The Secretary of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Major General Liz Cosson (Ret’d) told Senate Estimates last week (pp. 139-40 of the Proof Hansard) that the Dawn Service at Villers-Bretonneux, Anzac Day 2019, would not be held. Instead, there would…

Update 25 April 2019: Salvatore Babones writes in Quadrant, among other things referring to the Moses-Overlack book. *** John A. Moses (with Peter Overlack) has written First Know Your Enemy: Comprehending Imperial German War Aims & Deciphering the Enigma of…

Minister Chester has announced that the Hon Dr Brendan Nelson AO has been reappointed as Director of the Australian War Memorial until 31 December 2019. Dr Nelson’s previous term expired on 30 May 2019. Dr Nelson has also been conferred…

Honest History makes donations from book royalties to support secondary school history teachers and early career professional historians Update 18 June 2019: Dr Alison Bedford is awarded the inaugural AHA/Honest History scholarship. Update 22 May 2019: Applications open for first…

Update 12 February 2019: there’s to be an ’emotive’ concert on 24 April. Update 3 February 2019: Minister spruiks the Territory’s turbocharging of military tourism. ‘Military buffs will be lured to the Territory for the inaugural Territory Tribute event series,…

Congratulations to Honest History President, Professor Frank Bongiorno, and Vice President, Dr Alison Broinowski, both of whom became Members of the Order of Australia (AM) in Australia Day Honours announced today. Frank, Head of the School of History at ANU,…

The 1919 influenza pandemic had effects at least as profound as the Great War that preceded it. The City of Sydney and the Royal Australian Historical Society are running a symposium ‘Flu frenzy: Taming the 1919 Influenza Pandemic’ on Saturday,…

Minister Chester has announced the appointment of Brigadier Paul Nothard (Ret’d) to the statutory position (under the War Graves Act 1980) of Director of the Office of Commonwealth War Graves. Brigadier Nothard will also take up the position of National…

Dr Carolyn Holbrook, Alfred Deakin Research Fellow at Deakin University and a member of the Honest History committee, has been awarded an Australian Research Council Early Career Researcher Award for a study of attitudes towards federation since 1901. Congratulations to…

Distinguished historian of memory, Jay Winter, will deliver the first Ken Inglis Memorial Lecture in Canberra on 12 December. Details and RSVP. Professor Winter is from Yale University and was co-author with Professor Inglis on Dunera Lives: a Visual History.…

Update 20 November 2018: Francesca Beddie of Professional Historians Australia NSW writes about the symposium. More than one hundred souls turned out for the Honest History symposium in Canberra on 8 November. The tone was set by a heartfelt and…

Uniting behind the message ‘Honour them – promote peace’, Canberra citizens will hold a silent peace vigil across the road from the Australian War Memorial, commencing 10.30 am on Sunday, 11 November. Here are the details. ‘We will’, say the…

The Canberra launch of You Daughters of Freedom is at Paperchain Manuka on the evening of 7 November. Details and booking arrangements. Review of the book for Honest History by Diane Bell. More on the book. 26 October 2018

Canberra choir, A Chorus of Women, presents a new retelling of Glenda’s Cloughley’s community oratorio, A Passion for Peace, about the 1915 International Congress of Women and the founding of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. It is…

This week was ‘lists week’ in the media. This is an area of particular interest to Honest History because, more than ever, journalism and small-run publications are presenting the first draft of history. First, the Small Press Network announced the…

Bernard Whimpress’s 2006 paper on ‘Creeping Anzacism’ has been on our site since 2013 (although we now have a version of it with footnotes, thanks to the author). We draw attention to the paper again for two reasons, first, because…

Yesterday saw the launching of a volume of Charles Bean’s Western Front diary entries. Present at the Australian War Memorial were the Deputy Prime Minister, the editor of the volume, Peter Burness, Bean’s grand-daughter, Ms Anne Carroll, and the Memorial…

You Daughters of Freedom, a new book by distinguished historian Clare Wright, is to be published shortly by Text. Subtitled The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World, the book describes the struggle in the years 1902 to…

Honest History notes the death on 16 September of Emeritus Professor John Molony, distinguished historian across a wide range of subjects. He was 91 years of age. There is a notice in the Melbourne Age and in the Canberra Times.…

During Budget Estimates hearings, then Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon (NSW) asked Dr Brendan Nelson, Director of the Australian War Memorial, how much the Memorial had received in donations from military and defence firms. The answer covered the years 2015-16, 2016-17,…

