
Stanley, Peter ‘Defending Gallipoli review: how the Turks reacted to the Anzac landings‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 2015 The review compliments Broadbent for undertaking the massive task of translating and using disorganised Turkish archives to produce not just Defending…
Hemming, Judy & Michael McKinley: Anzac’s wars
Hemming, Judy & Michael McKinley ‘Anzac’s wars: remembering and its resistances‘, Honest History, 10 April 2015 The authors look at recent decisions in Australian and New Zealand defence policy in the light of their shared and occasionally diverging history. The…
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Anzac’s wars: remembering and its resistances
Judy Hemming & Michael McKinley ‘Anzac’s wars: remembering and its resistances’, Honest History, 10 April 2015 A prefatory comment This paper speaks of the regional responses by Australia and New Zealand to certain major wars. This does not imply that…
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Stephens, David: magic Anzackery pudding
Stephens, David ‘The magic Anzackery pudding‘, Honest History, 9 April 2015 Guest posting on 7 April on John Menadue’s blog. Norman Lindsay was busy during World War I. When he wasn’t doing propaganda posters of slavering Huns or sketching buxom…
Moses, John A.: Conflict endemic to the human condition?
Moses, John A. ‘Conflict endemic to the human condition? A note‘, Honest History, 8 April 2015 The author discusses German war aims in the decades leading up to 1914, in passing comparing the analysis of Fritz Fischer with those of…
Conflict endemic to the human condition?
John A. Moses ‘Conflict endemic to the human condition? A note’, Honest History, 8 April 2015 The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c. 535-475 BC) commented on war as follows: ‘We must know that war is common to all, and strife…
History curriculum uncertainty: Honest History factsheet
Education ministers (Commonwealth, state and territory) met over the telephone early last month as the Education Council. The outcome was somewhat opaque. It appeared in a media release from Commonwealth Minister Pyne, where the only reference to history as a…
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Fear, politics and what wins elections
‘There are three things that will guarantee votes in an election: favors, hope, and personal attachment. You must work to give these incentives to the right people.’ Cicero, How to Win an Election: an Ancient Guide for Modern Politicians (64 BC) translated Philip…
What is the state for?
‘A good society is one characterised by a collective concern with social justice and a capacity to act in pursuit of that objective. That this case even has to be made is symptomatic of the pervasive influence of neoliberalism during the…
van Weringh, Ilja: historiography resources
van Weringh, Ilja ‘Van Weringh’s library‘, Diigo Collection of historiographical links with particular reference to start of World War I but other great material also.
Ramsey, Alan: saying no to America
Ramsey, Alan ‘Australia’s deferential treatment of the United States has gone on too long‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 March 2015 Takes a historical look at the Australian-American alliance, concluding ‘you can have no doubt Australia is losing its future as…
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The benefits of banking oligopoly
‘The Australian banking industry is the most concentrated in the world and also the most profitable. In fact the “big four” Australian banks make up four of the eight most profitable banks in the world. The big banks have conceded that…
Grey, Jeffrey, ed.: Great War centenary history
Grey, Jeffrey, ed. The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2014-16 Five volume set, including Australia and the War in the Air (Volume 1) by Michael Molkentin, reviewed by Kristen Alexander, The War…
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Honest History list: boozing cricketers/boozing Anzac
Australian cricketers’ booze-soaked celebrations (here, here) after winning the World Cup provoked some commentary. Michael Thorn, chief executive of the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, noted not only the focus on alcohol-fuelled celebration by team members and by commentator and…
Getting war death numbers in context has long been a problem
Australian military deaths in the Boer War 1899-1902: 606; Boer civilian deaths, mostly women and children in concentration camps, 27 927, plus an unknown number of black Africans.
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Death cults were around in 1914
‘Whatever cult of the fallen was invented afterwards to invoke the Australian people’s perpetual care for the Anzacs in death, their neglect of them in life was starkly revealed in the plunge into war in July-August 1914. Constantly confronted, as…
Parsimony in Anzac donation
The Commonwealth Bank has donated $2 million to the Anzac Centenary Public Fund. This is 0.02 per cent of the bank’s 2014 profit.
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Honest History list: Alan Seymour
Alan Seymour, author of The One Day of the Year, has died at the age of 87, more than five decades after his play asked important questions about Australians’ attitude to Anzac Day. While a new production was playing at…
Committee changes at Honest History
Alison Broinowski, committee member, has been appointed to the vacant position of Vice President and Pamela Burton has been welcomed to the committee. Details of the committee. 2 April 2015
Daley, Paul: Indigenous Diggers and Anzackery
Daley, Paul ‘Indigenous Diggers and the new age of Anzackery‘, Meanjin, 2 April 2015 Contrasts the commemorative festival with the treatment of an atypical Indigenous Digger, caught between cultures. The opening paragraphs are a good summary of the history of…
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Stephens, David: Five arguments for downsizing Anzac
David Stephens ‘Five arguments for downsizing Anzac’, Teaching History (History Teachers’ Association of New South Wales), 49, 1, March 2015, pp. 16-19 Pdf accessible here made available by courtesy of HTANSW, which holds copyright. We need to make Anzac less…
Honest History list: taking pictures
There have been a few interesting items recently on photography and things on screens so we cobbled together this list along with a few things that were on the site already. It’s the sort of thing we do at Honest…
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Manne, Menadue and Newton: distinguished supporters of Honest History
Honest History is pleased to welcome to its list of distinguished supporters Robert Manne, John Menadue and Douglas Newton. Robert Manne is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne. He has written and edited many…
Stevens, David: In all respects ready: Australia’s navy in World War One
Stevens, David In All Respects Ready: Australia’s Navy in World War One, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2014 When the newly built Australian fleet sailed into Sydney for the first time in October 1913, it was portrayed as a sign…
Great War navy
‘Great War navy’, Honest History, 27 March 2015 Alan Stephens* reviews In All Respects Ready: Australia’s Navy in World War One, by David Stevens Late last year Australia embarked on an extraordinarily extensive and costly five-year commemoration of ‘100 Years…
Broinowski, Alison: ANZUS minus NZ, again?
Broinowski, Alison ‘ANZUS minus NZ, again?‘ Honest History, 25 March 2015 Considers Trans-Tasman efforts to get into the war in Iraq, particularly current New Zealand actions. Dr Broinowski is a committee member of Honest History and of Australians for War…
ANZUS minus NZ, again?
‘ANZUS minus NZ, again?’ Honest History, 26 March 2015 Alison Broinowski keeps up with Trans-Tasman manoeuvres Tony Abbott’s visit to New Zealand on 26 February was carefully coordinated with John Key’s announcement of a Kiwi military deployment to Iraq (see…
Stephens, David: Peter FitzSimons: poltergeist with two brains
Stephens, David ‘Peter FitzSimons: poltergeist with two brains‘, Inside Story, 25 March 2015 A review of FitzSimons’ Gallipoli which makes some general points about FitzSimons as a ‘storian’ who should unleash his inner historian. The article argues that FitzSimons’ style…
ABC Four Corners: Bringing the war home
ABC TV ‘Bringing the war home‘, Four Corners, 9 March 2015 Article by Quentin McDermott and Mary Fallon, transcript and video of story about after-effects of war service in Iraq and Afghanistan. ‘As Australia prepares to send more troops to…
Bach, Willy: Agent Orange in Vietnam
Bach, Willy Britain, Australia, the United States and Agent Orange in the Indochina Wars: Re-defining Chemical-Biological Warfare: research paper (6 March 2015) This article re-examines the sanitised history of Agent Orange and other defoliants used in the Indochina War between…
Brendan Nelson denies commemoration fatigue
Ian McPhedran reports that Australian War Memorial director, Brendan Nelson, has denied that ‘commemoration fatigue’ is setting in during the centenary of Anzac. Dr Nelson said it was important that people examined the Gallipoli campaign and other WW1 campaigns in…
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What Kemal (probably, possibly) did: Ataturk’s letter
The Gallipoli 1915: a century on conference last week heard mentions of the famous ‘Atatürk letter’. We have a number of relevant references on the Honest History website, some of them incorporating research that others may not have done. These…
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Oppenheimer, Melanie: 100 years of Red Cross
Oppenheimer, Melanie The Power of Humanity: 100 Years of Australian Red Cross, Harper Collins, Sydney, 2014 This is the story of everyday Australians. It is a history of people helping people across “generations, united by a common passion and commitment…
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Conway, Michael: Problem with history classes
Conway, Michael ‘The problem with history classes‘, The Atlantic, 16 March 2015 Currently, most students learn history as a set narrative—a process that reinforces the mistaken idea that the past can be synthesized into a single, standardized chronicle of several…
Hawkins, Jo: Anzac for sale
Jo Hawkins ‘Anzac for sale: consumer culture, regulation and the shaping of a legend, 1915–21‘, Australian Historical Studies, 46, 1, 2015, pp. 7-26 After the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915, the word Anzac began to appear with increasing frequency…
Honest History list: resources on Malcolm Fraser
Australia’s 22nd prime minister, John Malcolm Fraser, has died at the age of 84. Robert Manne interviewed Fraser last year. Honest History committee member, Alison Broinowski, reviewed his book Dangerous Allies (other resources at this link also). Another review by…
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Anzac last hurrah of white Aussie male?
ANU historian, Professor Joan Beaumont, joint winner of the Prime Minister’s prize for history, says: The Anzac legend has sometimes been seen as the last hurrah of the white Australian male. If you have a foundational national narrative that is…
Stephens, David: Anzackery in the time of Anzac
Stephens, David ‘Anzackery in the time of Anzac‘, Pearls and Irritations, 16 March 2015 On John Menadue’s blog, this short article takes an etymological look at the concept of Anzackery and quotes a couple of prize examples. While ridicule is…
Abjorensen, Norman: William Lyne, PM who never was
Abjorensen, Norman ‘The Prime Minister Who Never Was: Sir William Lyne and the politics of Federation‘ (Draft chapter of The Manner of Their Going: Prime Ministerial Exits in Australia, to be published later in 2015; draft provided by courtesy of…
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Berzins, Hannah: Lest we forget the Frontier Wars
Berzins, Hannah ‘Lest we forget the Frontier Wars‘, Vimeo (video, 2014) The 2o minute video describes massacres at Murdering Island and Poison Waterholes Creek, near Narrandera, NSW, and considers how such events, and the Frontier Wars generally, should be commemorated.…
Perkins, Cathy: A spoonful of blood
Perkins, Cathy ‘A spoonful of blood‘, Meanjin, 13 March 2015 On the life and work of Zora Cross (1890-1964), an Australian poet active during and after the Great War. Her poetry collection Songs of Love and Life was a publishing event, with…
Jones, Peter: It’s also brave to stand for peace
Jones, Peter ‘Talking point: it’s also brave to stand for peace‘, Mercury (Hobart) , 28 February 2015 Discusses Australian conscientious objection during World War I, as set out in an exhibition in Hobart. As Henry Reynolds told his audience at…
Brasch, Sarah: Our national cathedral? Last Post at the Memorial
Sarah Brasch ‘Our national cathedral?‘ Honest History, 15 March 2015 Describes the Last Post ceremony held almost every evening at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The author finds the ceremony ‘has a liturgy all of its own and a…
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Our national cathedral?
‘Our national cathedral?’ Honest History, 15 March 2015 Sarah Brasch* attends the Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial Unlike Washington DC, Canberra does not have a National Cathedral. But since 17 April 2013 our capital has had something…
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ABC RN Saturday Extra: Military anniversaries
ABC Radio National ‘Military anniversaries‘, Saturday Extra, 14 March 2015 Geraldine Doogue talks with Peter Stanley about anniversaries occurring in 2015. The dates commemorated are 1815, 1915, 1940, 1945 and 1975, as well as one non-military, 1215. An event of…
Burgmann, Meredith, ed.: Dirty Secrets: our ASIO files
Burgmann, Meredith, ed. Dirty Secrets: our ASIO Files, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014; e-book available Well-known Australians – mavericks, activists, movers and shakers – reflect on their own ASIO files. In this moving, funny and sometimes chilling book, leading Australians open their…
Denniss, Richard: Economists and Manning Clark
Denniss, Richard ‘What economists can learn from Manning Clark: 2015 Manning Clark lecture, Australian National University, Canberra, 3 March 2015‘, Manning Clark House This is an audio of the lecture plus a separate audio of questions and answers. It may…
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War songs and being awkward
Carolyn Holbrook, author of Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography and Honest History distinguished supporter, gave a speech the other day in Fremantle for MAPW. In the course of her remarks, Holbrook said this: [W]hy does it matter how Australians remember war? …
Ballantyne, Hugh & Lisa Matthews (dir.): Australia: the Story of Us
Ballantyne, Hugh & Lisa Matthews (dir.) Australia: the Story of Us, Essential Media & Entertainment, 2015 Eight part documentary series on the history of Australia from 50 000 years ago to now. The first four episodes are reviewed by David…
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Australia comes in little cheerful chunks
‘Australia comes in little cheerful chunks’, Honest History, 11 March 2015 David Stephens reviews Australia: the Story of Us (Channel 7), episodes 1-4 Australia: the Story of Us (ASU hereafter) is a franchise owned by an American firm called Nutopia.…
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Gallipoli episodes 6 and 7 reviewed by Peter Stanley
‘Generations passing away*’, Honest History, 10 March 2015 Peter Stanley** reviews Gallipoli (Channel 9) episodes 6 and 7. Earlier reviews: episode 1, episode 2; episode 3; episode 4 and 5. (Caution: this review contains minor spoilers, notably that the Australians…
Gregory, Mark: Australian working songs and poems
Gregory, Mark Australian Working Songs and Poems: a Rebel Heritage, Ph. D. thesis, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong, 2014 The thesis analyses 150 poems and songs about work and working conditions, with an emphasis on rights,…
Donegan, John: Australian digital montages 1914-2014
Donegan, John ‘Australian transitions 1914-2014: Digital montages from pre-war cities to a 21st century nation‘, ABC News, 29 July 2014 Montages of 1914 scenes with shots of the same locations in 2014 in seven Australian cities and nationally. Dozens of…
Hazlehurst, Cameron: ten journeys to Cameron’s Farm
Hazlehurst, Cameron Ten Journeys to Cameron’s Farm: an Australian Tragedy, ANU E-press, Canberra, 2013 A book on the 1940 Canberra air disaster and the lives leading up to it of its victims, including three Cabinet Ministers and the Chief of…
Piggott, Michael: storytellers for a nation?
Piggott, Michael ‘National cultural institutions: story-tellers for a nation?‘ reCollections (National Museum of Australia), 10, 1, 2015 For almost a decade now, the terms “story” and “storytelling” have been used as a marketing and branding theme by many of Australia’s…
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Gaita, Raimond: balancing security and liberty
Gaita, Raimond ‘Can Australia ever strike the “proper balance” between security and liberty?‘ Guardian Australia, 28 February 2015 Honest History had collected links to many articles written over the last few months about national security issues, triggered by fears of…
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Featherstone, Don (dir.): The War that Changed Us
Featherstone, Don (dir.) The War that Changed Us, Electric Pictures, 2014 Documentary (four parts) about Australia during World War I, produced by Andrew Ogilvie and scripted by Clare Wright and the director. It follows the stories of six people, who…
McKernan, Michael: WWI: Love & Sorrow
McKernan, Michael ‘WWI: Love & sorrow‘, reCollections (National Museum of Australia), 10, 1, 2015 Review of this exhibition, which is at the Melbourne Museum until November 2018. This is an exhibition [says McKernan] that openly and deliberately works on the…
Landsberry, Belinda: Anzac Ted
Landsberry, Belinda Anzac Ted, EK Books, Wollombi, NSW, 2014 A children’s book about a teddy bear who goes to war. There are reviews and a preview at the book link above and the bear’s (author’s) website. Another review is here,…
Can we bear Anzac Ted?
