Derek Abbott* ‘A personal memoir from a safe pair of hands: Steve Gower on the Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 2 July 2019 Derek Abbott reviews The Australian War Memorial: A Century on from the Vision, by Steve Gower Steve…
Hover to preview, click for details:
Derek Abbott* ‘A rewarding and timely book on Russians who came to Australia’, Honest History, 17 June 2021 Derek Abbott reviews Sheila Fitzpatrick’s White Russians, Red Peril: a Cold War History of Migration to Australia Immigration into Australia seems always…
Derek Abbott* ‘Geoffrey Blainey’s engaging narrative of his emergence as man and historian’, 9 August 2019 Derek Abbott reviews Geoffrey Blainey’s Before I Forget: An Early Memoir Geoffrey Blainey is one of Australia’s most highly regarded and most prolific historians.…
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…
Abbott, Tony Remarks at the 1st Brigade Welcome Home Reception, Parliament House, Darwin, 1 March 2014 The Prime Minister noted that the Afghanistan commitment had been inconclusive militarily but praised the social contribution made by Australian forces. Thanks to you,…
Tony Abbott Address to Legacy Clubs of Australia 2013 National Conference, Brisbane, 18 October 2013 The new prime minister spoke about the Anzac tradition. Yes, as all of us know, Gallipoli was in a sense, the cauldron that helped to…
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…
ABC Local Radio ‘Liz Tynan on the secret history of Maralinga‘, Conversations with Richard Fidler, 9 August 2016 The ABC (actually Sarah Kanowski) talked to science journalist Elizabeth Tynan (49 minutes) about her book on the British nuclear tests at…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Reality of war
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…
ABC TV ‘Clare Wright‘, ABC News 24 One-plus-One, 24 April 2015 (video only) Historian Clare Wright talks with Jane Hutcheon about her early life, her early work on women in the liquor industry, her Stella Prize-winning book The Forgotten Rebels…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, People like us, Using and abusing history
ABC News ‘Australian War Memorial director Brendan Nelson to step down from top job at end of year‘, ABC News, 15 August 2019 Covers announcement by Director to staff, announcement by Minister, statement by Leader of the Opposition. An end…
ABC News ‘Time for a new flag?‘ ABC News, 16 March 2014 Debate between John Blaxland, ANU academic, ex-Army officer and vexillologist, and Don Rowe, New South Wales President of the RSL, on whether Australia needs a new flag. One…
ABC Radio National ‘Shell shock: a century of silence‘, Big Ideas, 25 April 2016 The affects and significance of shell shock have been underplayed for a century, according to Yale emeritus professor, Jay Winter. (Professor Winter is also associated with…
ABC Radio National ‘Hot summer land [three parts], Earshot, 18-20 April 2016 updated Part one: anticipation; part two: fires; part three: rivers. Listeners’ stories and guest commentary (host Kirsti Melville) on how the Australian landscape changed during the three months…
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
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…
ABC Radio National ‘Feeding curiosity‘, Ockham’s Razor, 24 January 2016 Robyn Williams introduces Peter Macinnis, former science teacher and now writer of history books, who talks whimsically about he enjoys and writes history. Audio and transcript.