News today that the current governor-general, Sir Peter Cosgrove – not ‘Sir Bill Cosby’, as a TV caption during the political crisis had him, but everyone was busy and the captioning robot wasn’t the only entity on autopilot – intends…

The Australian History Prize in the NSW Premier’s History Awards for 2018 has been awarded to Christina Twomey of Monash University for her book The Battle Within: POWs in Postwar Australia, published by NewSouth. Congratulations to Professor Twomey, who is…

Emily Gallagher is doing a PhD at ANU on the history of play and folklore in Australia over the years 1901-39. The era of ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’ and ‘Drop the hanky’ and much more besides. Pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey c. 1916…

We are always seeing books telling ‘previously untold’ stories about our wars. This one deserves the description more than most: Peter Monteath’s Captured Lives: Australia’s Wartime Internment Camps, from NLA Publishing. The author will be giving a lecture (NLA fourth floor…

Funnily enough, given the deja vu-ness of this week’s events in Canberra, some experts are getting together on 5 September to look at the use and abuse of history in the political process. Details are here. Speakers include Honest History…

This award was announced today in Books and Publishing. Douglas Hynd reviewed the book for Honest History. We thought the cover was pretty good, also. 17 August 2018

‘Presenting, choosing, measuring, changing history’ An Honest History symposium in conjunction with the Australian National University, Law Lecture Theatre, ANU, Canberra, Thursday, 8 November 2018 With Frank Bongiorno, Michael Brissenden, Alison Broinowski, Pamela Burton, Michael Cooney, Shaun Crowe, Paul Daley,…

Honest History president and ANU History head of school, Professor Frank Bongiorno, is in conversation with Peter Cochrane, author of the recently published Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, 1914-18. The event is at Muse Kingston at 3…

Australia’s professional historians are conferencing in Sydney at the end of this month (State Library of NSW) and the details are here. It’s on at the same time as the NSW Premier’s History Awards. The conference topic is ‘Marking Time’,…

Here is a media statement from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, noting the agreement by New Zealand to the United Nations treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons. While Australia has joined treaties banning chemical weapons, biological weapons, landmines and…

Jeff Grey: A Life in History, launch, 4.30 – 6.00 pm, Thursday, 2 August, UNSW Canberra; register Griffith Review 61: Who We Are launch, 3–4 pm, Sunday, 5 August, Muse, Kingston, Canberra; $12 (tickets available here) Peter Cochrane talks about…

ABC RN Breakfast this morning had a NAIDOC Week discussion between presenter Hamish Macdonald and four Indigenous Australians, Mikaela Jade (story-telling technology entrepreneur), Evelyn Araluen (poet and Indigenous literature researcher), Kris Rallah-Baker (opthalmologist), and Ben Abbatangelo (education mentor). Well worth…

If you missed the AHA Conference last week in Canberra (or couldn’t afford it) then ace blogger Yvonne Perkins tweeted up a storm here, keeping track of the event as it happened. Yvonne also blogs at Stumbling through the Past…

After due process for federal electorate redistribution in the ACT, the new third seat is to be named after Charles Bean, war correspondent and war historian. Announcement from the Australian Electoral Commission. Fairfax story. Michelle Grattan in The Conversation. Honest…

The Australian Historical Association’s annual conference is on in Canberra early in July and there are some sessions 3-6 July open to the public, including ones about the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Trove, animals, forests, the anthropocene, objects, migration, and…

Channel 9’s Chris Uhlmann will deliver the 19th Manning Clark Lecture at the ANU, Canberra, on 12 July at 7 pm. The title of the lecture is ‘Secret City: fact, fiction and Australian politics’. Details and booking arrangements. 16 June…

Update 4 July 2018: Bean gets up. Update 5 June 2018: Fairfax report on the hearing of the augmented Electoral Commission, which heard vigorous arguments for both Nott and Bean. Honest History has previously noted the electoral redistribution for the…

Honest History Treasurer, Michael Piggott AM, has joined a Deakin University Contemporary Histories Research Group Australian Research Council team as Senior Research Fellow. Michael will be based at the National Library for a year, developing and applying a methodology to…

As followers of his work will know, Honest History’s Past President, Professor Peter Stanley of UNSW Canberra, is an authority on, among other things, the military history of British India. Later in 2018 he is leading a UNSW Canberra Study…