‘Can we bear Anzac Ted? A review’, Honest History, 8 March 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews Anzac Ted by Belinda Landsberry At what age do we feel able to introduce our children to the idea and the reality of war and…
Gallipoli episodes 4 and 5 reviewed by Peter Stanley
‘Scars breaking out on the Peninsh*’, Honest History, 5 March 2015 Peter Stanley** reviews episodes 4 and 5 of Gallipoli (Channel 9). Reviews of episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episodes 6 and 7. Channel 9’s decision to ‘raise the…
Deery, Phillip & Julie Kimber, ed.: Fighting against War
Phillip Deery & Julie Kimber, ed. Fighting against War: Peace Activism in the Twentieth Century, Leftbank Press/Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Melbourne, 2015 The book includes 15 of the papers delivered at the 14th Biennial Labour History…
Robertson, Emily: Propaganda at home (Australia)
Robertson, Emily ‘Propaganda at home (Australia)‘, Ute Daniel et al., ed., 1914-1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, 2015 Australian government propaganda was subordinate to state and federal recruiting bodies and thus was mainly tasked with maintaining…
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Diamond, Marion: Hangman’s rope
Diamond, Marion ‘The hangman’s rope‘, Historians are Past Caring, 22 February 2015 Inspired by imminent executions in Indonesia, the article recalls the hanging of Ronald Ryan in Melbourne in 1967 and goes much further back to the history of hanging…
Harman, Kristyn & Elizabeth Grant: Restraining Aboriginal people
Harman, Kristyn & Elizabeth Grant ‘“Impossible to detain … without chains”? The use of restraints on Aboriginal people in policing and prisons‘, History Australia, 11, 3, 2014, pp. 157-176 The use of restraints on Australian Aboriginal people had its inception…
Thompson, Janna: Assault on the life of a people
Thompson, Janna ‘An assault on the life of a people‘, Inside Story, 23 February 2015 Almost one hundred years ago, in the midst of the first world war, Ottoman officials forced Armenian people living in Anatolia to leave their homes…
Stephens, David: Another look at the Australian War Memorial’s WWI galleries
David Stephens ‘Is this “our story”? Another look at the Australian War Memorial’s refurbished World War I galleries’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 Update 20 November 2015: a review from Christina Spittel of UNSW Canberra in the National Museum’s reCollections…
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Is this ‘our story’? AWM’s refurbished WWI galleries
‘Is this “our story”? Another look at the Australian War Memorial’s refurbished World War I galleries’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 David Stephens takes a further look at the new galleries. There are launches and launches. The Australian War Memorial…
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Review note: ‘These are our stories’ – Defining Moments at NMA
‘Review note: “These are our stories” – Defining Moments at the National Museum of Australia’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 Cultural institutions tell stories. At the entrance to the National Museum of Australia, on its promontory on Canberra’s Lake Burley…
Dyer, Steve: Anzac Christmas at St Paul’s
Dyer, Steve ‘Anzac Christmas at St Paul’s, Melbourne‘, Honest History, 3 March 2015 A short article about two pieces of art, done almost a century apart, which combine Anzac and Christmas themes. There is also an intervention by bushfire. Steve…
Anzac Christmas at St Paul’s
Steve Dyer ‘Anzac Christmas at St Paul’s, Melbourne’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 Just before Christmas last year, in the entrance to St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Melbourne, there sat a nativity scene by artist Jan McLellan Rizzo. It was…
Military-industrial complex has suburban reach: Honest History Factsheet
Update 20 June 2016: Canadian example of how an arms manufacturer manipulates the local employment angle. __________________ Since the days of muskets and Gatling guns Australian forces have used weapons built somewhere else. In the modern era, being locked into…
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McQueen, Humphrey: Australian women in the early 1980s
McQueen, Humphrey ‘The hand that pours the gin’, Gone Tomorrow: Australia in the 80s, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1982, chapter 8 (pdfs of out-of-copyright material made available by the author) The chapter uses the medium of women’s magazines to show…
Jauncey coaches Sydneysiders in world history: Part IV (3 March 2015)
The portentous year of 1939 saw Leslie Jauncey writing for the renamed Sydney-based Daily News, but still spreading his attention between domestic American politics and how the world looked from the United States. We have no way of knowing how…
Honest History goes to school: Glebe symposium
Honest History is always ready to talk to schools and to teachers. Thanks to Matt Esterman, from St Scholastica’s College, Glebe Point, in Sydney, Honest History was able to provide three representatives for a symposium with History Extension (Year 12)…
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Stephens, David: Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?
Stephens, David ‘Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?‘ Honest History, 3 March 2015 The article gives three answers to the question posed, the most important answer being that ‘film and TV portrayals of historical events stumble around…
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Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?
David Stephens ‘Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?’ Honest History, 3 March 2015 Regular browsers of our site will know we are offering reviews of movies and television shows that have a war theme. Last year we…
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Laugesen, Amanda: Furphies and Whizz-bangs
Laugesen, Amanda Furphies and Whizz-bangs: Anzac Slang from the Great War, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2014 Furphies and Whizz-bangs: Anzac Slang from the Great War tells the story of the First World War through an examination of the slang used…
Words in the trenches: Anzac slang reviewed
‘Words in the trenches: Anzac slang reviewed’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 Paul Daley, author and journalist with Guardian Australia, reviews Furphies and Whizz-bangs: Anzac Slang from the Great War, by Amanda Laugesen ‘Mate, I’m tellin’ yer the point blank…
National blend
‘The Australia of Australia Day is a land, a nation and a people with many different histories, cultures, ideas and stories to tell. They may not merge into a single, or a binding, story about ourselves, and some of them…
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Burdens of battle
‘Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died…
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Plus ca change
‘We have budgeted for a surplus; nothing is more inflationary than for governments to live beyond their incomes and draw upon Central Bank Credit for the deficit. We have reviewed the Commonwealth Departments, and have effected a net reduction in…
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National development
‘Our success as a nation has come from rewarding clever investment, innovation and ideas. We have sustained high real wages throughout our history by encouraging growth and avoiding a flood of unskilled immigrants which fuels rampant inequality.’ (Angus Taylor, Liberal…
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Weaponising
‘History isn’t what happened, but a story of what happened. And there are always different versions, different stories, about the same events. One version might revolve mainly around a specific set of facts while another version might minimize them or…
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Auschwitz
The stuff of memory. ‘We survivors do not want our past to be our children’s future.’ (Roman Kent, Auschwitz survivor, at 70th anniversary commemoration) Breadth of vision. Number of items in Australian War Memorial collections tagged ‘Gallipoli’: 13352; number of items tagged…
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Ivin, Glendyn (dir.): Gallipoli
Ivin, Glendyn (director) Gallipoli, Endemol Australia, 2015 Directed by Glendyn Ivin, based on Les Carlyon’s Gallipoli, in seven episodes. Reviewed for Honest History by Professor Peter Stanley, Honest History President, and military-social historian from the University of New South Wales,…
Gallipoli episode 3 reviewed by Peter Stanley
‘Men alone at the Dardanelles’, Honest History, 24 February 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews episode 3 of Gallipoli (Channel 9), ‘A man alone’. Other episodes reviewed: episode 1; episode 2; episodes 4 and 5; episodes 6 and 7. Episode 3 of…
Gallipoli episode 2 reviewed by Peter Stanley
‘Settling in for the long haul at Gallipoli’, Honest History, 22 February 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews episode 2 of Gallipoli (Channel 9), ‘My friend, the enemy’. Episode 1 reviewed. Episode 3. Episodes 4 and 5. Episodes 6 and 7. The…
North, David: The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century
North, David The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century, Mehring Books, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2014; e-book available One hundred years after the outbreak of World War I and the Russian Revolution, none of the problems of the twentieth century—devastating…
Russian Revolution, world history and Australia
‘The Russian Revolution, world history and Australia’, Honest History, 18 February 2015 David Stephens reviews David North’s The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century (and notes the same author’s In Defense of Leon Trotsky) Elsewhere on this website historians…
Daley, Paul: Fight for Indigenous relics
Daley, Paul ‘”It taunts us spiritually”: the fight for Indigenous relics spirited off to the UK‘, Guardian Australia, 14 February 2015 Updates the battle by Indigenous Australians to return to Australia relics taken to England by collectors in the nineteenth…
Broinowski, Alison: Citizenfour reviewed
Broinowski, Alison ‘Surveillance is control: Citizenfour reviewed’, Honest History, 15 February 2015 Australia has form in surveillance. The Keepsakes exhibition at the National Library of Australia has the caption ‘A wartime police state’ on exhibits depicting the Hughes Government’s actions…
Gallipoli episode 1 reviewed by Peter Stanley
‘Good in parts at Gallipoli’, Honest History, 12 February 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews Gallipoli (Channel 9), Episode 1, ‘The First Day’. Episode 2 reviewed. Episode 3. Episodes 4 and 5. Episodes 6 and 7. Channel 9’s mini-series Gallipoli is trumpeted…
‘Anzac porn’ in Canberra Times
Veteran Canberra Times columnist, Ian Warden, yesterday mentioned the speech by Carolyn Holbrook to the recent UNSW Canberra Summer School for Secondary History Teachers. Warden, whose column ‘Gang Gang’ has informed and entertained Canberrans for 40 years, was particularly taken…
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Honest History gets it right on spill
The Liberals’ spill vote has been held and Honest History’s Tweet of yesterday was remarkably accurate. At approximately 10 am yesterday this Tweet came from @honesthistory1: #honesthistory #spill back of envelope calculation on imperfect information suggests around 40 votes for…
Wright, Clare: birth of Australian nation
Wright, Clare ‘”A splendid object lesson”: a transnational perspective on the birth of the Australian nation‘, Journal of Women’s History, 26, 4, Winter 2014, pp. 12-36 Author-supplied pdf (use Adobe Tools button >> to rotate pages!) Historians have attributed the…
ABC The World Today: Veterans sleeping rough
ABC ‘One in 10 people sleeping rough in Melbourne are war veterans‘, The World Today, 6 January 2015 Interview (transcript, audio) with spokespersons for Homeground, a support organisation, and the RSL. Most of the veterans sleeping rough served in Iraq…
Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee: contested Vietnam history
Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee ‘Whose history of the Vietnam War will prevail?‘ History News Network, 4 January 2015 Reports activities of former Vietnam War peace activists in the United States to contest the official view of the war being promoted…
Cutler, David: Eric Foner on knowing and teaching history
Cutler, David ‘“You have to know history to actually teach it”‘, The Atlantic, 10 January 2014 Eric Foner is a Pulitzer Prize winner (2011 for The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery) who has written a number of books…
Tiffen, Rodney: Strategic omissions: Howard on Menzies
Tiffen, Rodney ‘Strategic omissions‘, Inside Story, 29 January 2015 A review of John Howard’s The Menzies Era: the Years that Shaped Modern Australia. The greatest appeal of the book is that it is written from the perspective of an experienced…
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Howard, John: Menzies era
Howard, John The Menzies Era: the Years that Shaped Modern Australia, Harper Collins, Sydney, 2014, e-book available Our longest-serving prime minister considered by our second longest-serving. There is a sample at the link above and here and reviews may be…
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Stephens, David: Two views of World War I: War Memorial and National Library
David Stephens ‘Two views of World War I: sight-bites and Keepsakes‘, Honest History, 3 February 2015 The article is a review of the refurbished World War I galleries of the Australian War Memorial and the temporary Keepsakes exhibition at the…
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Two views of World War I: War Memorial and National Library
‘Two views of World War I: sight-bites and Keepsakes‘, Honest History, 3 February 2015 David Stephens reviews the refurbished World War I galleries at the Australian War Memorial and the Keepsakes exhibition at the National Library of Australia. (A further…
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Holbrook, Carolyn: Speech to History Teachers’ Summer School
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Speech to UNSW History Teachers’ Summer School, National Press Club, Canberra, 22 January 2015′, Honest History, 3 February 2015 Thank you. I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak to an audience that includes secondary school historians…
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FitzSimons, Peter: Gallipoli
FitzSimons, Peter Gallipoli, Random House, North Sydney, 2014; also in hardback, published by Heinemann, and electronically The author has written more than 20 books and is Australia’s largest selling non-fiction writer in the last decade. This book ‘recreates the disaster…
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Peter FitzSimons’ Gallipoli reviewed
‘Over the top with Fitz’, Honest History, 3 February 2015 Michael Piggott reviews Gallipoli by Peter Fitzsimons In opening his April 2013 review of Chris Roberts’ The Landing at Anzac, 1915, Harvey Broadbent said this: The Gallipoli industry moves inexorably…
Walsh, Chris: Cowardice: a Brief History
Walsh, Chris Cowardice: a Brief History, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2014; electronic version available Coward. It’s a grave insult, likely to provoke anger, shame, even violence. But what exactly is cowardice? When terrorists are called cowards, does it mean…
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Chris Walsh’s Cowardice reviewed
‘”Manning-up” in America the Brave: Chris Walsh’s Cowardice reviewed’, Honest History, 3 February 2015 Diane Bell* reviews Cowardice: A Brief History by Chris Walsh Too afraid to finish a book on cowardice? Sounds Pythonesque, but in an article on ‘intellectual…
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Anzackery: a personal view
David Reid* ‘Anzackery: a personal view’, Honest History, 3 February 2015 The author came to Honest History’s attention when he wrote on Twitter that Anzackery ‘filled today’s military platoons’. We asked him to write for us at greater length. HH…
Reid, David: Anzackery: a personal view
Reid, David ‘Anzackery: a personal view‘, Honest History, 3 February 2015 A former soldier, whose father served in the RAAF and the peace-time army, reflects on the concept of Anzackery and its implications for future generations. Anzackery is a theme…
Newton’s Hell-Bent reviewed
Rod Olsen reviews Douglas Newton’s Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War ‘War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.’ (Clausewitz) ‘War is unlike life … It’s a denial of everything you learn life…
Kerkhove, Ray: Aboriginal guerilla tactics Southern Queensland 1843-55
Kerkhove, Ray ‘A different mode of war? Aboriginal “guerilla tactics” in defining the “Black War” of Southern Queensland 1843-1855: a paper presented July 2014 AHA Conference, University of Queensland, Brisbane’, Honest History, 3 February 2015 Frontier violence and Indigenous resistance…
Humphrey McQueen’s archives come to Honest History
Distinguished Australian historian and activist, Humphrey McQueen, has generously donated to Honest History a collection of his articles and book chapters on a wide range of subjects. We thank him for this. In coming months we will be posting much…
Honest History questions answered
Honest History is anticipating that 2015 will be a significant year, due to the ‘centenary of Anzac’; it is eager to take part in the continuing conversation that is Australian history. While Honest History promotes dialogue and discussion in all…
Les Jauncey reports again (Part III) on FDR’s America (3 February 2015)
Our indefatigable Steve Flora has surely become the world’s leading researcher on the Jauncey family and their Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic world. As well as tracking Leslie, Beatrice and Eric, he is unearthing nuggets about rabidly patriotic American professors, King O’Malley,…
Where you stand
I wish I wouldn’t have to live in a world where people who are willing to kill others are called “heroes” and people who don’t want to kill others are called “cowards”. In a way, this little morsel of language convention sums…
Brand Anzac
Is there any Australian brand worth more in the hearts and minds of Australians than “Anzac”? While Aussies might get parochial about Qantas and misty-eyed about Vegemite, such household names cannot compete with a brand so central to the national…
Standing stones
The grave marker of Private WL Rae (killed 8 August 1918, aged 24) in the Villers Bretonneux cemetery reads, ‘Another life lost, hearts broken, for what’. This sentiment on Great War graves is unusually frank but not unique. Australian War Memorial…
Direct Action, then and now
Direct Action a century ago was a newspaper published in Sydney by the International Workers of the World. Its first edition, dated November 1914, included a cartoon, ‘The advancing proletariat’, the words of ‘The Internationale’ and articles critical of the…
Afterwards
The end of World War I brought to Australians not tranquillity but unrest and anxiety, political, economic, cultural (a sense of being swamped by alien influences) and moral. Bolshevism threatened all, and explained to the establishment nearly every act of working-class…
Court short?