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 RN ‘Everyone loves Trove‘, Late Night Live, 20 March 2019 Phillip Adams talks to Liz Stainforth, visiting researcher from the UK, and Alison Dellit, National Library officer in charge of Trove, described as a ‘digital heritage aggregator, which is…
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
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…
ABC Radio National ‘A history of mental illness in Australia‘, The Drawing Room, 28 April 2016 Patricia Karvelas talks to Professor Katie Holmes of La Trobe and Professor Mark Finnane of Griffith on aspects of mental illness, including inter-generational impacts…
ABC RN ‘How Greeks Americanised Australia‘, The Drawing Room, 22 March 2016 A tribute (audio, no transcript) to Paragon Cafes throughout the wide brown land. Effy Alexakis and Leonard Janiszewski talk to Patricia Karvelas about their extensive work on Greek…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
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…
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…
Norman Abjorensen ‘Australia’s great political shift‘, Inside Story, 28 July 2017 On the eve of Liberal and Coalition party meetings on an issue – marriage equality – which has, for some people at least, a religious element, this piece is…
Norman Abjorensen ‘Before the triumphs and the tragedies‘, Inside Story, 2 June 2020 Review of Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin: The Making of the Modern Labor Party, by Liam Byrne. It was a time of intense political ferment [says…
Norman Abjorensen ‘Ben Chifley’s botched attempt to nationalise Australia’s banks‘, Canberra Times (Public Sector Informant), 6 June 2017 Against the background of another poke at banking power, this time by a conservative government, this is a concise summary of Chifley’s…
Norman Abjorensen ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the leader?‘ Inside Story, 18 November 2019 Marks the release of an updated edition of the author’s The Manner of Their Going: Prime Ministerial Exits in Australia. (Michael Piggott reviewed the first edition of…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Norman Abjorensen ‘Keeping the country in the coalition‘, Inside Story, 23 February 2018 Useful background to the current upheavals within and beyond the National Party. Regardless of how this latest conflict plays out, it is just another chapter in a…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Norman Abjorensen ‘Politicians behaving badly‘, Inside Story, 28 November 2016 If the Trump victory in the United States represented a backlash against a perceived self-interested “political class,” just as the Brexit vote did in Britain, Australia is by no means…
Abjorensen, Norman ‘Prime ministerial exits’, Honest History, 24 February 2014 Norman Abjorensen talks to Honest History about the way Australian prime ministers leave their jobs and how they feel about the process. He discusses PMs Alfred Deakin (something of a…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Norman Abjorensen ‘The art of being prime minister‘, Inside Story, 29 September 2017 Long review of Paul Strangio, Paul ’t Hart and James Walter, The Pivot of Power: Australian Prime Ministers and Political Leadership, 1949–2016, which is the second volume…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Norman Abjorensen ‘The long Liberal split‘, Inside Story, 8 February 2017 Triggered by the departure of Senator Bernardi to become an independent conservative, this piece by a long-time Liberal watcher looks at a century of splits and dissension on the…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Abjorensen, Norman The Manner of Their Going: Prime Ministerial Exits from Lyne to Abbott, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2015 A study of the departures of all our prime ministers, from the one who was commissioned but never served (Lyne)…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Abjorensen, Norman ‘The meaning of John Howard‘, Inside Story, 1 March 2016 updated Written to mark the 20th anniversary of the coming to power of the Howard Government. Abjorensen is the doyen of the rise and fall of prime ministers,…
Norman Abjorensen ‘The party switchers‘, Inside Story, 9 May 2017 Provoked by the puzzling switch of former Labor leader, Mark Latham, to the Liberal Democrats, this is a concise summary of rats, code switchers and swappers of horses, state and…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Abjorensen, Norman ‘Uneasy lies the head‘, Inside Story, 15 September 2015 Australia’s leading scholar of prime ministerial departures examines the latest one in its historical context, noting the difficulty that recent prime ministers (Hawke, Rudd, Gillard) have had in surviving…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Academy of Science multiple authors ‘History and biographies‘, Australian Academy of Science Links to historical material on science, including interviews with distinguished scientists
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving
ACARA multiple authors ‘The Australian Curriculum“, Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) Curriculum resources and information for Australian Curriculum: History Foundation to Year 12 and for other subject areas.