News about the now well established, but rather different, Anzac Day events in Lismore in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales. Speakers include Honest History Vice President, Alison Broinowski. Details and contact information. There’ll also be some promotions…

The Prime Minister has announced that Lieutenant General Angus Campbell will become Chief of the Defence Force from July, replacing Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin. Major General Rick Burr is to become Chief of Army, replacing Lieutenant General Campbell. Rear…

These things are happening during Anzac season 2018: Frontier Wars Story Camp and Lest We Forget the Frontier Wars March, Canberra, 19-25 April; former ABC journalist, Peter Greste, has a two part doco on Sir John Monash (and his connections…

Albany Albany WA is the setting for something called ‘Convoy Campout’ on 24-25 April. It promises camping out under the stars, a range of Anzac-themed events and, from the money raised, a ‘contribution’ to the War Widows Guild. We are…

  Canberra The Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society at UNSW Canberra is running a symposium on 8 May on the topic ‘Why Australia went to the Great War’. Presenters are Greg Lockhart, John Mordike, Douglas…

Around 12 months ago, The Honest History Book became available in shops and online. We can report that the book, as of today, has sold 2060 copies, including 1880 hard copies, and is still selling. We reckon this shows there…

The Australian War Memorial has launched the ­Napier Waller Art Prize, the first national art prize offered ­exclusively to Defence personnel. (Memorial information on the prize. Fairfax story. Murdoch story.) The prize is open to all current and former Defence…

Honest History in 2018 – and possibly beyond The Honest History website (and the Honest History association) began in mid-2013. Since then we have placed on the website nearly 2800 posts and another 70 pages (including two editions of Honest…

The National Museum of Australia has just unveiled a new resource for secondary and tertiary students. It is called Australian Journey: The Story of a Nation in 12 Objects and it can be found on the NMA website and on…

Congratulations to Professor Janet McCalman, awarded AC in today’s list, and Professor Marilyn Lake, awarded AO. Both are at the University of Melbourne. Marilyn Lake was a member of Honest History’s original committee in 2013-14. 26 January 2018

The Australian National University, Canberra, has announced that it is ‘currently negotiating with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation to develop a new program in Western Civilisation to add to the University’s suite of undergraduate programs that includes European studies,…

Congratulations to Professor Tom Griffiths AO of the Australian National University who has received the ACT Book of the Year Award for his book, The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft. The book had already received the Ernest…

Honest History notes with sadness the departure of presenter Genevieve Jacobs from the ABC’s Canberra bureau. Genevieve worked closely with Honest History to present a regular fortnightly ‘Honest History spot’ on ABC Canberra Local Radio 666. This spot ran for…

We have received this message from the National Library of Australia: The Library is seeking your feedback on the extent to which our digitised material and online collections meet your research or study needs. We would like to know the…

Ken Inglis, Australian historian, died in Melbourne last Friday afternoon, aged 88. Ken’s books on a wide range of topics are an outstanding legacy to the study of Australian history and to Australia. His work on commemoration and memory has…

The 2018 Conference of the Australian Historical Association, ‘The Scale of History’, is on at the Australian National University in Canberra, 2-6 July 2018. Historians make choices about the scale of their inquiry. They set parameters for their projects –…

After running a separate What’s On page since we began the Honest History website, we now reckon the best way of keeping up with what’s happening – and adding value for readers – is for us to do individual website…

The Canberra group of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History and the School of History at the Australian National University are holding a seminar at the ANU on 4 November. Aspects of the tumultous year 1917 will…

If you happen to be in St Tropez between 9 and 15 October, look out for the 19th International Cinema of the Antipodes Festival (19es Rencontres Internationales du Cinéma des Antipodes). Among the films on show are classics like Forty…

Our last few weeks have been rather quieter as far as new posts go. A little bit of illness has stalked the ranks of the Honest History elves and this has slowed us down a mite. However, we have still…

The prime minister says Australia will be involved if North Korea attacks the United States in the current heated atmosphere. Indeed, ‘we are joined at the hip’ with the United States. He cites the ANZUS treaty. Even more relevant now…

We continue to move posts through the site fairly quickly so the place to go, if you know you have missed something or, indeed, to check what you may have missed unwittingly, is under our home page thumbnails, First Peoples,…