[T]he effect of the [High Court’s] decisions on the life of the country and its relative freedom from direct control are too great for it to be insulated from vigorous discussion and criticism. But, although humility is not the appropriate…
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Promises, promises
If you break a promise, the outcome is uncertain and the number of people affected is small. But if you refuse to make a promise, the result is certain and produces immediate anger in a larger number of voters. (Cicero,…
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Exponential
The catalogue of the National Library of Australia (NLA) records that during the 1970s just 51 personal narratives of the Great War were published. That number grew to 98 during the 1980s; there were 153 published during the 1990s and 215…
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Australia Day quartet: will you sing tomorrow?
Four very different views of Australia Day come from Paul Daley in the Guardian Australia, Miranda Devine in the Daily Telegraph, Dick Smith in The Age and Jack Waterford in the Canberra Times. And let’s make it a quintet with…
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Review note: historiography miscellany
‘Review note: historiography miscellany’, Honest History, 21 January 2015 Herodotus Reaching back more than 2400 years to one of the founders of the discipline seems a good place to start. Herodotus, a Greek born in modern day Turkey, penned his…
Stephens, David: ADFA presentation on teaching children about war
David Stephens ‘Top down, bottom up, or bit by bit? Teaching children about war: paper to ADFA Summer School, 21 January 2015‘, Honest History, 21 January 2015 These are notes of a presentation to the UNSW Canberra ADFA Summer School…
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Fisk, Robert: Gallipoli centenary conceals Armenian genocide
Fisk, Robert ‘The Gallipoli centenary is a shameful attempt to hide the Armenian Holocaust‘, The Independent, 19 January 2015 Fisk says ‘Turkey is planning to use the 100th anniversary of the Allied attempt to invade Turkey in 1915 to smother…
Crombie, Kelvin: Gallipoli – The Road to Jerusalem
Crombie, Kelvin Gallipoli – The Road to Jerusalem, Koorong Books, West Ryde, NSW, 2014 The Gallipoli Campaign which began on 25 April 1915 was one of the biggest Allied defeats of World War One. Yet it stirred the imaginations and…
Hynd, Doug: Religion and the sacred after Martin Place
Hynd, Doug ‘“Religion” and “the sacred”: a note for historians following the Martin Place siege‘, Honest History, 18 January 2015 The author briefly traces the connections between religion and violence and between the secular and the sacred. He includes some…
Religion and the sacred after Martin Place
Doug Hynd ‘“Religion” and “the sacred”: a note for historians following the Martin Place siege’, Honest History, 18 January 2015 In a recent column in the Fairfax press, Crispin Hull made some comments on religion and violence in the light…
Ford, Caroline: Sydney beaches
Ford, Caroline Sydney Beaches: A History, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014 The book looks at the way Sydney’s beaches came to be as they are: how they came to be public land treasured by bathers and surfers, but not places to set…
Highlights reel: James Fallows on US military has Australian relevance
‘Highlights reel: James Fallows on “The tragedy of the American military”‘, Honest History, 14 January 2015 This long article in The Atlantic, January-February 2015, examines American attitudes to the military but makes points applicable to Australia, given the long-running change…
Jakubowicz, Andrew: Nine race riots that made Australia
Jakubowicz, Andrew ‘The nine race riots that made Australia – for better and worse‘, The Conversation, 9 January 2015 Spin-off from Peter FitzSimons’s television program, The Great Australian Race Riot, on SBS-TV. The author, a consultant to the program, suggests…
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A fundamentally silly film: another perspective on The Water Diviner
‘A fundamentally silly film: another perspective on The Water Diviner’, Honest History, 13 January 2015 Honest History President, Peter Stanley, reviews Russell Crowe’s film, The Water Diviner. Other material on the film, including links to other reviews. See also our…
West, Lindy: American Sniper
West, Lindy ‘The real American Sniper was a hate-filled killer. Why are simplistic patriots treating him as a hero?‘ The Guardian, 7 January 2015 (updated) Of interest not so much for its remarks about Clint Eastwood’s movie but about what…
Allan, Susan: Governments and history: David Stephens interview
Allan, Susan ‘”Governments want a history that reflects their agenda“‘, World Socialist Web Site, 8 January 2015 Long interview with Honest History secretary, David Stephens, speaking in a personal capacity. The interview covers the politicisation of the Great War centenary…
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Lord, John: Politics and Christian faith
Lord, John ‘Politics and the future of the Christian faith in Australia‘, Australian Independent Media Network, 8 December 2014 Tracks trends in religious faith and church attendance, using census and polling data. He quotes Tom Frame in his book, Losing…
Fox, Karen: Australian Dictionary of Biography
Fox, Karen ‘The art and graft of the Australian Dictionary of Biography‘, The Conversation, 5 December 2014 The ADB has been publishing short biographies since 1966 and has been online since 2008. The ADB has been hailed as one of…
Bengsen, Andrew: Rabbits of Christmas past
Bengsen, Andrew ‘The rabbits of Christmas past: a present that backfired for Australia‘, The Conversation, 22 December 2014 Examines the history of rabbits in Australia from their introduction in 1859 to now, when they are present in 70 per cent…
Abjorensen, Norman & James C. Docherty: Historical Dictionary of Australia
Abjorensen, Norman & James C. Docherty Historical Dictionary of Australia, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD, 4th edition, 2014; electronic version available This fourth edition of Historical Dictionary of Australia covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive…
Abjorensen, Norman: Tiger by the tail
Abjorensen, Norman ‘Tiger by the tail‘, Inside Story, 18 November 2014 Examines the changing social base of the modern Liberal Party, focusing particularly on the increasing influence of the Radical Right. It was the mid 1990s. Howard and his colleagues…
Daley, Paul: Anzackery, crowdsourcing and nationalism
Daley, Paul ‘Crowdsourcing is our latest weapon against nationalism and “Anzackery”‘, Guardian Australia, 29 December 2014 Daley quotes the coiner of the term ‘Anzackery’, Geoffrey Serle, writing in 1967, and goes on: Anzackery. What a word … Anzackery. Is there…
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Daley, Paul: My Brother Jack 50 years on
Daley, Paul ‘My Brother Jack at 50 – the novel of a man whose whole life led up to it‘, Guardian Australia, 23 December 2014 Covers the novel (first published 1964), the author, George Johnston (died of alcohol and TB…
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Highlights reel: patriotic poems from Perth
‘Highlights reel: popular poems from Perth’, Honest History, 24 December 2014 Edwin Greenslade Murphy (1866-1939), known as ‘Dryblower’, was a popular poet regularly featured in the Perth Sunday Times during the Great War. He seems to have written hundreds or…
Crowe, Russell (dir.): The Water Diviner
Crowe, Russell (director) The Water Diviner, Fear of God Films and other production companies, Australia, 2014 Alison Broinowski briefly reviews the film for Honest History. A further review from Peter Stanley, including a link to an interview with the writers…
Back to Gelibolu: The Water Diviner reviewed
‘Back to Gelibolu’, Honest History, 22 December 2014 Honest History committee member Alison Broinowski reviews The Water Diviner, opening in theatres on Boxing Day ‘Gallipoli!’ demands Joshua Connor of a Turkish immigration clerk. ‘I want to go to Gallipoli!’ It…
Honest History dialogue: thoughts provoked by an epitaph
‘Honest History dialogue: thoughts provoked by an epitaph’, Honest History, 21 December 2014 Our monthly Honest History e-newsletters include Whizzbangs, miscellaneous thought-provoking paragraphs, sometimes with a connection to events of the day. A Whizzbang in our 2 December newsletter ran…
Hochschild, Adam: No-one remembers the peacemakers
Hochschild, Adam ‘Why no one remembers the peacemakers: celebrating war over and over and peace once‘, TomDispatch, 9 December 2014 and updated Describes the commemoration of the Christmas Truce of 1914 and notes that such commemorations are selective and have…
Keneally, Thomas: Australians: Flappers to Vietnam
Keneally, Thomas Australians: Flappers to Vietnam, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2014 This is the third volume in the novelist-historian’s take on Australia. Volume 1; volume 2. It looks at behavioural change, consumerism and nascent left and right wing…
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Keneally’s Australians Volume 3 reviewed
‘Australians: Flappers to Vietnam reviewed’, Honest History, 18 December 2014 David Stephens reviews Thomas Keneally’s Australians: Flappers to Vietnam, the third volume in the author’s history of Australia. See Volume 1 and Volume 2. This is a fascinating but flawed…
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Stanley, Peter: Who are the liars? Response to Colebatch
Stanley, Peter ‘“Who are the liars?” A response to Hal Colebatch’s Australia’s Secret War‘, Honest History, 17 December 2014 Professor Stanley closely analyses Dr Colebatch’s book, joint winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History 2014. Professor Stanley concludes…
Who are the liars? Response to Colebatch
Peter Stanley ‘”Who are the liars?” A response to Hal Colebatch’s Australia’s Secret War’, Honest History, 17 December 2014 Hal Colebatch asks in Quadrant Online, ‘So, Professor Stanley, Who Are the Liars?’ Er, no one, I answer. Who says that…
Anzac Public Fund Board to be abolished
The Anzac Centenary Public Fund Board will be abolished. This will be announced on Monday but the government’s intention to abolish 175 bodies has been well-leaked. Also here with a full list. This action in relation to the Board should…
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Colebatching: a previous joint winner on the PM’s award
Peter Stanley, Honest History President and previous joint winner of the Prime Minister’s Award for History, has written on The Drum about the work of the most recent joint winner, Hal GP Colebatch (Australia’s Secret War). Colebatch’s Australia’s Secret War…
National History Challenge essays cover many strands of our history
The National History Challenge winners for 2014 have been announced. The national young historian was Angus Christie, a Year 5 student from The Friends School in Hobart, for his film on changing perspectives on Australia’s participation in the Vietnam War.…
Honest History supporter Joan Beaumont wins PM’s prize
Honest History distinguished supporter, Professor Joan Beaumont of ANU, has shared the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History. The award was for Joan’s book, Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War. She shared the prize with Hal Colebatch, who wrote…
Horn, Jonathan: Let’s not equate players with Anzacs
Horn, Jonathan ‘Sport is brutal – but let’s not equate players with Anzacs‘, Guardian Australia, 10 September 2014 Describes how sports team ‘channel’ the Australian Digger, quoting Mick Malthouse, Steve Waugh, Alan Bond and Michael Clarke – and Ben Roberts-Smith…
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Davidson, Jim: Sport with guns
Davidson, Jim ‘Sport with guns‘, Meanjin, 67, 4, Summer 2008, pp.10-13 Suggests that Australia’s ‘celebration of the military’ has addled our consciousness, in the way that, according to Patrick White, sport had done. ‘The two things are connected. Under John…
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Newton, Douglas: Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War
Douglas Newton Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic, 2014 Most histories of Australia’s Great War rush their readers into the trenches. This history is very different. For the first time, it examines events closely, even hour-by-hour,…
Bongiorno, Frank: Douglas Newton’s Hell-Bent launched
Frank Bongiorno ‘Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War, by Douglas Newton, Scribe, 2014: Canberra Launch, Australian National University, 28 November 2014’, Honest History, 7 December 2014 There is a powerful myth concerning the way Australia behaves in international affairs.…
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Honest History supporter Paul Daley wins Walkley
Honest History distinguished supporter, Paul Daley, has just won a Walkley Award for Coverage of Indigenous Affairs. He won with articles in Guardian Australia on how the Australian War Memorial ignores the Frontier Wars, the trade in body parts of…
NAIDOC Week 2014: Trojan Horse or diversion?
This post replaces an earlier collection of material related to NAIDOC. The original post was unable to be updated for technical reasons, so we have created a new section (with a new title) where we intend to place related material…
First Peoples, Frontier Wars and the Queen’s uniform
This post brings together under a new heading and then updates a collection of material that we began at NAIDOC Week in July 2014. (There were some technical issues with updating the original post, anyway.) The post enables us to…
ANZAC force vs Islamic State under discussion?
The Daily Telegraph and some New Zealand papers have reported discussions about Australia and New Zealand about a plan to send a combined Australia-New Zealand force of trainers, badged as ‘ANZAC’, to contribute to the fight against Islamic State militants.…
Honest History on Australian War Memorial WWI galleries
The Canberra Times (scroll down to ‘How Australians respond to history’) has published a letter from David Stephens for Honest History commenting on remarks by Australian War Memorial Director, Brendan Nelson, about the refurbished World War I galleries at the…
Cogan, James: Death of Phillip Hughes
Cogan, James ‘The death of Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes‘, World Socialist Web Site, 2 December 2014 and updated Thoughtful analysis of the national (and international) mourning said to be following the death of Hughes. Concedes his youth, likeability and talent…
McQueen, Humphrey: From Eureka stockades
McQueen, Humphrey ‘From Eureka stockades: Eureka Dinner, Adelaide, 15 November 2014‘, Chris White Online, 20 November 2014 Notes the development of conservative Legislative Councils after Eureka and parallels with modern politics. Also recalls that the miners’ objections in 1854 to…
Summers, Anne: Politics of gender
Summers, Anne ‘More in anger: the politics of gender in Australia in 2013 (Second Emily’s List Oration, Canberra, 19 June 2013)‘ Looks at the representation of women in federal politics, says more should be done and proposes reserving 50 per…
Hawkings, Rebecca: Keating’s Creative Nation
Hawkings, Rebecca ‘Keating’s Creative Nation: a policy document that changed us‘, The Conversation, 30 October 2014 Article marking the 20th anniversary of Creative Nation, which injected $252 million of new spending into the arts and culture and had a profound…
Blackwood, Gemma: Resurrection of Australiana
Blackwood, Gemma ‘Pass the iced vo-vos: the resurrection of Australiana‘, The Conversation, 26 November 2014 The author notes an emerging trend in Australian popular cultural forms, involving a reinvigorated interest in Australiana – material visual culture that is visually themed…
Bates, Sonja: Anzac Day legend
Bates, Sonja ‘The Anzac Day legend: its origins, meaning, power and impact on shaping Australia’s identity (Master’s of Peace and Conflict Studies dissertation, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, 2013)‘ The Anzac legend lies at the centre…
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Stephens, David: Do spiffing war yarns persist?