Click here for all items related to: Teaching history
Ackland, Richard ‘Mass surveillance makes us servants of the state: that’s chilling‘, Guardian Australia, 26 May 2015 Text of the PEN Free Voices lecture at the Sydney Writers Festival, 24 May 2015. There were more than 50 comments. Censorship, control…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
Ackland, Richard ‘Welcome back to White Australia‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 February 2014 Places 2014 in a historical context and looks at possible policy alternatives for dealing with asylum seeker arrivals. There were more than 800 comments on the article.…
ACOSS Inequality in Australia: a Nation Divided, Australian Council of Social Services, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2015 Summary of key findings Income Inequality Inequality in Australia is higher than the OECD average – a person in the top 20% income group…
Acquroff, Nick ‘Westography: images of a vanished suburbia‘, Broadsheet, 5 July 2016 This is a story about a book of photographs, Westography, by Warren Kirk. The pictures are taken around the inner western suburbs of Melbourne. There are a dozen…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Patsy Adam-Smith The Anzacs, Sphere Books, Melbourne, 1981; first published 1978; later editions Based on thousands of letters and diaries of World War I soldiers. It is time to strip the film from honour-dimmed eyes and face the uncomfortable, terrible…
Adoniou, Misty, Bill Louden & Glenn C. Savage ‘What will changes to the national curriculum mean for schools? experts respond‘, The Conversation, 23 September 2015 We have been following this issue closely, particularly in relation to the history curriculum, ever…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving
AHA multiple authors ‘Resources‘, Australian Historical Association Links to many cultural institutions and archives bodies, federal and state, as well as to the National Library’s Trove resource.
Australian Human Rights Commission Working Group Leading for Change: A Blueprint for Cultural Diversity and Inclusive Leadership, The Commission, Sydney, 2016 The Working Group was chaired by Tim Soutphommasane, Race Discrimination Commissioner, and included Greg Whitwell, Rae Cooper, Ainslie Van…
Ainley, John & Eveline Gebhardt Measure for Measure: A Review of Outcomes of School Education in Australia, Australian Council for Educational Research, Camberwell, Vic., 2013 Looks at studies of reading, mathematics and numeracy, science and other subjects, with some historical…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving
Ayhan Aktar * ‘Rewriting the history of Gallipoli: a Turkish perspective‘, Honest History, 25 July 2017 updated The history of the Gallipoli campaign has been contested in Turkey for many decades. The commemorations of the Ottoman naval victory of 18…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
Ayhan Aktar ‘The struggle between nationalist and jihadist narratives of Gallipoli, 1915-2015‘, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Vol. 56, No. 2, April 2020, pp. 213-28 (paywall) There have been a number of milestones in the (re-)writing of the history of…
Kristen Alexander* ‘Readable account of Australian POWs in Japan – though it lacks a bit of context’, Honest History, 14 May 2021 Kristen Alexander reviews Mark Baker’s The Emperor’s Grace: Untold Stories of the Australians Enslaved in Japan during World…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Kristen Alexander* ‘They also served: Australians dealing with the challenge of captivity during the Great War’, Honest History, 13 March 2020 Kristen Alexander reviews Surviving the Great War: Australian Prisoners of War on the Western Front, 1916-18, by Aaron Pegram…
Mark Alfano ‘They shall not die in vain: how the Islamic State honours its fallen soldiers – and how Australians do the same‘, The Conversation, 20 August 2018 Perceptive piece from a philosopher; based on frequency analysis of Islamic State…
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
AllDownUnder multiple authors ‘Australian songs‘, AllDownUnder.com Contains lyrics, audio and video of 100 Australian songs that ‘have captured our history’.
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Christopher Allen ‘Artists of the Great War: the pity and the propaganda‘, The Australian, 18 March 2017 A review of a current exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (closes in June). We have not ceased to be fascinated…
Liz Allen ‘Australia doesn’t have a population policy – why?’, The Conversation, 3 July 2017 updated Despite recommendations from inquiries over a number of years, Australia lacks a population policy. Includes key graphs covering decades and concludes as follows: A…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Alomes, Stephen ‘Our national folly: war romance and the Australian national imaginary‘, Anne-Marie Hede & Ruth Rentchsler, ed., Reflections on ANZAC Day: From One Millennium to the Next, Heidelberg Press, Heidelberg, Vic., 2010, pp. 89-105 (text made available by the…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Altman, Dennis 51st State? Scribe, Carlton North, 2006 Considers Australian identity in the context of the relationship with the United States, particularly how Australia imagines its future.