Honest History notes the death on 29 June of Emeritus Professor Antonio (Tony) Sagona of the University of Melbourne, and offers condolences to his friends and family. A death notice is here and the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Glyn…

Fourteen months ago, we posted on this website Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial. Since then the Guide has been downloaded more than 2000 times. A little more than two months ago, NewSouth published The Honest History…

We launched the Honest History website in November 2013. At that time we had about 600 posts on the site. In June 2017, we have more than 2500 posts on the site and most of those posts include links to…

Congratulations to Michael Piggott, who has been made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Queen’s Birthday honours list, ‘for significant service to the community as an archivist with national and international educational and cultural organisations, and…

Posted today in the Newtown Review of Books is a review of The Honest History Book by Adelaide author, Bernard Whimpress. This [the book] is a passionate argument for a wider Australian history. Never have so many ringing phrases from…

Author and commentator James Brown has been elected president of the New South Wales Branch of the Returned and Services League. Brown, now at the University of Sydney and formerly with the Lowy Institute, is a retired Captain in the…

The National Library of Australia is raising funds to preserve and improve access to the papers of Australian artist, Sidney Nolan. There are 160 boxes of material needing rehousing and description. Selective digitisation will give researchers and art-lovers access to…

The hardworking Heidelberg (Melbourne) Historical Society announces its ‘Remembering ’67’ exhibition, now open at the Heidelberg Historical Society Museum, Jika Street, Heidelberg, every Sunday between 2.00 and 5.00 p.m until December. The poster below gives a flavour – brings it…

At Glover Cottages, Kent Street, on 2 May, the first Tuesday after Anzac Day, a timely book edited by Dr David Stephens and Dr Alison Broinowski was on show to members and guests of the AIIA, New South Wales Branch.…

We at Honest History are very much aware that posts rumble through our site fairly rapidly. This note is to help you catch up with recent posts you might have missed. You can also go to the tagged lists under…

The Honest History Book launchathon ended last evening at Readings Carlton with about 50 people in attendance. Jonathan Green of Meanjin and ABC RN cycled up Lygon Street from the ABC to do the launch honours and co-editor David Stephens…

A wet night in Glebe yesterday saw the Sydney launch of The Honest History Book. Around 80 people braved the rain and found their way to the upper room at Gleebooks, where proceedings were wrangled efficiently by James Ross. David…

Last night around 60 people went to Muse Canberra to hear Professor Tom Griffiths AO of the ANU launch The Honest History Book in the national capital. Attendees agreed that the book is a significant contribution to Australian history and…

Ministers Bishop and Tehan and the Australian Federal Police have advised of ‘information which suggests terrorists may seek to target Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Turkish authorities are aware of this information and traditionally provide a high level…

Honest History congratulates Professor Tom Griffiths AO from the Australian National University, who was last night awarded the Ernest Scott Prize from the University of Melbourne for his book The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft. Tom Griffiths…

Update 29 March 2017: a recording of the broadcast. Late Night Live on Radio National tomorrow night (Tuesday, 28 March) will feature contributors to The Honest History Book, Alison Broinowski and Joy Damousi, talking to Phillip Adams about aspects of…

Our publisher NewSouth advises us that The Honest History Book is now widely available in book shops ($A34.99, $NZ42.99). We have seen a list of shops so far and are impressed by the initial take-up. (If your shop doesn’t have…

Even as we work up towards the launch (actually launches) of The Honest History Book – very time-consuming – we continue to feed our voracious website with items we have gleaned from other sources and with commissioned (and sometimes unsolicited)…

‘This is collective history at its finest.’  (Melanie Oppenheimer, Flinders University) What people are saying about The Honest History Book ‘[A] series of compelling, highly readable essays by some of Australia’s most distinguished historians.’ (Michelle Arrow, Macquarie University) ‘[A] primer…

Since our last newsletter in December, the Honest History team has been heavily invested in The Honest History Book but we have still found time to update the website regularly with links to useful resources, as well as the occasional…

Professor Frank Bongiorno of the Australian National University is the new president of the Honest History association. Frank is Professor of History at the ANU and has previously held appointments at Kings College London and the University of New England.…

Emeritus Professor Jill Roe AO died last week after a long illness. She was 76. Death and funeral notices are here along with a condolence book. An obituary by Daniela Torsh. A note from the History Council of NSW. Biography…

The Mid-Year Economic and Financial Outlook (MYEFO) statement came out this week and included these paragraphs relevant to national cultural institutions: The Government will provide $20.4 million over five years from the Public Service Modernisation Fund — Agency Sustainability Stream…