Stephens, David ‘Empire sun has set but do spiffing war yarns persist?‘ Honest History, 2 December 2014 This analytical piece compares WH Fitchett’s 1897 Deeds that Won the Empire: Historic Battle Scenes with Audacity: Stories of Heroic Australians in Wartime,…
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Moorhouse, Frank: Australia under surveillance
Moorhouse, Frank Australia under Surveillance, Random House, North Sydney, 2014; available as e-book This year ASIO has extended its surveillance powers, made the issuing of warrants easier and limited the freedom of journalists. At a time when the government has…
The new normal: Frank Moorhouse reviewed
‘The new normal’, Honest History, 2 December 2014 Alison Broinowski reviews Frank Moorhouse’s Australia under Surveillance I wish I still had that very old Disney comic that showed ducks in raincoats on a beach, hiding one behind the other under…
Anzac Day media style guide: Honest History Factsheet
All public occasions develop their own style and pitch (and Anzac Day is no exception) but perhaps we had not thought that Anzac Day needed a guide to how it should be presented. Such a guide exists and it is…
Knaap, Aden: internationalism in early 20th century Australia
Knaap, Aden ‘Family matters: internationalism in early 20th century Australia‘, Honest History, 2 December 2014 Examines the development and role of League of Nations Unions in Australia during the 1920s and 1930s and notes some parallel developments in Britain. Argues…
Internationalism in early 20th century Australia
Aden Knaap ‘Family matters: internationalism in early 20th century Australia’, Honest History, 2 December 2014 In mid-November this year Tony Abbott convened a Joint Sitting of Federal Parliament to welcome British Prime Minister David Cameron to Australia. The Australian Prime…
Faber, David & Robert Henry: Remembrance duet
Faber, David & Robert Henry ‘Remembrance duet‘, Honest History, 2 December 2014 These two pieces, David Faber’s story of the Dardanelles cenotaph in Adelaide and Robert Henry’s poem ‘The valley’, illustrate how people at home tried to come to grips…
Remembrance duet
David Faber and Robert Henry ‘Remembrance duet’, Honest History, 2 December 2014 ‘The Dardanelles cenotaph: our unknown war memorial’ by David Faber © A war memorial stands unobtrusively in Adelaide’s South Parklands. Life flows quietly around this cenotaph and little attention…
Mitchell, Rose & Andrew Janes, ed.: Maps: their untold stories
Mitchell, Rose & Andrew Janes, ed. Maps: their Untold Stories: Map Treasures from the National Archives, Bloomsbury, London, 2014 A map is a snapshot of a place, a city, a nation or even the world at a given point in…
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History is about maps
‘History is about maps’, Honest History, 2 December 2014 Steve Flora reviews Maps: their Untold Stories: Map Treasures from the National Archives, edited by Rose Mitchell and Andrew Janes, and notes some other recent cartographical arrivals It used to be…
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Jauncey reports on FDR’s America (and elsewhere): Part II (2 December 2014)
Steve Flora delves further into Leslie Jauncey’s despatches from the United States for Labor newspapers in far-off Sydney. This is part of Honest History’s continuing researches into this fascinating, if relatively minor, figure of early 20th century Australian – and…
Morrison, David: White Ribbon Day address, 2014
Morrison, David Chief of Army address to the White Ribbon Breakfast, Adelaide, 25 November 2014 This is the most well-developed version of General Morrison’s views on the link between misogyny in the Australian Army and macho, Anzac-linked attitudes in male…
Honest History and the deep North
Peter Sellick writes in Online Opinion mainly about Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and what it says about how people behave during wars. Along the way, Sellick mentions Honest History’s role in presenting an alternative view…
Stephens, David: Does the banker still hold all the cards?
Stephens, David ‘Does the banker still hold all the cards?‘ Honest History, 24 November 2014 and updated A historical view of some aspects of banking policy, inspired by a recent piece from The Australia Institute targeting the concentration of banking…
Do spiffing war yarns persist?
David Stephens ‘Empire sun has set but do spiffing war yarns persist?’ Honest History, 2 December 2014 Some talk of Alexander And some of Hercules Of Hector and Lysander And such great names as these. But of all the world’s…
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Does the banker still hold all the cards?
David Stephens ‘Does the banker still hold all the cards?’ Honest History, 24 November 2014 In the 1950s the then Bank of New South Wales, now Westpac, produced pamphlets on historical subjects for primary school children. On the back of…
Miscellany: militarisation still marching?
Honest History continually collects resources to add to our growing database on the theme of ‘not only Anzac but also (lots of other strands of Australian history)’. Of course, our interest – and the times – being what they are…
Manning Clark House needs donations to keep going
Manning Clark House in Canberra is in need of substantial donations to keep afloat. It has been a centre of Canberra cultural life for nearly 20 years. Honest History has been pleased to collaborate with MCH this year on the…
Honest History’s successful launch in Sydney with Tom Keneally
On 14 November, more than 70 people turned out on a hot, windy Sydney Friday night for Honest History’s Sydney launch. The evening was in the upstairs room at Gleebooks, Glebe Point Road, and took the form of a conversation…
Team Australia is about the majority, too
Honest History’s David Stephens has a post on the Australian Independent Media Network, ‘“Team Australia” threatens the majority, too‘. He argues that ‘Team Australia’ is about both dog whistling for the majority and aggression towards minorities. Making insiders feel safe…
Wounded and damaged soldiers then and now: Honest History Factsheet
This small collection highlights the trauma that is associated with all wars in all eras in all countries. It was provoked by an article in The Independent highlighting the photographs made by Bryan Adams of wounded British soldiers from Afghanistan.…
Watson, Don: The Bush
Watson, Don The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia, Penguin, Melbourne, 2014; e-book available Most Australians live in cities and cling to the coastal fringe, yet our sense of what an Australian is – or should be – is…
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Clark, Anna: Historical consciousness across generations
Clark, Anna ‘Inheriting the past: historical consciousness across generations‘, Historical Encounters, 1, 1, 2014, pp. 88-102 Despite significant research into the meaning and operation of historical consciousness, there is still much to be understood about its hereditary function. For example,…
Tan, Monica: National architecture awards
Monica Tan ‘Australia’s national architecture awards 2014 – in pictures‘, Guardian Australia, 7 November 2014 The Australian Institute of Architects has named the winners of the country’s top architectural awards. The biggest winner is Brisbane’s UQ Advanced Engineering Building by…
Schultz, Julianne, et al: What is Australia For?
Schultz, Julianne, et al ‘What is Australia For?‘ Griffith Review 36, Autumn 2012 An extensive collection tries to answer the question posed in the title. Julianne Schultz’s introduction, ‘A question with many answers‘, suggests that ‘[t]he emerging Asian century’ provides…
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Honest History list: Remembrance Day analysed
These articles, some new, some already on our website, raise some important aspects of Remembrance Day, once Armistice Day, always ‘the eleventh day of the eleventh month – and at the eleventh hour’, one of the earliest mantras many of…
Arms companies go big on Poppies in UK
The No Glory in War website in Britain is marking Remembrance Day with a well-sourced article (by Andrew Smith and Matthew Burnett-Stuart from Red Pepper) on the way in which arms companies batten onto war remembrance. Lockheed Martin and BAE…
Socialist Alternative: War! What For?
Socialist Alternative War? What For? an Anti-War Centenary Newspaper, Socialist Alternative, Carlton South, Vic., 2014 The presentation and use of history during the centenary of the Great War should involve the exposure of conflicting, evidence-based interpretations. This publication from Socialist…
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Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program: Honest History Factsheet No. 4
Minister Ronaldson’s media release of 24 October (as revised) included these key points: $2.46 million in new funding relating to 275 approved applications; total of 606 applications from 123 electorates approved so far; $5.8 million ‘made available to date’. Analysis…
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Troops invitation issue has historic parallels
Alison Broinowski, Honest History committee member, writes in the Canberra Times about issues associated with whether the Iraqi government has or will invite overseas, including Australian, troops into the country. Similar issues have attended previous Australian military involvement overseas. 7…
Steve Sailah’s Gallipoli novel reviewed by Paul Daley
Guardian Australia columnist, Paul Daley, reviews A Fatal Tide, a novel about Gallipoli, written by senior journalist, Steve Sailah. The review segues into thoughts about how we commemorate and about some double standards. Too many Australians forget [says Daley] that…
PM’s Albany speech provokes comment
Bruce Haigh, former diplomat and now commentator, wrote about Prime Minister Abbott’s speech at the Albany commemorative event. Haigh was critical of the speech for its inadequate grasp of history but also for its attempt, as he saw it, to…
Cahill, Rowan: Future of history
Cahill, Rowan ‘The future of history‘, Overland, 29 October 2014 Considers former prime minister John Howard’s book on former prime minister Robert Menzies (The Menzies Era) and moves on to remarks about current politics. Cahill says the book is ‘an…
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Thistleton, John: A place of healing (and a better way?)
Thistleton, John ‘How Robbie Poate’s parents returned to a place of painful memories and turned it into a place of healing‘, Canberra Times, 2 November 2014 Story about the memorial garden created outside of Canberra by the parents of Robbie…
Evans, Richard J.: Tory interpretation of history
Evans, Richard J. ‘The wonderfulness of us (the Tory interpretation of history‘, London Review of Books, 17 March 2011 This article was brought to our attention by a reference in Clive Logan’s Supplementary Material to the Report of the Curriculum…
Sheedy, Chris: For queen & country
Sheedy, Chris ‘For queen & country‘, Canberra Times, 31 October 2014 Useful corrective to the ‘other people’s wars’ argument about Australia’s entry into World War I. Quotes at length from historian, Craig Stockings, about how most Australians of 1914 saw…
Code, Bill: PMs’ childhood homes
Code, Bill ‘The childhood homes of Australia’s prime ministers – in pictures‘, Guardian Australia, 28 October 2014 The imminent (but then delayed) demolition of the home in Kew, Victoria, where Gough Whitlam was born (reputedly on the kitchen table) provoked…
Stephens, David: does arms spending lead to war?
Stephens, David ‘Does arms spending lead to war?‘ Honest History, 4 November 2014 and updated The article compares defence spending as a proportion of gross domestic product – the proportion has been around two per cent for more than 50…
Does arms spending lead to war?
David Stephens ‘Does arms spending lead to war?’ Honest History, 4 November 2014 The concepts of Australian defence spending as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and as a proportion of total expenditure are both well-known. The former particularly…
Stanley, Peter: Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary?
Stanley, Peter ‘Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary? Eldershaw Memorial Lecture to Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 12 August 2014′, Honest History, 4 November 2014 Professor Stanley, president of Honest History, outlines the history of Honest History, while interweaving elements of…
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Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary?
Peter Stanley ‘Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary? Eldershaw Memorial Lecture to Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 12 August 2014’, Honest History, 4 November 2014 Good evening ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, friends, and especially members of Peter Eldershaw’s family. I thank…
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Department of Veterans’ Affairs: Schooling, Service and the Great War
Veterans’ Affairs, Department of Schooling, Service and the Great War, The Department, Canberra, 2014 A secondary (Year 9) education resource, put together by DVA’s Commemoration Branch and Dr Rosalie Triolo of Monash University. This educational resource investigates the diverse experiences…
Those who teach, fight
‘Those who teach, fight’*, Honest History, 4 November 2014 David Stephens reviews a recent publication by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Schooling, Service and the Great War. _____________________________________________ The educational materials offered by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) have…
Cashen, Phil: Blogging the Great War
Cashen, Phil ‘Blogging the Great War from Gippsland‘, Honest History, 4 November 2014 Retired school principal and historian, Phil Cashen, writes about how he set up a blog, Shireatwar.com, on the story of the Shire of Alberton, Victoria, during the…
Blogging the Great War from Gippsland
Phil Cashen ‘Blogging the Great War from Gippsland’, Honest History, 4 November 2014 The genesis for the blog, Shireatwar.com, came from family history. My wife’s family came from the Shire of Alberton in Gippsland. They were dairy farmers. In World…
Highlights reel: curriculum review Supplementary Material
‘Highlights reel: curriculum review Supplementary Material’, Honest History, 4 November 2014 This highlights reel provides more detail from the Supplementary Material published with the Review of the Australian Curriculum Final Report (Donnelly-Wiltshire). Our initial take on the history parts of…
Journalist Jauncey reports on FDR in power: Part I (4 November 2014)
Steve Flora has become close to the Jauncey family through his extensive research, drawing upon archives and libraries in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Steve is of the Bowling Green, Kentucky, Floras so it is…
ASIO history finds no evidence that Burton spied
Ernst Willheim, former senior lawyer, writes today in the Canberra Times insert Public Sector Informant (also in other Fairfax media and fuller version in hard copy) about allegations, raised by Professor Desmond Ball and others, that former public servant, John…
Honest History committee changes
Honest History Incorporated recently held its first Annual General Meeting and elected committee and executive members for 2014-15. Professor Peter Stanley remains as President, Dr David Stephens as Secretary, Michael Piggott as Treasurer and Dr Alison Broinowski, Professor Melanie Oppenheimer…
No single way to prove patriotism: Soutphommasane
Race Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Tim Soutphommasane, has told a gathering in Canberra that there is no single way to prove one’s Australian patriotism. Referring to the Prime Minister’s recent remarks about Team Australia, the commissioner said, ‘I think it is…
Highlights reel: ACOSS Poverty Report 2014
‘Highlights reel: ACOSS Poverty Report 2014’, Honest History, 30 October 2014 We are told that one of the most notable aspects of recent Australian history has been unbroken economic prosperity. We are told about more than two decades of growth,…
Survey supports parliamentary role in going to war
The history of how Australia went to war in the past continues to exercise us. Paul Barratt of the Campaign for an Iraq War Inquiry says that, ‘[w]hen asked whether they believe the Parliament should be required to approve decisions…
Honest History supporter Paul Daley nominated for Walkley
Paul Daley, Guardian Australia columnist, author (most recently of the novel, Challenge) and Honest History supporter has been nominated for a Walkley Award. The nomination is in the category ‘All media coverage of Indigenous affairs’ and is for Paul’s articles,…
Schultz, Julianne et al.: Travelling a small world
Schultz, Julianne, et al. ‘Small world‘, Griffith Review 37, Spring 2012 A selection of articles exploring Australians as travellers. In ‘Footloose, fancy-free’, Schultz notes that ‘Australians are travelling more than ever, but whether this has fostered a sense of well…
Pedersen, Peter: Anzac Treasures
Peter Pedersen Anzac Treasures: The Gallipoli Collection of the Australian War Memorial, Murdoch Books, Sydney, 2014 This landmark publication commemorates the centenary of the Great War’s Gallipoli campaign, 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916. ANZAC Treasures approaches the subject of…
Stephens, David: Anzac Treasures follows a well-worn track
David Stephens ‘The well-worn track of commemoration’, Honest History, 23 October 2014 David Stephens reviews Peter Pedersen’s, Anzac Treasures: The Gallipoli Collection of the Australian War Memorial Anzac Treasures is a great big, complex book, just as the Australian War…
Honest History list: about 98 resources on Gough Whitlam
Australia’s 21st prime minister, Edward Gough Whitlam, has died at the age of 98. This is a roundup of commentary. It may show something of how myths are created and nourished. Mark Latham wrote this in June 2014. There is…
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Honest History list: seven general histories of Australia and beyond
We can’t manage links to full text with most of these references but we can provide a summary of what’s in them and who wrote them. There’s a counter-factual collection also, to give a different perspective: Alison Bashford and Stuart…
Paul Daley on the NMA’s defining moments
Paul Daley writes in Guardian Australia in praise of the National Museum of Australia’s list of ‘defining moments’ in our history and of its initiative in seeking public comments. He quotes the Prime Minister’s remarks opening the exhibition, questions them…
Comment on Donnelly-Wiltshire review; Anzac and children
Justine Ferrari article in The Australian (paywall: extract below) includes comments from Honest History secretary, David Stephens. David Stephens has an article in Independent Australia on whether Anzac is a danger to our children. 16 October 2014 The review’s critique…
Stephens, David: Donnelly-Wiltshire fire a salvo
Stephens, David ‘Donnelly-Wiltshire gunners fire a civilised salvo – but will Minister Pyne follow up?‘ Honest History, 15 October 2014 Analysis of the report of the national curriculum review, paying particularly attention to what it says about the teaching of…
Donnelly-Wiltshire fire a salvo – but will Minister Pyne follow up?