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Altman, Dennis Defying Gravity: A Political Life, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1997; Australian Public Intellectuals Network, Perth, 2004 Altman has been a gay activist and writer for more than four decades.
Altman, Dennis The End of the Homosexual, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 2013 The book ‘connects what has happened within the changing queer world over the past forty years to larger social, political and cultural trends. This is…
Dennis Altman ‘From a drowning to a celebration’, Inside Story, 11 December 2012 Edited version of a Dunstan Lecture, describing forty years of gender politics in Australia.
Anderson, Deb ‘Drought, endurance and ‘The way things were’: the lived experience of climate and climate change in the Mallee‘, Australian Humanities Review, 45, November 2008 Oral history piece on how experience of regular drought came together with experience of…
Fay Anderson ‘We censor war photography in Australia – more’s the pity‘, The Conversation, 4 May 2015 You may have noticed we recently marked the centenary of Anzac. One hundred years after Gallipoli, we are seeing photographs of telegenic young…
Anderson, Jaynie, ed. ‘Australian art historiography‘, Journal of Art Historiography, 4, June 2011 (special issue) Articles on the canon, Aboriginal art, Australian and New Zealand art, curators and curating, Bernard Smith, Daryl Lindsay, Ursula Hoff, Joseph Burke, photography and other…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Anonymous. Bibliography of Australian History Wikipedia. Patchy, but has some useful entries. Links to timeline and general history entries.
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Ansara, Martha The Shadowcatchers: A History of Cinematography in Australia, Austcine Publishers, Artarmon, NSW, 2012 The Shadowcatchers, a comprehensive history of Australian cinematography, presents over 380 photographs of working cinematographers from 1901 to the present, with a ground-breaking, highly readable…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
David Stephens ‘Anzac and Anzackery: speech to Kogarah Historical Society, 14 May 2015′, Honest History, 9 June 2015 I acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this land, and their elders past and present. I…
Anzac Centenary Advisory Board Report to Government: 1 March 2013, Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Canberra, 2013 The Board’s Chair is Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston (Ret’d), former Chief of the Australian Defence Force. The report is of great interest for…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
APH multiple authors Australian Politics and History An enterprise based at Deakin University, which partners with the Australian National University, the University of New England, the History Council of New South Wales and the Australian Historical Association. The site includes…
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history
Graeme Aplin, Graeme, SG Foster & Michael McKernan, ed. Australians: A Historical Dictionary, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 A collection of short (and a few long) articles on people, institutions and events, with well-chosen illustrations from a…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Graeme Aplin, SG Foster & Michael McKernan, ed. Australians: Events and Places, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 One of the volumes in Australians: A Historical Library, containing a chronology of events from 1788 and timelines of Aboriginal…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
APO multiple authors Australian Policy Online Policy Online is a research database and alert service providing free access to full text research reports and papers, statistics and other resources essential for public policy development and implementation in Australia and New…
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history
Gabrielle Appleby & Sean Brennan ‘The long road to recognition‘, Inside Story, 19 May 2017 updated Updated 24 May 2017: Paul Daley in Guardian Australia: Given the disparate experiences [says Daley] of delegates and their divergent views (on recognition versus…
Appleby, Gabrielle ‘What say do our elected representatives have in going to war?‘ The Conversation, 10 December 2015 updated The authorisation of military force is one of the most serious and consequential powers that governments possess. This power should be…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
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,…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Arbuckle, Alex Q. ‘1965-1975 another Vietnam: unseen images of the war from the winning side‘, Mashable, 5 February 2016 Next month, 8 March, is the 50th anniversary of the Australian government’s announcement that its commitment to the Vietnam War would…