Festive greetings seem a mite incongruous in light of recent events in Berlin and Ankara and Aleppo (and in many less well reported locations) but we will pass them on anyway in the hope that they may add to the…

Frank Bongiorno, Associate Professor of History at ANU (and one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters) has been announced as the winner of the ACT Book of the Year Award for his book The Eighties: The Decade that Transformed Australia. Congratulations,…

As in recent months, we have been pushing quite a lot of material through the site, both commissioned work and links to other sources. Under our Top recent posts thumbnail you can find, for example, commissioned reviews of books on…

Below is a link to information about the UNSW Press Literary Fund. Donations to the Fund support all books published by NewSouth, including The Honest History Book, and are tax deductible. If you donate to the Fund we would love…

Honest History notes with regret the death of one of our Brisbane supporters, Dr Sigrid McCausland. Sigrid had been ill for some time. Sigrid had been a senior archivist in Canberra and president of the ACT Branch of the Labour…

We continue to move posts quickly through the site, mainly because we have become information-brokers (linking to useful resources within our areas of interest) as well as creators of original material. Readers can catch up with recent additions under our…

Australian MPs and Senators get Information Kits done for them by the Parliamentary Library. One such is headed ‘Anzac Day 2016’ and we have just discovered it. Right down the bottom of Section 2 ‘The relevance of Anzac’ is this…

The Honest History site continually tries to source significant material within our areas of interest and to post links accordingly. (We also commission lots of original material.) If readers need to know more about what our areas of interest are,…

John Menadue’s blog Pearls and Irritations continues to canvass a wide range of issues with a large collection of writers and usually from a different angle than is occupied by the remains of the Main Stream Media. In the latest…

Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney died yesterday in Canberra, aged 90. He was known as ‘the father of Australian archaelogy’, particularly because of his pioneering work on Indigenous Australia. An ABC News item on John Mulvaney and a collection of tweets…

One of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, Stuart Macintyre, has won the New South Wales Premier’s History Award for his book Australia’s Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s. Last year’s winner of this award, Joan Beaumont, is also a…

We have recently run a series called ‘Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context’. The series proved popular and timely, given the issues over the Long Tan commemoration and the official blind spots regarding aspects of the war…

Honest History records with sadness the death last week of Professor Jeffrey Grey of the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, Australian Defence Force Academy School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales…

Honest History is pleased that Richard Butler AC has agreed to become one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters. Mr Butler is a former senior diplomat, United Nations official and Governor of Tasmania. 25 July 2016

Warren Snowdon, MP for Lingiari in the Northern Territory, has been appointed Shadow Assistant Minister for the Centenary of Anzac. He had responsibility for this area in the most recent Labor government. The Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs is Amanda…

Paul Daley, author and journalist and one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, has written The Hansard Monologues: Age of Entitlement, using only the actual words uttered by our elected representatives. It is being presented at two locations in Sydney, in…

John Menadue, one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, and former senior public servant and diplomat, runs the Pearls and Irritations blog which has new posts on the South China Sea arbitration (Tony Kevin), how easily we in Australia go to…

We recall an old television or radio show which ended with the line ‘you have been watching, or you have just missed [name of show]’. This post serves the same purpose. Look out for these recent posts under the thumbnails…

The St Vincent de Paul Society (Vinnies) is again holding a CEO Sleepout to raise funds for homeless Australians. This year’s is on 23 June (except in Adelaide, where it has already happened). There is still (just) time to donate,…

Tom Griffiths‘ new book The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft is to be published by Black Inc. on 27 June. Update 26 October: our review of the book. Meanwhile, a fortunate mistake by the publisher means we…

On Anzac Day, Honest History posted our Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial. Six weeks later the Guide has been downloaded 1268 times and we suspect a good number of those downloads have been copied multiple times. We are…

Michael Piggott, National Library Fellow and Honest History Treasurer, is speaking at the National Library, Canberra, on 7 June on his work investigating the provenance of the manuscripts collected by Sir John Ferguson. Details (booking needed). Then, on 9 June,…

Many years ago, President Lyndon Baines Johnson thought of Australia as ‘the next large rectangular state beyond El Paso‘. Other American presidents may have felt similarly and some Australian governments have done their best to reinforce this attitude – with,…