Stephens, David ‘Donnelly-Wiltshire gunners fire a civilised salvo – but will Minister Pyne follow up?’ Honest History, 15 October 2014 and updated If history was as predictable as the history curriculum recommendations of the Donnelly-Wiltshire report we would have no…
Melleuish, Gregory: Restoring federalism
Melleuish, Gregory ‘To restore federalism, strengthen the states and make Australia more republican‘, The Conversation, 18 September 2014 Only by providing states with the capacity to raise the taxes they need to finance their operations can we restore them to…
ACT Fabians: Why things matter
ACT Fabians Why Things Matter and other Podcasts Podcasts (no transcripts) 2014 and back a couple of years of Wayne Swan and Bernard Keane (journalist) on why government matters, Andrew Leigh MP, Humphrey McQueen and Paula Matthewson (commentator) on why…
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University of SA: Hawke lecture series
University of South Australia Annual Hawke Lecture Series Podcasts, audios, some transcripts, some papers from the following wide-ranging speakers and topics going backwards from 2014 to 1998: Hugh White on comparisons between 1914 and 2014; Elizabeth Blackburn on biology and…
Columbans: Way of Peace materials
St Columbans Mission Society The Way of Peace: Anzac Centenary Edition (1915-2015) A set of discussion and action sheets enabling Christian reflection and response during the Anzac centenary and beyond. The materials cover growing a culture of peace, power and…
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Gallipoli burning? Guardian Australia reports
Honest History president, Peter Stanley, in Guardian Australia about bushfire risk at Gallipoli. “The area is just waiting to go up again,” Stanley told Guardian Australia. “There is a huge amount of fuel for a fire and one thing the…
Henry, Ken: Public policy and economic reform
Henry, Ken ‘Public policy resilience and the reform narrative‘, ANU News, 18 September 2014 A lecture delivered at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, 16 September 2014. The lecture focuses on two questions: how should one assess the wealth…
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Beaumont, Joan, et al.: ANU Archives annual lectures
Beaumont, Joan, et al. ANU Archives Annual Lectures The ANU Archives and the Friends of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre sponsor an annual lecture in Canberra and podcasts or vodcasts of recent ones are available. They include: 2014 Professor Joan Beaumont,…
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Australian Quarterly: 85 years in 85 days
Australian Quarterly 85 Years in 85 Days – AQ Celebrates Australian Quarterly, which claims to be Australia’s oldest current affairs magazine, temporarily lowered its paywall early in 2014 to give free access to articles published from 1929 to 1989 (which…
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Diamadis, Panayiotis: Broken Hill and Syria
Diamadis, Panayiotis ‘History repeating: from the Battle of Broken Hill to the sands of Syria‘, The Conversation, 3 October 2014 Compares the events surrounding the attack by two Afghans on picnickers at Broken Hill on New Year’s Day 1915 with…
Review note: a ‘non-khaki’ view of Australia
‘A “non-khaki view” of Australia: “defining moments” matched against Honest History themes’, Honest History, 7 October 2014 updated Background The National Museum of Australia has put together 100 ‘defining moments’ in Australian history. The aim is ‘to stimulate a public discussion…
Reid, Richard: Faraway experience
Reid, Richard ‘That faraway experience: some thoughts on family history and the Western Front‘, Honest History, 7 October 2014 This article is based on a talk given to launch Family History Month at the National Archives of Australia head office,…
That faraway experience: family history and the Western Front
Reid, Richard ‘That faraway experience: some thoughts on family history and the Western Front’, Honest History, 7 October 2014 I had an uncle, John Holmes Wherry, my mother’s eldest brother in a family of six, who fought on the Western…
Manley, Ken R. & Barbara J. Coe: Grace of goodness
Manley, Ken R. & Barbara J. Coe The Grace of Goodness: John Saunders – Baptist Pastor and Activist, Sydney 1834-1848, Greenwood Press in association with Baptist Historical Society of NSW, Macquarie Park, NSW, 2014 Rev John Saunders (1806-59) was the…
The Grace of Goodness (Rev John Saunders) reviewed
‘The grace of goodness in early Sydney’, Honest History, 7 October 2014 Doug Hynd* reviews Ken R. Manley & Barbara J. Coe, The Grace of Goodness: John Saunders – Baptist Pastor and Activist, Sydney 1834-1848, Greenwood Press in association with…
Holt, Stephen: An unlikely leftist
Holt, Stephen ‘An unlikely leftist: Douglas Berneville-Claye‘, Honest History, 7 October 2014 A case study in dishonest history at the personal level, which speaks to both the irresistible attraction of wartime fame and the inevitability of exposure by the forces…
Douglas Berneville-Claye: unlikely leftist
Holt, Stephen ‘An unlikely leftist: Douglas Berneville-Claye’, Honest History, 7 October 2014 Domestic opposition to Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s was a potent force. The opposition was a mass movement which attracted idiosyncratic…
Jauncey gets best wishes from King O’Malley, 1933 (7 October 2014)
58 Bridport Street, Albert Park. S.C.5. 17th August, 1933. Toverish Jauncey, I received your kind letter from America, and was surprised to learn you had circled the earth. I am more than pleased that you expect the book in October,…
Honest History in teachers’ union magazine
Honest History secretary David Stephens was invited to write an article for AEU Educator, the magazine of the ACT Branch of the Australian Education Union. The article is online and in the hard copy version (page 25 in both versions).…
Lest We Forget collection reviewed
‘Lest We Forget comes out of the West’, Honest History, 7 October 2014 Paddy Gourley* reviews Bobbie Oliver & Sue Summers, ed., Lest We Forget? Marginalised Aspects of Australia at War and Peace, Black Swan Press, Curtin University, Perth, WA,…
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Stanley, Peter: Gallipoli burning?
Stanley, Peter ‘Is Gallipoli burning‘, Honest History, 2 October 2014 and updated Thousands of Australians and New Zealanders are expected at Gallipoli for next year’s Anzac commemoration. Professor Peter Stanley recently visited Gallipoli on a research trip. He was shocked.…
Is Gallipoli burning?
Stanley, Peter ‘Is Gallipoli burning?’ Honest History, 2 October 2014 Late in the Turkish summer of 1915 Lieutenant Humphrey Gell of the 89th Punjabis, the signals officer with 29th Indian Infantry Brigade headquarters, was told to destroy some used message…
Honest History list: seven resources on teaching history
The Honest History website includes a number of items tagged ‘Teaching history’. Some of them are also tagged ‘Using and abusing history’. Here is a selection: Parkes and Sharp analyse how five secondary history textbooks treat Gallipoli and Simpson and…
ABC RN Saturday Extra: ASEAN and Australia
ABC Radio National ‘ASEAN and Australia 40 years on‘, Saturday Extra, 13 September 2014 Geraldine Doogue talks to Anthony Milner (audio, no transcript), author of an Asialink report on 40 years of Australia’s relations with ASEAN. The report is online…
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ABC RN Saturday Extra: Arthur Phillip and the Eora
ABC Radio National ‘Arthur Phillip and the Eora‘, Saturday Extra, 13 September 2014 Geraldine Doogue interviews Grace Karskens (audio only, no transcript) on relations between Captain Arthur Phillip and Bennelong of the Eora Nation. Notes that the precise nature of…
Harris, Eleri: Utopian Canberra that wasn’t
Harris, Eleri ‘The utopian city that wasn’t: how two American architects won a competition to design Australia’s capital in 1912‘, Reform, 25 September 2014 Comicbook version of the story of Canberra from 1912 to now. Notes the impact of World…
Rudd, Kevin: WWI centenary lessons
Rudd, Kevin ‘Centenary lessons: twentieth century Europe & twenty-first century Asia‘, Horizons (Centre for International Relations and Sustainable Development), September 2014 Based on a lecture delivered in Berlin in May 2014. In this important year of international reflection on the…
Saunders, Cheryl: Making federalism work
Saunders, Cheryl ‘Federalism is a natural fit for Australia, but we need to make it work‘, The Conversation, 24 September 2014 The author concludes that ‘abandonment of federalism is not desirable … It is impossible to imagine democracy without federalism…
Mayhew, Emily: Wounded
Mayhew, Emily Wounded: The Long Journey Home from the Great War, Random House, North Sydney, 2014; first published The Bodley Head, 2013; electronic version available; UK edition subtitled From Battlefield to Blighty 1914-1918 Wounded is the story of a journey:…
ABC RN Bush Telegraph: Stitching the Eureka flag
ABC Radio National ‘The brave women who stitched Australia’s flag of unity and rebellion‘, Bush Telegraph, 10 September 2014 Podcast (23 minutes) discussion between Clare Wright, Val D’Angri, descendant, and Jane Smith, curator, about the history of the Eureka flag,…
ABC Radio National Media Report: News in colonial Sydney
ABC Radio National ‘News dissemination in colonial Sydney‘, Media Report, 28 August 2014 Podcast (eight minutes) in which Richard Aedy and Grace Karskens discuss dissemination by word of mouth, government notices stuck on trees, ships from Britain, communication between Indigenous…
Dowse, Sara: What are feminists to do?
Dowse, Sara ‘So what are feminists to do?‘ Inside Story, 14 August 2014 Text of 2014 Emily’s List Oration. The author was head of the federal government’s Office for the Status of Women in the 1970s. The 1970s could be…
SBS News: Where immigrants were born: map
SBS News Where Australia’s Immigrants were Born Interactive maps, based on the 2011 census, for all capital cities and for the nation via local government areas, showing top three countries of birth for immigrants to Australia. Browsing and clicking is…
Curran, James & Stuart Ward: Unknown Nation
Curran, James & Stuart Ward The Unknown Nation: Australia after Empire, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2010 The book considers Australia’s search for national identity as ‘the receding ties of empire and Britishness posed an unprecedented dilemma as Australians lost…
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Highlights reel: Elizabeth Samet on soldiers dying in vain
‘Highlights reel: Elizabeth Samet on soldiers dying in vain’, Honest History, 23 September 2014 and updated Elizabeth Samet teaches English to first-year cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In a recent article in Foreign Policy she…
PM and President: the usual channels
Following are some statements by Prime Minister Abbott and then President George W. Bush, announcing action against terror groups and ‘jihadists’. ‘Regrettably, around the world and in this country itself, there are people who would do us harm. There are…
Wesley, Michael: Meaning of China
Wesley, Michael ‘The meaning of China‘, Griffith Review, 41, July 2013 The question of how Chinese power will affect the world and what it will mean is hugely significant for Australia. Although China has been a great power in the…
Schultz, Julianne et al.: Looking to New Zealand
Schultz, Julianne ‘Looking east’, Griffith Review, 43, January 2014 The author, born in New Zealand but now based in Australia, introduces an edition of Griffith Review devoted to New Zealand and titled ‘Pacific highways‘. The dream of a united Australasia…
Pybus, Cassandra: China and Tasmania
Pybus, Cassandra ‘China in the Tasmanian imaginary‘, Griffith Review, 39, January 2013 Towards the end of the 19th century, a vibrant Chinese community existed in northeastern Tasmania based on tin mining. The now tiny hamlet of Weldborough was the centre…
Tilley, Cristen: Violence against women surveyed
Tilley, Cristen ‘10 charts that reveal Australian attitudes to violence against women‘, ABC News, 18 September 2014 Charts changes since 1995 in VicHealth’s poll of 17 500 people on the community’s knowledge, attitudes and responses to physical and other forms of violence,…
Clark, Ian D. et al, ed.: Indigenous and minority place names
Clark, Ian D, Luise Hercus & Laura Kostanski, ed., Indigenous and Minority Place Names: Australian and International Perspectives, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 2014; print and downloadable editions, including print on demand This book showcases current research into Indigenous and…
Cahill, Damien & Frank Stilwell. ed.: Australian economic boom
Cahill, Damien & Frank Stilwell, ed. ‘Special issue on the Australian economic boom: 1992-?‘ Journal of Political Economy, 61, June 2008 Sixteen articles on this period of the Australian economy. Multiple authors address Australian economic booms in historical perspective, Australian…
Anzac centenary sensitivity
Sometimes news items pass you by then return with renewed vigour. Such was the case for Honest History with the Battle of Bita Paka in September 1914, recently commemorated. Bita Paka, in the then German New Guinea, was ‘little more…
Seal, Graham: Inventing Anzac
Seal, Graham Inventing Anzac: The Digger and Modern Mythology, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2004 Anzac and the digger lie at the centre of Australian national identity. Separate but intertwined, their respective traditions have generated and maintained a potent…
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Holbrook, Carolyn: Launch of Anzac unauthorised biography
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Launch of Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography, Carlton, Vic.’, Honest History, 15 September 2014 Carolyn Holbrook delivered this speech at the Melbourne launch of her book at Readings, Carlton, 2 September 2014. Stuart Macintyre also spoke. The book is…
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Macintyre, Stuart: Launch of Holbrook’s Anzac
Macintyre, Stuart ‘Launch of Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography, by Carolyn Holbrook’, Honest History, 15 September 2014 This is an edited version of Professor Macintyre’s speech at Readings, Carlton, 2 September 2014. Frank Bongiorno reviews the book. The author speaks at…
Holbrook, Carolyn: Anzac: the unauthorised biography
Holbrook, Carolyn Anzac: the Unauthorised Biography, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014 Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography … traces how, since 1915, Australia’s memory of the Great War has declined and surged, reflecting the varied and complex history of the Australian nation itself. Most…
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Anzac’s unauthorised biography reviewed
‘The unauthorised biography of a legend’, Honest History, 15 September 2014 Frank Bongiorno reviews Carolyn Holbrook, Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014. See also speeches by Stuart Macintyre and the author at the Melbourne launch of the book. _________________…
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Paul, Erik: Violence in Australia
Paul, Erik ‘The political economy of violence in Australia‘, Journal of Political Economy, 63, Winter 2009, pp. 82-101 Considers the economic, cultural and political aspects of violence, in particular, its connections with the nature of capitalism. Specific issues addressed include…
Allam, Lorena, et al: 1973 Human Relationships Royal Commission
Allam, Lorena, et al ‘Public intimacies: The Royal Commission on Human Relationships‘, ABC Radio National, 28 April 2013 ABC program (audio only) discussing the work of a ground-breaking 1970s inquiry, presented by Lorena Allam, produced by Professor Michelle Arrow and…
Humphrys, Elizabeth: Birth of Australia
Humphrys, Elizabeth ‘The birth of Australia: non-capitalist social relations in a capitalist mode of production?‘ Journal of Political Economy, 70, Summer 2012-13, pp. 110-17 This article argues that, despite the early Australian colonies encompassing the extensive use of unfree convict…
Bridge, Carl et al, ed.: Australian High Commissioners, London
Bridge, Carl, Frank Bongiorno & David Lee, ed. The High Commissioners: Australia’s Representatives in the United Kingdom, 1910-2010, Australia. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra, 2010 Full text (340 pages) of collection of articles on the London connection, brought…
Sydney Great War exhibition looks at both sides
State Records of New South Wales has announced a number of initiatives which promise to give a reasonably balanced view of the state during the years 1914-18. The New South Wales Anzac Centenary website is in three parts: In Service –…
Honest History list: 10 useful Web portals
Web portals abound and we are trying to include useful ones on the Honest History site. Here are ten that are worth opening and exploring: Dance: Australian Dance portal site with brief history and many links to relevant sites and…
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Going home: The War that Changed Us, ep. 4
‘Going Home’, the final episode of The War that Changed Us, mostly covers 1918 and the first year of peace but otherwise continues the approach of earlier episodes, interweaving the experiences of its six lead characters in Europe and Australia.…
With respect to John Burton
Edwards, Clive T. ‘With respect to John Burton’, Honest History, 10 September 2014 Rob Foot’s article (‘The curious case of Dr John Burton’, Quadrant, November 2013) denigrates the character and contribution of John Burton by reference to incidents that were…
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Edwards, Clive T.: With respect to John Burton
Edwards, Clive T. ‘With respect to John Burton‘, Honest History, 10 September 2014 At a time (2014) when governments are increasingly relying on advice from security services to help them formulate policy, the history of events which have attracted the…
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Goldsworthy, Anna: Voices of the land
Goldsworthy, Anna ‘Voices of the land‘, The Monthly, September 2014 updated Update 18 November 2016: Jane Simpson on some practical issues with teaching Indigenous language. Links to other material also. About the efforts of University of Adelaide, Israel-born linguist, Professor…
Lockyer, Adam: Team Australia and the Free World
Lockyer, Adam ‘Team Australia: leader of the Free World‘, ABC The Drum, 4 September 2014 One of many articles commenting on Australian foreign policy initiatives in relation to Iraq and Ukraine, this one attempting to link to historic Australian approaches…
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Clements, Nicholas: Black War in Tasmania
Clements, Nicholas The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2014 Between 1825 and 1831 close to 200 Britons and 1000 Aborigines died violently in Tasmania’s Black War. It was by far the…
Sorkin, Andrew Ross: Big history and Bill Gates
Sorkin, Andrew Ross ‘So Bill Gates has this idea for a History Class‘, New York Times, 5 September 2014 About a DVD-based history course, anchored by an Australian professor, David Christian. “Big History” did not confine itself to any particular…
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Review note: more Great War miscellany
‘Review note: more Great War miscellany’, Honest History, 7 September 2014 This is a further round-up of recent (and recently discovered) writing on Anzac and World War I. Earlier ones are accessible here. We are trying to do no more…
Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program: Honest History Factsheet No. 3
Minister Ronaldson’s media release of 1 September included these key points: $975 000 in new funding approved; total of 331 applications from 72 electorates approved so far, worth $3.34 million; more than 1700 applications received. Speaking in the Senate the…
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BBC on Anzac centenary in Australia
BBC World Service journalist Judith Crosbie reports on Anzac centenary commemoration in Australia. The first part of the ten minute audio is another BBC journalist talking about our attitudes to asylum seekers. The tone of both segments is one of…
Gallipoli Children’s Book Project
Remembering and Healing, an innovative community-based peace group in Lismore, NSW, is about to invite authors and budding authors to take part in a literary competition for books on the theme of Anzac but with a message of peace and…
Things come apart: The War that Changed Us, ep. 3
By episode 3 of The War that Changed Us, we’ve fully adjusted to its dramatised documentary approach, its repeated home front-front line segues, its six main actors’ role types, the expert commentators, colourised footage and stills, narrating voice-over hinting at…
Daley, Paul: Renouncing Australia
Daley, Paul ‘The man who renounced Australia,’ Guardian Australia, 26 August 2014 The story of Murrumu Walubara Yidindji, formerly Jeremy Geia, who has ‘left’ Australia, while remaining within it, and who believes Yidindji laws, as the laws of the original…
Lord, John: Comics in Australia
Lord, John ‘The history of comics in Australia‘, Australian Independent Media Network, 29 August 2014 Brief article covering early comic strips in The Bulletin and elsewhere, imported comics and the first Australian produced comic in 1931. They provided artists like…
Stevenson, Chrys: Politics of Australian religion
Stevenson, Chrys ‘The politics of Australian religion‘, The King’s Tribune, 25 August 2014 Examines the reasons for the bipartisan support gathered by the school chaplaincy program, despite the constitutional difficulties it has faced and doubts about its efficacy and ethics.…
Starck, Nigel: Trollope and colonials
Starck, Nigel ‘Celebrity blows: Anthony Trollope and those touchy colonials‘, The Conversation, 1 September 2014 Describes the visits to Australia of Trollope, novelist and said to be our first celebrity blow-in. He ‘found Australian pride could be easily hurt’ but we…
Cotton, James & David Lee, ed.: Australia and the UN
Cotton, James & David Lee Australia and the United Nations, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra, 2012 Comprehensive and well-illustrated publication (available in hard copy as well as online) with chapters by the editors, academics Neville Meaney, Peter Carroll,…
McQueen, Humphrey: Review Other Side of Frontier
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Part III: Review of Reynolds The Other Side of the Frontier (1981)’, Honest History, 2 September 2014 Henry Reynolds’s The Other Side of the Frontier: An Interpretation of the Aboriginal Response to the Invasion and Settlement of Australia,…
McQueen, Humphrey: Preface to The Black Resistance
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Part II: Preface to The Black Resistance (1977)’, Honest History, 2 September 2014 The publication of the lecture in Part I stimulated a group of students to widen and deepen the sketch in the lecture. This became Fergus…
McQueen, Humphrey: Defending Australia from the Pink Peril
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Part I: Defending Australia from the Pink Peril (1973)’, Honest History, 2 September 2014 From a lecture given in Australian History III, Australian National University, July 1973. It was later printed in Woroni (ANU) 16 July 1973, then…
McQueen, Humphrey: Pioneering writing on Frontier Wars
McQueen, Humphrey ‘The real battle for Australia: pioneering writing on the Frontier Wars (Parts I-III)’, Honest History, 2 September 2014 Introduction by David Stephens With the co-operation of the author, we have collected here three pieces of writing by historian…
Burton, Pamela: John Burton, undermined by dishonest history
Burton, Pamela ‘John Burton: undermined by dishonest history’, Honest History, 1 September 2014 The illustrated text of an Honest History lecture at Manning Clark House, Canberra, 18 August 2014. The author is a Canberra lawyer and writer and the daughter…
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Laugesen, Amanda: Language, soldiers, Great War
Laugesen, Amanda ‘Language, Australian soldiers, and the First World War’, Honest History, 1 September 2014 The illustrated text of a lecture at Manning Clark House, Canberra, 21 July 2014, on the language experience of ordinary people caught up in war.…
Hermes and Eirene: exploring history and peace
Two new websites have just launched, addressing matters of great interest. The first, Historical Encounters, a venture of the Hermes group at the University of Newcastle, is an online journal of historical consciousness, historical cultures and history education. Historical Encounters…
Atkins, Jon: Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign
Atkins, Jon ‘Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign: its genesis and objectives’, Honest History, 1 September 2014 This article describes one example of community activity which is questioning the received, official view of Anzac, as set out in, for example, the Australian…
Honest History list: wartime spin
One hundred years ago today, 1 September 1914, this item appeared in The Brisbane Courier: THE BRITISH FORCES. OFFICIAL V. OTHER REPORTS. A REASSURING STATEMENT. LONDON, Sunday Night The Government Press Bureau states that its account of the fortunes of…
The War that Changed Us (Ep. 2): euphoria becomes hard slog
We were a bit late catching up with this week’s episode but this is what we thought. Episode 2 of The War that Changed Us grasps how quickly the mood changed in World War I, both among the men who…
Retired Air Marshal speaks frankly about Iraq
Update: 2 September 2014: decision having been made to provide arms to Kurds, James Brown from the Lowy Institute, ex Australian Army, author of Anzac’s Long Shadow, lists some fallacies relating to this new involvement. It puts a different perspective…
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Buch, Neville: Fighting the Great War
Buch, Neville ‘Why this war in this way? A note on the Great War’, Honest History, 28 August 2014 The question of whether World War I can be justified, either at the time, or looking back now, has overshadowed the…
Wellings, Ben: Commemoration Britain and Australia
Wellings, Ben ‘Great War commemoration in Australia and Britain’, Honest History, 1 September 2014 In Britain they are commemorating the centenary of the First World War. I know this because it says so on my commemorative key chain that I…
AWM travelling exhibition cutbacks
Australian War Memorial Director, Brendan Nelson, has announced cutbacks in the Memorial’s travelling exhibitions, including shows being specially set up for the Anzac centenary under the command of a retired Major General. More. The trigger seems to have been a…
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Honest History list: seven nation-shaping events before Gallipoli
Some Australians say the Australian nation was ‘born’ at Gallipoli. Others hedge their bets by suggesting our nationhood was ‘affirmed’ there or that we ‘came of age’. The most extreme views imply that an effusion of blood is necessary before…
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Taylor, Tony: History teaching under the Coalition
Taylor, Tony ‘Evidence-free beliefs: history in the hands of the Coalition‘, The Conversation, 22 August 2014 The author anticipates the (possibly imminent) release of the Donnelly-Wiltshire report to Minister Pyne on the national curriculum, including the history component. He reports a survey…
World Socialist multiple authors: Australia’s Anzac Day
World Socialist multiple authors ‘Australia’s Anzac Day – the gap between official rhetoric and popular sentiments‘, World Socialist Web Site, 26 April 2014 Describes Anzac Day as traditionally ‘an official occasion for the promotion of militarism’. This year there has…
Rizzetti, Janine: Victorians and WWI home front
Rizzetti, Janine ‘RHSV Conference: The Other Face of War: Victorians and the Home Front‘, The Resident Judge of Port Phillip [blog], 11 August 2014 Report of conference of Royal Historical Society of Victoria. Speakers included Bart Ziino (Deakin University) who ‘challenged…
Macarthur, Sally: Sculthorpe connection to land
Macarthur, Sally ‘Sculthorpe shaped composers with a connection to this land‘, The Conversation, 15 August 2014 Obituary and commentary on the late Peter Sculthorpe, composer. Sculthorpe pioneered a uniquely Australian sound. The distinctiveness of his music emerges from its connection…
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Noye, Larry: O’Malley MHR
Noye, Larry O’Malley MHR, Sid Harta Publishers, Glen Waverley, Vic., 2009; first published 1985 Detailed biography of O’Malley, with a foreword by Barry Jones. Focuses mainly on O’Malley’s years in federal politics, effectively ending with his defeat in 1917 –…
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Jauncey, the Bish and Fisher in Albert Park (2 September 2014)
Before large cars with drivers ferried them around, many politicians lived in inner suburbs to be near public transport. This was particularly so when the Commonwealth Parliament met in Melbourne, as it did until 1927. Albert Park was one such…
Lists and Random Strands new on our site
We have been looking at ways of making more accessible the wealth of resources found on our site under the menu headings Themes and Resources. We are introducing two new features. First, we will regularly pluck out Random strands, bibliographical…
Honest History list: inequality by the dozen
You can now find our inequality resources linked from here. 14 November 2015
The War that Changed Us not rose-tinted
There is lots of Anzac nostalgia television in the offing, with Anzac Girls notably underway already, leaving a somewhat frothy impression, though it is apparently based on diaries at the time. The nurses seem awfully young and fetching, the soldiers…
Black Diggers and Frontier Wars
Honest History has a number of resources on these related issues. This article provoked by NAIDOC Week 2014 includes links to a number of articles discussing both the Frontier Wars and the rediscovered role of Indigenous servicemen. Peter Stanley gave…
Parkes, Robert J. & Heather Sharp: Gallipoli in school textbooks
Parkes, Robert J. & Heather Sharp ‘Nietzchean perspectives on representations of national history in Australian school textbooks: what should we do with Gallipoli?‘ Ensayos: Revista de la Facultad de Educación de Albacete [Spain], 29, 1, 2014, pp. 159-81 Summarises two…
Chubb, Ian: No free rides to science future
Chubb, Ian ‘There are no free rides to the future: Australia’s Chief Scientist‘, The Conversation, 13 August 2014 and updated Speech mapping current state of play in science – Australia is in only the middle of the pack = and…
Stillman, Sarah: Hiroshima and the inheritance of trauma
Sarah Stillman ‘Hiroshima and the inheritance of trauma‘, New Yorker, 12 August 2014 In recent years, a public-health hypothesis has emerged that one of the world’s most poorly understood pandemics isn’t a conventional virus—like H1N1, say, or some hemorrhagic fever.…
Smith, Evan: Fascist view of Australia 1937
Smith, Evan ‘A fascist view of Australia (1937)‘, Hatful of History, 11 August 2014 Quotes at length from an article in Action by the British Fascist, A. Raven Thomson, who was the chief theoretician of the British Union of Fascists…
DVA: Timeline: Australians at war 1901-2000
Department of Veterans’ Affairs ‘Timeline: Australians at war 1901-2000‘, Researching Gallipoli Concise timeline in 20 pages, illustrated. The years of World War I and 1945 alone receive a page each. Links to other parts of DVA’s historical resources.
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Foley, Gary & Elizabeth Muldoon: Indigenous curriculum
Foley, Gary & Elizabeth Muldoon ‘Pyning for Indigenous rights in the Australian curriculum‘, The Conversation, 15 August 2014 Argues that Indigenous history is under-represented or misrepresented in the current national history curriculum for secondary students. In particular, there is inadequate…
Masanauskas, John: Melbourne pictures
Masanauskas, John ‘Haunting images of the streets that were once home to Melbourne’s slums‘, Herald-Sun, 11 August 2014 Photo essay of slum streets 1936-83. The piece links to similar essays on other aspects of Melbourne life, including series for each…
Commemoration, celebration and contrition
Chris Sheedy in Fairfax Media talks to Bishop Tom Frame and Dr Craig Stockings about aspects of how we commemorate death in war. Stockings refers to ‘the tendency within Australia to selectively package and promote specific elements of the war…
Claven, Jim: Greek Anzac
Claven, Jim ‘From Asia Minor to Anzac Cove: the Odyssey of Peter Rados‘, Neos Kosmos, 11 August 2014 Story of an Anzac born in Ottoman Asia Minor, a member of Sydney’s Greek community. Landed at Gallipoli, 25 April 1915; killed…
Victorian schoolchildren stand up like soldiers
Victorian Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Damian Drum, tweeted a picture of school children standing up in an assembly. The caption read: ‘@Anzac100Vic roadshow at Bendigo South East College, those standing would likely have enlisted during ww1’. The roadshow is an…
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Whizzbangs incoming
Readers of our newsletters will have seen our regular feature, ‘Whizzbangs’, short, often topical items which say something pointed about history and its quirks. We have been firing these projectiles for 12 months now and thought we would store the…
Paul Daley on our failure to learn about war
Paul Daley writes in the Guardian Australia about the impending commemorative jamboree, our liking for euphemism about war (‘the fallen’, ‘sacrifice’), our continuing obsession with monuments and memorials, and our failure to learn lessons. The article links to material on…
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The children suffer
David Stephens ‘The children suffer’, Honest History, 11 August 2014 Osbert Sitwell’s The Next War, published in 1918, depicts some plutocrats deciding what would be an appropriate war memorial. The senior plutocrat puts a suggestion which his colleagues eagerly take…
Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism
Anthony Cooper ‘Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism’, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Somehow, ‘revisionism’ in military history has been turned by some people into a dirty word. Since when did the self-evidently rational process of ‘revising’ or ‘reviewing’…
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Olsen, Rod: Great war poets
Olsen, Rod ‘Writing about war: the (mostly British) Great War poets’, Honest History, 2 November 2013 Describes poetry at the outbreak of war and how it changed under the influence of the war. Reproduces a number of poems, examines the…
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On being an independent scholar
Pamela Burton ‘On being an independent scholar’, Honest History, 25 July 2014 When Honest History asked me what it was like being an independent scholar, my first reaction was ‘lonely, sometimes frustrating, and very rewarding’. Traditionally, independent scholars are not…
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Glanville, Edith: An Australian visits the Yazidis of Iraq 1929
Glanville, Edith ‘Devil worshippers: a Kurdistan cult‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 June 1929 A detailed description of a visit to the Yazidis, believed to be the first such visit by an Australian woman. Gives an insight into both customs and…
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Review note: August guns
‘Review note: August guns’, Honest History, 8 August 2014 In the week that marked the centenary of the beginning of the Great War (as well as the 70th anniversary of the Cowra Breakout and the 69th anniversary of Hiroshima) it…
Senghor, Leopold Sedar: Senegalese sharpshooters
Senghor, Leopold Sedar ‘To Senegalese sharpshooters who died for France‘, No Glory in War 1914-1918 Senghor, one of Africa’s most noted poets and statesmen, wrote this poem in 1938-40. It is included here for three reasons: to remind us that…
Smith, Tony: Dubious celebrations
Smith, Tony ‘Dubious celebrations of war‘, Pearls and Irritations, 25 July 2014 Makes some important points on television programs about war which seek ‘sentimental responses in admiration of those who enlisted’, the wariness felt by war doubters once war is…
Bastian, Peter: Andrew Fisher
Bastian, Peter Andrew Fisher: an Underestimated Man, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009 Hoping to set the record straight, this biography asks why one of Australia’s greatest reformers has sunk into obscurity. Calling for a reevaluation of Andew Fisher’s career,…
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Mackie, Chris: Gallipoli beautiful city
Mackie, Chris ‘Long read: Gallipoli, the beautiful city‘, The Conversation, 1 August 2014 A detailed analysis of the classical aspects of the Anzac story, relevant partly because the war historian, CEW Bean, and many of his contemporaries had received a…
Green, Jonathan: Tabloid politics
Green, Jonathan ‘The slick world of tabloid politics‘, ABC The Drum, 31 July 2014 While not explicitly making historical comparisons, the article facilitates them by presenting a contestable version of today’s politics which might be set against other analyses of…
Crisis 1914! The Call to Arms
A new exhibition commences on 5 August at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, Canberra. ‘The first few months of the First World War demonstrated’, says the blurb, ‘Australia’s enthusiastic commitment to the war, not yet exposing…
Highlights reel: and the war came
‘Highlights reel: ‘and the war came’, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Hobart Regatta photos from the Weekly Courier newspaper, January 1914 (Flickr Commons/Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office) This highlights reel takes extracts from Australian press editorials and other published material…
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Cooper, Anthony: Kokoda revised
Anthony Cooper ‘Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism‘, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Critics of revisionism in history, including military history, assume that there is only one version of the story. But historians should interpret evidence and new evidence…
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Labour and the Great War reviewed
‘Labour and the Great War from a dozen perspectives’, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Ernst Willheim* reviews Frank Bongiorno, Raelene Frances and Bruce Scates, ed., Labour and the Great War: The Australian Working Class and the Making of Anzac, Australian…
Bongiorno, Frank, et al, ed.: Labour and the Great War