Update 11 May 2016: a spokesperson for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs has advised that Wing Commander Bown commences her term on 3 June 2016 and Corporal Keighran commences his term on 30 June 2016. Minister Tehan has announced the…

The Sydney Writers Festival is on again from 16 to 22 May in, naturally enough, Sydney (and environs). Among the people featuring are a number of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, Michelle Arrow, Frank Bongiorno, Anna Clark, Carolyn Holbrook (also committee…

Professor Stuart Macintyre of the University of Melbourne has been awarded the inaugural Ernest Scott Prize for his book Australia’s Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s. A review note of the book is here and there is also…

It is six weeks since our last newsletter and we have been busy. You can track much of what has appeared on the website during that time by scrolling down Top Recent Posts, Reviews and Features. Or look at the…

Added to our collection ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery‘ is this article from March last year by David Stephens. It was originally published in Teaching History, the journal of the History Teachers’ Association…

Added to our collection ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery‘ is a link to extracts from a speech by Honest History committee member, Carolyn Holbrook, in Fremantle about this time last year. We noted…

Stan Grant, Wiradjuri journalist, is to head the Referendum Council on Indigenous recognition in the Australian Constitution. He has been appointed by the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. He replaces Pat Dodson, who is becoming a Labor…

There will be a number of Frontier Wars-related events in Canberra in the week leading up to Anzac Day: Frontier Wars Story Camp 2016, 18-24 April at the Aboriginal Embassy (details on Facebook; flyer); Dr Libby Connors, University of Southern…

Added to our collection ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery‘ is one of two forensic speeches by historian Douglas Newton in Anzac Week 2015. The speech covers respect for the dead, what Anzac commemorations…

SBS has resolved its dispute with former sports reporter, Scott McIntyre, who was sacked in 2015 after tweeting a number of comments on Anzac commemoration. The settlement terms were confidential. More. Still more. McIntyre is still without a job. Some…

Added to our collection ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery‘ is the 2014 Anzac Day address at Wallendbeen by Genevieve Jacobs, local resident, ABC Canberra presenter and host of the regular Honest History spot…

Stuart Macintyre of the University of Melbourne and Frank Bongiorno of the Australian National University are among the authors shortlisted for the Ernest Scott Prize for 2016, awarded by the Australian Historical Association. Professor Macintyre (shortlisted for Australia’s Boldest Experiment)…

It is six weeks since our last newsletter and we have been busy. You can track much of what has appeared on the website during that time by scrolling down Top recent posts, Reviews and Features. Or look at the…

For two years now, Honest History and ABC Local Radio Canberra 666 and online across Australia have been co-operating in a fortnightly spot on Tuesday mornings. Honest History finds the talent and presenter Genevieve Jacobs makes the final pick and…

The Prime Minister has announced his ministerial reshuffle. Dan Tehan, Liberal Member for Wannon in Western Victoria, is to be Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac. (The PM said ‘Veterans Services’…

Update 12 February 2016: will the departure of the Minister lead to a machinery of government change affecting Veterans’ Affairs? _____________________ Honest History has ‘crossed paths’ with Minister Robert a number of times since September last year, when he took…

Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, the Hon. Stuart Robert MP, has announced the appointment of Dr Craig Stockings of UNSW Canberra as the Official Historian for the engagements in Iraq,…

Honest History has been working (at slightly reduced capacity) over the Christmas and New Year holidays. You can track much of what has appeared on the website during that time by scrolling down Top recent posts, Reviews and Features. Look…

The Director of the Australian War Memorial, Dr Brendan Nelson, has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day honours. Dr Nelson’s award is for service to the Parliament of Australia, to the community, to…

David Morrison, formerly Chief of Army and now Australian of the Year 2016 and head of Diversity Council Australia, has made a number of speeches in recent years: March 2013 UN speech on sexism in the Australian Defence Force (with…

Dr Burcin Cakir is a Turkish post-doctoral student and an associate of Honest History who is working on Turkish materials relating to the Gallipoli campaign and its aftermath. She has a book in the works on memory and commemoration of…

Part of Australia’s history that is still being uncovered is the incidence and effect of nuclear testing by the United Kingdom government (with the support of the Australian government) in remote parts of Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. No-one…

The Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for 2015 have been announced, including the PM’s Prize for Australian History. The history prize was shared (as in 2014) this time between Ross Coulthart for his Charles Bean and David Horner for The Spy…