Bongiorno, Frank, Rae Frances & Bruce Scates, ed., Labour and the Great War: The Australian Working Class and the Making of Anzac, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Special edition, Labour History, 106, May 2014 Examines the awkward…
A Jauncey writes to the Prime Minister 1920 (4 August 2014)
In 1917 GEM (Eric) Jauncey was a victim of war paranoia in his employment at the University of Missouri. The security services of the Hughes Government in Australia had been in touch with their American counterparts who paid a visit…
Defence Issues Paper says US Alliance still central
The Minister for Defence, Senator Johnston, has released a Defence Issues Paper setting out issues that will be addressed in the Defence White Paper to come out in 2015. Of particular interest is the statement about the long-standing American Alliance,…
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Highlights reel: Margaret MacMillan on history wars
‘Highlights reel: Margaret Macmillan on history wars’, Honest History, 28 July 2014 As the Donnelly-Wiltshire report on the national curriculum is about to be handed to the Australian Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, it is instructive to look at a…
Burton, Pamela: Independent scholars
Burton, Pamela ‘On being an independent scholar‘, Honest History, 25 July 2014 The author, a former Canberra lawyer and now author of two books (From Moree to Mabo: The Mary Gaudron Story, The Waterlow Killings: A Portrait of a Family…
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Nethercote, JR: 1914 double dissolution
Nethercote, JR ‘Forgotten centenary: the 1914 double dissolution of parliament‘, Canberra Times, 9 July 2014 Succinct and clear explanation of Australia’s first double dissolution, although the rules and roles then were rather different from what would apply if a double…
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Gillard, Julia: Anzac Day 2013
Gillard, Julia Anzac Day address, Morning Service, Townsville, 25 April 2013 So often, war means saying goodbye. This city of Townsville understands that truth so well. No one better exemplifies the ANZAC story of duty and sacrifice than the uniformed…
Highlights reel: Margaret Macmillan on history
‘Highlights reel: Margaret Macmillan on history’, Honest History, 20 July 2014 Canadian-born, now Oxford-based historian, Margaret Macmillan, has made a distinguished contribution to the literature of the Great War with her book, The War That Ended Peace: The Road to…
Soviet World War II posters at the Australian War Memorial
At a time when events in the Ukraine have brought to the fore attitudes to the role of Russia in world affairs, the Australian War Memorial happens to be hosting a number of talks highlighting Soviet World War II propaganda…
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Brent, Peter: Constitutional referenda
Brent, Peter ‘And the rest say “no”‘, Inside Story, 17 July 2014 The author examines the history of referenda in the run-up to a possible referendum on constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australian occupation of the country prior to European settlement.…
Review note: Great War miscellany
‘Review note: Great War miscellany’, Honest History, 18 July 2014 This is our third roundup of the embarrassment of riches coming to our attention in the World War I centenary period. It is a bit broader in sweep than our…
Harley, Hugh: Magna Carta turns 800
Harley, Hugh ‘Magna Carta turns 800: eight centuries of freedom is a big deal‘, The Spectator, 12 July 2014 A timely reminder that 1215 is also the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta. We all know that…
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Arango, Tim: Gallipoli and national identities
Arango, Tim ‘At Gallipoli, a campaign that laid ground for national identities‘, New York Times, 26 June 2014 An American views the Gallipoli legacy from both Turkish and Australian perspectives. He interviews Rupert Murdoch on the role of his father,…
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About Centenary Watch
Here we keep track of the many initiatives commemorating the centenary of World War I, particularly the centenary of the landing at Gallipoli in 1915 – the centenary of Anzac. (Most recent updates.) We are particularly interested in what is…
Australian Historical Association Conference 2014
The conference was held in Brisbane 7-11 July 2014. Abstracts of the papers presented are available as a pdf AHA_Conference Abstract Book. Bloggers Shauna Hicks and Yvonne Perkins have posted comments as has Marion Diamond, with some comments on the…
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Taylor, Tony: Tony Abbott’s history
Taylor, Tony ‘Tony Abbott’s history‘, The Conversation, 15 July 2014 Relates recent comments by the prime minister to his formative years and a particular understanding of history. The author argues that ‘the ideological basis of Abbott’s grasp of history will…
Bryant, Nick: Rise and fall of Australia
Bryant, Nick The Rise and Fall of Australia: How a Great Nation Lost its Way, Bantam, North Sydney, 2014 Former BBC correspondent in Australia claims of Australia that ‘never before has its politics been so brutal, narrow and facile, as…
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Highlights reel: HB Higgins on militarism
‘Highlights reel: HB Higgins on militarism’, Honest History, 11 July 2014 There may be a generational aspect to intellectual endeavour among public men and women. Whether it is because statesmen (very few stateswomen then) at the turn of the twentieth…
Leslie, Tim: Archibald Prize morphing
Leslie, Tim ‘The changing face of the Archibald‘, ABC News, 10 July 2014 and updated Update: 2014 Archibald Prize won by a woman (Fiona Lowry) for a portrait of a woman (Penelope Seidler). About half this year’s entrants were women…
Stanley, Peter: NAIDOC Week 2014 ADFA address
Stanley, Peter ‘NAIDOC Week 2014 address at Australian Defence Force Academy, 10 July 2014, Honest History, 10 July 2014 Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues. I’m honoured to have been asked to speak today and, in doing so, I acknowledge the traditional…
Richardson, David & Denniss, Richard: Income and wealth inequality
Richardson, David & Denniss, Richard Income and Wealth Inequality in Australia: Policy Brief No. 64, July 2014, The Australia Institute, Canberra Inequality between those with the most and those with the least is rising in Australia. Australia is one of…
Committed realist about our war obsession
The Governor of Tasmania, Peter Underwood, has died unexpectedly following surgery. He was 76. Apart from being a distinguished Governor and formerly Chief Justice he made memorable speeches calling for a realistic approach to the commemoration of war, particularly because…
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Commemorating our warriors – all of them
NAIDOC Week sees two important articles about the need to comprehensively commemorate all who have shed blood for their country. Paul Daley writes in the Guardian Australia that it is ‘inconsistent to celebrate Indigenous Australians’ service in Imperial armies while…
MAPW et al: Enduring effects of war
Medical Association for Prevention of War, Act for Peace & History Teachers’ Association of Victoria The Enduring Effects of War: Introduction, MAPW, Act for Peace and HTAV, Melbourne, 2014 Comprehensive (125 pages) and realistic lesson materials (pdf with links) prepared…
Grosjean, Pauline & Rose Khattar: It’s raining men
Grosjean, Pauline & Rose Khattar It’s Raining Men! Hallelujah? (June 3, 2014). UNSW Australian School of Business Research Paper No. 2014-29 The paper links history, specifically male-female balance resulting from early convict days, with modern day attitudes in one field…
Stephens, David & Steve Flora: Simpson Prize
Stephens, David & Steve Flora ‘The Simpson Prize: history or civics?’ Honest History, 8 July 2014 and updated There is a link below to a pdf of the article. In summary, the article analyses a number of aspects of the…
O’Brien, Annemaree: Creating multimodal texts
O’Brien, Annemaree Creating Multimodal Texts Portal to ‘literacy, media and technology resources for teachers’, referencing the Australian Curriculum and linking to a wide range of resources for classroom production of music videos, posters, short films, comics and other media. Could…
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Patrick, Rhianna: Indigenous authors explore new genres
Patrick, Rhianna ‘Indigenous authors explore Twitter fiction and new literary genres,’ AWAYE! ABC Radio National, 27 June 2014 Audio and text about the changes in Indigenous literature in the last 30 years, from life story and memoir in the 1980s…
Bongiorno, Frank: Labour and Anzac
Bongiorno, Frank ‘Labour and Anzac: historical reflections: Honest History lecture, Manning Clark House, Canberra, 15 June 2014’, Honest History, 8 July 2014 Associate Professor Bongiorno spoke to help launch his co-edited book (Labour and the Great War) on the same…
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War heroes and Boys’ Own adventures
David Stephens writes in Independent Australia about how the mateship of service life and the poignancy of service deaths obscures the pointlessness of ‘sacrifice’ when there is no connection to the national interest. Hero worship of the military also gets…
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Jauncey’s mate King O’Malley writes about Canberra 1937 (3 July 2014)
Leslie Jauncey became very close to King O’Malley, following their initial meeting in Melbourne in mid 1932 during Jauncey’s first visit to his homeland since 1920. Frequent correspondence between the two continued until O’Malley’s death in 1953. O’Malley, American expatriate,…
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McQueen, Humphrey: Anzac: a class struggle
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Anzac: a class struggle’, Honest History, 3 July 2014 ‘History wars’ are about how to control the future. They are not disputes over the past. Stories about the past are pressed into service to buttress the needs of…
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Highlights reel: HB Higgins on the yellow peril
‘Highlights reel: HB Higgins on the yellow peril’, Honest History, 2 July 2014 White staff, Ocean Island (Kanakas on the left), 1907 (source: National Archives of Australia, R32, 6425388) Our first highlights reel presented HB Higgins as a socialist; and…
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Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program: Honest History Factsheet No. 2
Minister Ronaldson’s media release of 19 June included these key points: $2 369 023 million in funding approved; 212 projects from 52 electorates approved so far; more than 1650 applications received, some from each of the 150 electorates. The Minister’s…
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Stephens, David: Conservative commemoration
Stephens, David ‘Anzac Centenary Local Grants: conservative commemoration’, Honest History, 30 June 2014 This note comments on the statistics set out in Honest History Factsheet No. 2 on the Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program. Ken Inglis says in his book…
Common interests of Germany and Great Britain: 100 years ago today
Around about now, the focus on matters 100 years ago is very sharp. There is even a statue of Gavrilo Princip being unveiled in Sarajevo. Our own small contribution is to draw attention to an opinion piece in the Sydney…
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Moses, John A. & Davis, George F.: Anzac Day origins
Moses, John A. & George F. Davis Anzac Day Origins: Canon DJ Garland and Trans-Tasman Commemoration, Barton Books, Barton, ACT, 2013 Examines the origins of Anzac Day via a study of Garland, who ‘became known as the “architect” of ANZAC…
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Primary school children and honest history
Aint Google amazing? In the week where HH had an interesting exchange with the education people at the Australian War Memorial on teaching children about war, Google turned up an article on a number of US blogs with the fascinating…
Highlights reel: HB Higgins on political differences
‘Highlights reel: HB Higgins on political differences’, Honest History, 25 June 2014 The past is not always a strange country but looking backwards requires balance. It is easy to find superficially similar situations and opinions from decades ago and transplant…
Review note: centenary war and peace stories for children
‘Review note: centenary war and peace stories for children’, Honest History, 24 June 2014 updated He had killed a man not six hours before. He had killed six men during the past month – or was it a year? –…
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Bottoms, Timothy: Myall Creek and beyond
Bottoms, Timothy ‘Myall Creek Memorial Talk, Sunday 8 June 2014’, Honest History, 23 June 2014, updated This item is relevant to the history of relations between Indigenous and White Australians but also to the way we have suppressed and distorted…
Noonan, David: recounting WWI casualties
Noonan, David Those We Forget: Recounting Australian Casualties of the First World War, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, Vic., 2014 The book argues that ‘official Australian casualty statistics suffered by the men of the Australian Imperial Force in the First World…
The honesty of history
Francesca Beddie in The Australian recalls the serve Honest History received from Nick Cater of the same publication. Cater described our website, us and our President, Peter Stanley, as ‘condescending’ for targeting ‘history that is tendentious, unjustified, exaggerated, distorted, partial…
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Review note: Australian war correspondents and war historians
‘Review note: Australian war correspondents and war historians’, Honest History, 20 June 2014 and updated CEW Bean, the eminent war historian, began as a war correspondent. His work is represented by selections from his diary, the Official History, and the…
Murray, Robert: Making of Australia
Murray, Robert The Making of Australia: A Concise History, Rosenberg, Kenthurst, NSW, 2014 From the coming of the first Aborigines perhaps 60,000 years ago, certainly 40,000, to the election of the Abbott government in 2013, Murray traces the forces that…
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General Morrison speaks against sexual violence in war
Chief of Army LT GEN David Morrison was a featured speaker at the Global Summit to end Sexual Violence in Conflict. He noted that at the heart of the issue of sexual violence committed by men in uniform ‘stands the…
Oliver, Bobbie & Sue Summers, ed.: marginalised remembrance
Oliver, Bobbie & Sue Summers, ed. Lest We Forget? Marginalised Aspects of Australia at War and Peace, Black Swan Press, Curtin University, Perth, WA, 2014 The book asks what is being remembered and what is being forgotten within our war…
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World War I contentious questions on ABC RN
ABC Radio National is broadcasting World War One: Memory, Perception and 10 Contested Questions on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 June 2014 from 12 to 5pm. Crucially, the programs will look at why the war began, as well as other often…
Curriculum review interim report released
The preliminary report of the Donnelly-Wiltshire review of the national curriculum has been released, having been with the Minister since the end of March. (Earlier background.) The final report will be with the Minister (though not necessarily released) at the…
Review note: Arts items miscellany
‘Review note: Arts items miscellany’, Honest History, 16 June 2014 Musician and music festival director, Chris Latham, discusses the impact of war service on composers, noting that ‘the trauma caused by the two world wars created a hiatus in the…
Greig, Andrew: Taming war
Greig, Andrew Taming War: Culture and Technology for Peace, Peace Power Press, Avalon Beach, NSW, 2007 War is a very poor way to settle differences. Most of us know it’s stupid, but war goes on. It seems a shame that…
Hoskins, Ian: NSW coast
Hoskins, Ian Coast: a History of the New South Wales Edge, NewSouth, Sydney, 2013 From Eden to Byron Bay the New South Wales coast is more than 2000 kilometres long, with 130 estuaries, 100 coastal lakes and a rich history. …
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University of Adelaide Library: e-Books
We are adding this to the Recommended links section of the site but just wanted to give it a plug along the way. The site is an alphabetical list of e-Books available all over the Net. From a quick glance…
Douglas, Bob et al: Inequality in Australia
Douglas, Bob, Sharon Friel, Richard Denniss & David Morawetz Advance Australia Fair? What to do about Growing Inequality in Australia: Report following a Roundtable held at Parliament House Canberra in January 2014, Australia21 in collaboration with The Australia Institute, Canberra,…
Peacebus: Frontier Wars 2014
Peacebus ‘Lest we forget the Frontier Wars 2014: report of the fourth annual “Lest we forget the Frontier Wars” March @ the Australian War Memorial, 25 April 2014‘, Peacebus, 1 June 2014 Describes and illustrates demonstration held to commemorate the…
Brumby, John: Federation for the future
Brumby, John ‘An Australian federation for the future‘, The Conversation, 19 May 2014 Former Victorian Premier and chair of the COAG Reform Council writes about how to achieve a better balance between the Commonwealth and States and Territories. He refers…
Review note: research sources miscellany
‘Review note: research sources miscellany’, Honest History, 12 June 2014 Honest History’s constant (perhaps obsessive) digging into historical sources turns up, as well as individual gems, lodes of promising ore. From World War I, the National Archives has a finding…
Sharp, Nonie: Nugget Coombs and Judith Wright
Sharp, Nonie ‘For the well-beloved: Judith Wright and Nugget Coombs‘, Meanjin, 68, 2, June 2009 Tells of the relationship between one of Australia’s greatest public servants and one of its greatest poets, drawing upon the letters they wrote to each…
Waterford, Jack: Australia’s McCarthy era
Waterford, Jack ‘Unravelling Australia’s own McCarthy era‘, Inside Story, 30 May 2014 While the article rejects the allegation that the Petrov espionage affair was deliberately engineered to electorally damage the Australian Labor Party and its Leader, Dr HV Evatt, it…
Sheedy, Chris & Steve Offner: Anzac myth busting
Sheedy, Chris & Steve Offner ‘Cover story – busting the Anzac myth‘, Uniken (University of New South Wales), 12 June 2014 Reports remarks at a conference from Jeffrey Grey, Craig Stockings and Peter Stanley, all of UNSW/ADFA on the blowing…
Bowers, Mike: Battlefields photographs
Bowers, Mike Battlefields of France and Palestine: a portfolio of photographs, 2009 and 2011 Maltzkorn Farm crucifix near Trones Wood, The Somme, France. Maltzkorn Farm was destroyed by the fierce battles which took place here 1 July-5 August 1916…
Daley, Paul & Mike Bowers: Battlefields
Daley, Paul (with illustrations by Mike Bowers) ‘Battlefields’, Honest History, 12 June 2014 Battlefields of France and Palestine, 2009 and 2011: a portfolio of photographs by Mike Bowers Paul Daley, columnist for the Guardian Australia, has written a number of…
Stanley, Peter: Patriotic teachers?
Stanley, Peter Do teachers have ‘patriotic’ obligations? Address to ACT-NSW History Teachers’ Associations conference, University of Canberra, 9 May 2014 Good morning and thank you for your kind invitation to speak to you today; and in greeting you I acknowledge…
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Neale, Kerry: facial wounds of the Great War
Neale, Kerry “Poor devils without noses and jaws”: facial wounds of the Great War: Honest History lecture, Manning Clark House, Canberra, 26 May 2014 The author has completed a Ph D at the Australian Defence Force Academy and works at…
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Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program: Honest History Factsheet No. 1
Honest History has been interested in the Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program (ACLGP) since it commenced. We will update this Factsheet as often as we can. Program The ACLGP provides up to $125 000 for approved projects in each of…
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Leslie Jauncey writes to a grieving Amy O’Malley (12 June 2014)
Leslie and Beatrice Jauncey became close to King and Amy (Aimee) O’Malley. Our researcher, Steve Flora, himself born a mere 900 or so kilometres from King’s probable birthplace in Valley Falls, Kansas, has become close to all four of them…
Frenette, Yves: Conscripting Canada’s past
Frenette, Yves ‘Conscripting Canada’s past: the Harper Government and the politics of memory’, Canadian Journal of History, 49, Spring-Summer, 2014, pp. 49-65 The author argues that the conservative Canadian government is reconstructing Canada’s past to serve a broader project of…
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Blinkered commemoration at the Australian War Memorial
David Stephens writes in Fairfax media 10 June 2o14 about the parochial approach taken by the Australian War Memorial to commemoration, despite the possibilities offered by its legislation for a broader perspective. The hard copy in the Canberra Times 11…
Routley, Nicholas: Mahabharata
Routley, Nicholas ‘The Mahabharata: the music and drama of war’, Honest History, 12 June 2014 The Anzac centenary will have a musical element. The Anzac Centenary Advisory Board’s March 2013 report to the federal government noted the long-running work on…
Facial injuries should not be covered up
Paul Daley writes in Guardian Australia about the work of Kerry Neale on World War I facial injuries. Kerry gave an Honest History lecture at Manning Clark House on 26 May 2014.
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Review note: more Anzac miscellany 2014
‘Review note: more Anzac miscellany 2014’, Honest History, 24 May 2014 Honest History’s David Stephens has an article on Australian Independent Media Network, ‘Five arguments for downsizing Anzac‘, which reworks his speeches at the Canberra Peace Convergence and at a…
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Review note: Battle of Indigenous warriors
‘Review note: the Battle of the Indigenous warriors’, Honest History, 24 May 2014 and updated A notable element of the Anzac centenary is the attention being paid to the stories of Indigenous soldiers wearing the King’s uniform in the two…
Rundle, Guy: Culturestate
Rundle, Guy ‘The Culturestate’, Meanjin, 69, 2, Winter 2010, pp. 56-63 The author examines the increasing and increasingly complex relationship between the state in Australia and cultural and artistic production. By examining the history of both Australian literary production and…
Ravenscroft, Alison: Strangeness of the dance
Ravenscroft, Alison ‘The strangeness of the dance: Kate Grenville, Rohan Wilson, Inga Clendinnen and Kim Scott’, Meanjin, 72, 4, Summer 2013, pp. 64-73 The author discusses three recent Australian novels and the way that they interact very specifically with the…
Gardiner, Eric: Headless pines (war Penguins)
Gardiner, Eric ‘Headless pines‘, Meanjin, 73, 2, June 2014 Review by a Meanjin intern of the ‘War Popular Penguins‘ (Patsy Adam-Smith, The Anzacs; Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel; George Walter, The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry; Frederic Manning, The Middle Parts of…
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Cahill, Rowan: Enemy within
Cahill, Rowan ‘The enemy within‘, Overland, 24 April 2014 Short article on how Australia’s defence forces have been deployed domestically throughout our history, in the Frontier Wars, the Rum Corps era in early New South Wales, during strikes from the…
Clarke, Patricia: Australian propaganda in the 1950s
Clarke, Patricia ‘Bias for good or ill? Australian Government overseas propaganda in the 1950s‘, ISAA Articles The author was a journalist in the Australian News and Information Bureau (ANIB) in the 1950s, particularly writing news and features for publication in Asia.…
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Rickard, John: Sentimental blokes
Rickard, John ‘Sentimental blokes’, Meanjin, 66, 1, Autumn 2007, pp. 38-46 The author examines the homoerotic elements to the myth of Australian mateship and the way that this plays out in various literary representations, as well as in terms of…
Wetherell, Rodney: Subtopia or sunnyside?
Wetherell, Rodney ‘Subtopia or sunnyside?’, Meanjin, 65, 2, Winter 2006, pp. 174-80 The author considers representations of Melbourne in literature throughout history, focusing on AL McCann’s novel Subtopia and Sunnyside by Joanna Murray-Smith. He also reflects upon the way that…
Ball, Martin: Pro patria mori
Ball, Martin ‘Pro patria mori’, Meanjin, 63, 3, Spring 2004, pp. 3-12 Often in times of war, art and literature can become part of a number of forces that legitimate or sugar-coat warfare. In this essay, the author discusses first…
Sharp, Nonie: Three lost children
Sharp, Nonie ‘Three lost children: revisiting a heroic legend’, Meanjin, 69, 3, Spring 2010, pp. 132-41 In Australian literature and film, the figure of the ‘black tracker’ has a long and complicated history. In this essay, the author discusses the…
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Lamond, Julieanne: Women writers and literary value
Lamond, Julieanne ‘Stella vs. Miles: women writers and literary value in Australia’, Meanjin, 70, 3, Spring 2011, pp. 32-39 Literary awards, especially national ones like the Miles Franklin Award, are not just prizes that recognise quality writing; they also play…
Wadham, Ben: Camouflage and national identity
Wadham, Ben ‘Camouflage and national identity’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 Tropes of sacrifice, duty and honour that mark the birth of a nation are like camouflage that seeks to hide the truth from the viewer. But in this case,…
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Gilbertson, Ashleigh: Singapore Conference 2014
Gilbertson, Ashleigh ‘A different kind of imperial war: conference report: The British Empire and the Great War: Colonial Societies/Cultural Responses, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 19-22 February 2014’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 315 Gilbertson A different kind of imperial war…
Broinowski, Alison: Fascism and Fraser
Broinowski, Alison ‘Silent conspirators: Fascism and Fraser’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 and updated All fascist regimes and organisations have used the power of nationalism and national security as a motivator, as Australia has increasingly done. But no other country…
Stanley, Peter: Anzac and our first war
Stanley, Peter ‘On Anzac Day, we remember the Great War but forget our first war‘, The Conversation, 25 April 2014 On Anzac Day, Australia remembers its war dead, with one tragic exception. Australia is apparently disinclined to acknowledge the fact or…
Stephens, David: ANZAC Day Anzackery
Stephens, David ‘ANZAC Day Anzackery‘, Independent Australia, 25 April 2014 Anzackery today is a form of patriotic mysticism trotted out by prime ministers and old military buffers. But why is it so popular? Well, it’s partly because it simplifies complex…
O’Lincoln, Tom: Neighbour from Hell: Two Centuries of Australian Imperialism
O’Lincoln, Tom The Neighbour from Hell: Two Centuries of Australian Imperialism, Interventions, Melbourne, 2014 Tom O’Lincoln is a long-standing contributor to Australian political and historical discussion from the Marxist and Trotskyist perspective. Here he considers Australia’s history of participation in…
Australia as Imperialist ‘Neighbour from Hell’
Richard Thwaites reviews Tom O’Lincoln’s book The Neighbour from Hell: Two Centuries of Australian Imperialism (Interventions, Melbourne, 2014) Tom O’Lincoln is a long-standing contributor to Australian political and historical discussion from the Marxist and Trotskyist perspective. This book is published…
Jacobs, Genevieve: Anzac Day at Wallendbeen
Genevieve Jacobs ‘Anzac Day at Wallendbeen’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 Genevieve Jacobs gave the 2014 Anzac Day address at Wallendbeen, NSW (population 316). She is a presenter with ABC Local Radio, Canberra. 310 Jacobs Wallendbeen The speech questions high…
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Scanlon Foundation: social cohesion in Australia
Scanlon Foundation Mapping Social Cohesion Surveys [2007-date] Since 2007 the surveys have mapped ‘how Australia in the future can maintain the “immigration with social cohesion” success story of the last 5 decades’. In them, there is discussion of public opinion…
By appointment: a right royal Jauncey (22 May 2014)
The Jauncey pen this time passes to Sarah Brasch. That feisty Kiwi, Beatrice Jauncey, had plenty of opportunity to compare events in her native land with those in Australia. We don’t know what she thought about knights, dames and royal…
Diamadis, Panayiotis: Gallipoli before and beyond Anzac
Diamadis, Panayiotis ‘Gallipoli before and beyond Anzac’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 311 Gallipoli Before and Beyond Anzac Parts I-II This article originally appeared in To Vema, September-October 2013. To Vema is Australia’s largest circulation bilingual Hellenic-English newspaper. The article…
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Review note: Anzac miscellany 2014
‘Review note: Anzac miscellany 2014’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 Anzac Day and the period surrounding it always produces reflective pieces, as well as colour supplements and, increasingly, promotional links to football games. In 2014, 99 years on, the number…
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Maloney, Shane & Chris Grosz: Franz Ferdinand and platypus
Maloney, Shane & Chris Grosz ‘Archduke Franz Ferdinand & the platypus‘, The Monthly, May 2011 Whimsically explores the visit to Australia in 1893 of the unfortunate Archduke, noting his penchant for barbecued meat and for shooting large amounts of wildlife,…
Australian National Film Board: Postcards from Perth
Australian National Film Board ‘Postcards from Perth‘, historypunk Jo Hawkins of historypunk resurrected this wonderful 10 minute promotional film of Perth and surrounds, complete with great photography, lush soundtrack and equally lush BBC style voice-over. Comes with insightful text from…
Gaita, Raimond: Why study humanities?
Gaita, Raimond ‘Why study humanities?‘ The Conversation, 21 March 2014 Revised version of a talk to students in which Gaita talks about Indigenous Australians, Socrates, philosophy, the importance of becoming acquainted with great thinkers from the past, and the significance…
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Manne, Robert: Unlikely radical Malcolm Fraser
Manne, Robert ‘An unlikely radical‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 April 2014 Lengthy article based on interview with former prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, about his forthcoming book, Dangerous Allies. Fraser believes Australia should cut all military ties to the United States.…
ABC: Moral Compass on war and peace
ABC The Moral Compass, 27 April 2014 Geraldine Doogue talks with James Brown, author and former soldier, Leslie Cannold, ethicist, Ken Doolan, National President of the RSL, and Peter Stanley, social-military historian and President, Honest History, on issues to do…
Stephens, David: Parochial commemoration
Stephens, David ‘Parochial commemoration of war‘, Pearls and Irritations [John Menadue’s blog], 23 April 2014 Guest blog arguing that the Australian War Memorial narrowly defines its own legislation with the result that the Memorial ‘is missing many opportunities to expand…
Abbott, Tony: Anzac Day 2014
Tony Abbott Address to the Anzac Day national ceremony, Canberra, Friday, 25 April 2014 As someone who has never served in the armed forces, never faced a shot fired in anger, and never lost close family members in war, I…
Anzac, Bolt and Cater boost Honest History visits
Nick Cater in The Australian gave Anzac-questioning historians a serve and characterised Honest History (incorrectly) as their house organ. Cater’s commenters were reasonably evenly balanced. Andrew Bolt in the Herald-Sun and the Daily Telegraph quoted a slab of Mr Cater’s…
E-newsletter no.13, 30 April 2014
ISSN:2202-5561 © Honest History Inc. 2014 New on the site Alternative Anzac: Remembering and Healing in Lismore models a peaceful world Alison Broinowski on some exotic characters with Australian connections New members join the Honest History committee Paddy Gourley on a defence spending…
Davidson, Jim: Biography and Australian ambiences
Davidson, Jim ‘The biography as periscope: exploring Australian ambiences‘, Meanjin, 73, 1, March 2014 Looks at how biography gives ‘glimpses of another world. A life will progress from one ambience to another, and at certain points the biographer can pause…
Rose, James: Who profits from the Anzac brand?
Rose, James ‘Who profits from the Anzac brand?‘ The Saturday Paper, 19 April 2014 The Anzac legend is being further elevated as the nation gathers itself for the start of a year-long commemoration to mark 100 years since the doomed…
Pyne, Christopher: Crucible of nationhood
Pyne, Christopher ‘Crucible of nationhood‘, Pyne Online (originally published Australian Financial Review, 24-27 April 2014) The author is the Coalition’s Minister for Education. We should … remember how through this forge of war our infant nation reached out and grasped…
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Burnside, Sarah: Alternatives to Anzac Day
Burnside, Sarah ‘What would alternatives to Anzac day look like?‘ Guardian Australia, 23 April 2014 Discusses an ‘alternative national story’ derived from social democratic reforms prior to the Great War, which were interrupted by the destruction and disruption of the…
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Cannon, Paul: Fascism characteristics and Australia
Cannon, Paul ‘The characteristics of Fascism and how we might note its presence today‘, Parallax (blog), 27 January 2014 Update 2015: there is a speech here, another 1937 snapshot here and a discussion here. Compares the defining characteristics of…
Duffy, Conor: Anzac-themed cocktails
Duffy, Conor ‘Anzac-themed cocktails, plastic surgery shows sacred day is “for sale”, says veteran‘, ABC News, 24 April 2014 ABC report on wide range of uses of the Anzac ‘brand’ with reactions from RSL, commentators and commercial interests. Transcript.
Brissenden, Michael: Anzac centenary corporate fund lagging
Brissenden, Michael ‘Anzac Centenary public fund for 2015 celebrations falling millions of dollars short‘, ABC News, 22 April 2014 ‘A corporate fundraising drive to raise $170 million for the Anzac Centenary celebrations is running well short of its target. The…
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