Last week we had the 161st anniversary of Eureka. This week there is the news that Ruby Entertainment has optioned the film and television rights for Clare Wright’s book The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka. The details are here and here.…

Dr Carolyn Holbrook, author of Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography has joined the committee of Honest History Incorporated. Dr Holbrook is a Research Fellow at Monash University, working with Professor James Walter on a history of Australian policy-making. Her Anzac book…

November 2015 marked two years since the Honest History website was launched by journalist and author, Paul Daley. To mark this anniversary, we have made some changes to the look of our home page. There is less text but more…

The Annual General Meeting of Honest History Incorporated was held on 19 November. All committee members, except Professor Melanie Oppenheimer, were available to continue in 2015-16 and were duly nominated and elected. A motion was passed thanking Professor Oppenheimer for…

Honest History has received confirmation from MSF Sweden that they have a ‘collaboration’ with perfumier Byredo on the Rose of No Man’s Land product. Neither MSF nor Byredo have said what proportion of the profits is being donated. The fragrance…

Tycoon and philanthropist Kerry Stokes has been appointed as Chair of the Council of the Australian War Memorial. Mr Stokes was recently elected to the position by his fellow Council members, replacing Rear Admiral Ken Doolan, who had served for…

Jeremy Lindsay Taylor and Sarah Snook are to star in a new film by Jennifer Perrott, the proceeds from which will go to help veterans suffering from PTSD. The short film is called The Ravens and Nick Galvin writes about…

Today saw the launch by Ross Gittins of a collection of articles on potential new policy directions for Australia. The articles originally appeared on John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations, and a number of them were linked from Honest History.…

Honest History vice president Alison Broinowski will be a panellist on the ABC’s QandA this evening at 9.35 pm Eastern. Other panellists are former foreign minister Bob Carr, the Lowy Institute’s Michael Fullilove, Emily Howie from the Human Rights Law…

During November ABC TV Education is re-running the education pieces spun off the excellent doco Lest We Forget What? with presenter Kate Aubusson and historians Joan Beaumont and Robin Prior. The doco was an eye-opener when first shown in April…

The ABC among other outlets runs a piece today on the 40th anniversary of the deaths of the Balibo Five, working journalists (Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart) taken out by Indonesian special forces in East…

Update 3 November 2015: and the winner is … General Morrison. Congratulations to him. Former Chief of Army, David Morrison, and current Australian War Memorial Director-General, Brendan Nelson, are among ACT nominees for Australian of the Year. Honest History congratulates…

Starting today and running till 11 November, the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, Canberra, with the assistance of journalist and author Paul Daley, is live tweeting the events leading up to the dismissal of the Whitlam Government…

‘Change and continuity at Honest History’, Honest History, 13 October 2015 There are some changes under way at Honest History, leading up to the second anniversary of our website early in November. But there is continuity as well. Let us…

Congratulations to Honest History distinguished supporter, Carolyn Holbrook, who has won a 2015 Queensland Literary Award for her book, Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography. The book won the University of Southern Queensland History Book Award, worth $10 000. The thesis on…

Australian author and commentator, Gideon Haigh, has agreed to become a distinguished supporter of Honest History. Gideon has written more than 30 books, on subjects ranging from cricket to the car industry and from digital media to working in offices.…

One of Honest History’s closest followers in Federal Parliament, Andrew Nikolic, MP for the Tasmanian seat of Bass, has lost his position as Deputy Liberal Party Whip, following the change of Liberal leadership. Honest History would have liked to send…

New prime minister, new war, old war powers, a long history of Australian involvement in wars. Time for a change? Friday, 23 October, sees an all day seminar at the Australian National University, Canberra, on Legislating reform of the war…

The Canberra Times reports progress on a plan to erect in the grounds of the Australian War Memorial a shrine or monument to the families of Australian service personnel. Public and corporate donations will be sought. The leader of the…

If, as a loyal supporter of the Honest History enterprise, you have not yet seen the way clear to make a modest donation to the venture, we would love to take some of your money. We are pushed along entirely…

John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations, contains three articles on developments in Syria. Former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Stuart Harris, believes Australia should turn down the United States request to join in airstrikes. Former Ambassador to the…

Less marked in Australia but nevertheless significant in the sweep of world history is the 75th anniversary of the assassination of Trotsky in Mexico, 20 August 2015. An important figure in Soviet Russia in the earlier years after the 1917…

University of Melbourne Professor, Janet McCalman, is wrangling an important research project on the repatriation records of the First AIF. She talked about the project to Geraldine Doogue on the ABC. Called Diggers to Veterans: Risk, Resilience and Recovery in…

An important episode of Australia’s wartime history remembered again at Hay, where the Dunera boys were first sent after arrival in Australia. Details are in our What’s On information, look under Hay, NSW. The Dunera Association in conjunction with Dunera…

Springtime it seems to bring on the seminars. In Sydney on 8 September there is an all day session at the State Library on public and popular histories of Anzac. So what do ordinary Australians think about Anzac? What sorts…

Alert readers will have noticed (and many will have read) our offerings over the last few months from the archives of noted Australian historian, Humphrey McQueen. Some time ago, Humphrey made available to us much of his out-of-copyright material, some…

Australian-Armenian man Sassoon Grigorian is going on a charity walk to Mount Ararat in Turkey to raise money for Syrian refugees of Armenian background. This effort recalls a history of Australian assistance to people in the origin, dating back to…

We hope that both The Monthly Today and The Conversation are these days getting more readers than the venerable organs (or the organs owned by the venerable) but, just in case you missed them, here are links to Sean Kelly…

One of the recurring themes of Australian political history has been the rise and fall of Labour newspapers. The ALP has relaunched the Labor Herald as an online journal, a few years after its previous incarnation was executed or fell…

Minister Ronaldson has publicised the annual fundraising appeal for the Weary Dunlop Foundation. Honest History is making a modest donation to the appeal. The Foundation focuses on the prevention and treatment of illnesses affecting veterans and their families. The appeal…

The Australian War Memorial has announced that a further volume is to be produced on the medical aspects of the Vietnam War, with particular reference to the effects of Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant alleged to have affected the health…

Former senior Commonwealth public servants, John Menadue and Michael Keating, have completed their wrangling of a large collection of papers on policy options for Australia. The papers, produced by a number of distinguished authors, are to be published shortly in…

Malcolm Turnbull’s website contains the full text of his speech last night to the Sydney Institute. There is also a pdf. The speech has been widely reported (Australian, ABC, Fairfax, Guardian). The speech is entitled ‘Magna Carta and the rule…

John Menadue’s blog Pearls and Irritations has been assembling a collection of articles to fill the policy vacuum which many people believe exists in modern Australia. The collection is now complete. There are 49 articles in 15 policy areas from…

Dr Adele Chynoweth is a Visitor within ANU’s Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies and she is doing a survey as part of her research on the public history of Forgotten Australians. The survey is targeted at academic researchers in the…

The Hume Leader reports Honest History’s opinion that there is no evidence that Ataturk ever said the ‘Johnnies and Mehmets’ words attributed to him. Hume City Council plans to include the words on a memorial to be built in Broadmeadows.…

How does Australia Go to War? is a new publication by Australians for War Powers Reform and it will be launched in Canberra on 24 June by Senator Scott Ludlam, Melissa Parke MP and Andrew Wilkie MP. The details of…

Assiduous followers of Honest History will know that we have links on our home page to sections of the site that we try to update reasonably regularly. Apart from the venerable ‘Centenary Watch‘, which we know is a favourite read…

Amanda Laugesen, Director of the Australian National Dictionary Centre at the ANU, has a regular ‘Wordwatch’ column in the ANU Reporter. Her latest piece turns the spotlight on ‘Anzackery’. Dr Laugesen says the use of the word Anzackery reflects a…

A paragraph buried in a recent interview suggests there is more willingness at the Memorial to look beyond battles and burials, derring-do and dioramas. But will it be enough? Centenary Watch has more. 28 May 2015

John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations, continues to roll out thoughtful papers on policy options for Australia. There have been 20 or so papers already on democratic renewal, the role of government, foreign policy, the economy and retirement incomes, and…

We at Honest History are gradually building up our Facebook presence. For now, we are just using Facebook as another means of posting material that is also on the website – both new material and good stuff from the vault…

Two former heads of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet are to be joint editors of an ambitious series of policy papers on John Menadue’s blog Pearls and Irritations. Menadue was Gough Whitlam’s private secretary, then head of…

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

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

Update 21 August: Lists and Random strands In recent weeks we have been introducing changes to the way the Honest History website works. We want to help readers find and explore the full scope of the rich content we are…