Archer, Robin, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot & Sean Scalmer, ed. The Conscription Conflict and the Great War, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Collection with articles by the editors, Douglas Newton, Frank Bongiorno, John Connor and Ross McKibbin. While the Great…
Archives A.C.T. Find of the Month 2008- This is a treasure trove of local (in this case, Canberra and A.C.T.) history as found in files in the A.C.T. Archives. The idea is simple: pull out a file and present the…
Fred Argy Australia at the Crossroads: Radical Free Market or a Progressive Liberalism? Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1998 An adviser to governments of both sides expressed concern about the effects of economic liberalism, freeing up trade and investment…
Fred Argy Where to From Here? Australian Egalitarianism under Threat, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2003 Looked at the effects of economic policy on Australia’s traditional ‘fair go’, the impact of globalisation, the attitudes of the community, politicians and…
Kate Ariotti & James E. Bennett, ed. Australians and the First World War: Local-Global Connections and Contexts, Palgrave-Springer, New York & Heidelberg, 2017; e-book available by chapters This book contributes to the global turn in First World War studies by…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Home front, People like us
Armstrong, Mick ‘Disturbing the peace: riots and the working class‘, Marxist Left Review, 4, Winter 2012 In this article [Mick writes] I want to look at the long and proud history of riots in Australia and take on the arguments…
Mick Armstrong ‘The radicalisation of the campuses 1967-74‘, Australian National University course material for ‘Marxist interventions’ course Based on a chapter from Armstrong’s (now hard to get) book, One, Two Three, What are We Fighting For? (Socialist Alternative, Melbourne 2001).…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves
Michelle Arrow & Frank Bongiorno ‘The real “history war” is the attack on our archives and libraries‘, Brisbane Times, 16 September 2022 (and other Nine Newspapers) updated; pdf from our subscription Chronicles the gradual running down of our national cultural…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Arrow, Michelle ‘Damned Whores and God’s Police is still relevant to Australia 40 years on – more’s the pity‘, The Conversation, 21 September 2015 The article marks four decades since Anne Summers’ book. A conference is under way. Anne Summers’…
Michelle Arrow Friday on Our Minds: Popular Culture in Australia since 1945, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009 Looks at popular culture since World War II through the lenses of consumerism, the impact of technological change and the…
Michelle Arrow ‘The Making History initiative and Australian popular history’, Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, 15, 11, 2011, pp. 153-74; reprinted in Jerome de Groot, ed., Public and Popular History, Routledge, London & New York, 2012 [The…
Michelle Arrow The Seventies: The Personal, the Political and the Making of Modern Australia, NewSouth, Sydney, 2019; electronic version available In 1970 homosexuality was illegal, God Save the Queen was our national anthem and women pretended to be married to access the…
Art and design ‘1930s Australia: the art deco designs ushering in a brave new world – in pictures‘, Guardian Australia, 14 July 2017 We normally try to find an author for our posts. No luck this time, but we’ll still…
Susan Arthure, Fidelma Breen, Stephanie James & Dymphna Lonergan, ed. Irish South Australia: New Histories and Insights, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2019 Irish South Australia charts Irish settlement from as far north as Pekina, to the state’s south-east and Mount Gambier. It…
Linden Ashcroft, David Karoly & Joelle Gergis ‘Delving through settlers’ diaries can reveal Australia’s colonial-era climate‘, The Conversation, 10 February 2017 ‘To really understand climate change’, the authors say, ‘we need to look at the way the climate behaves over…
Ashenden, Dean ‘The Australian wars that Anzac Day neglects‘, Eureka Street, 21 April 2013 Notes that the frontier wars are not recognised at the Australian War Memorial and other memorials and argues that ‘public and popular history should record the…
Dean Ashenden ‘Saving the War Memorial from itself‘, Inside Story, 15 January 2019 updated Long article canvassing many aspects of the War Memorial’s current direction, from its refusal to recognise the Frontier Wars, to the composition of its Council, and…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, People like us, Ruling ourselves, Using and abusing history
Ashenden, Dean ‘The educational consequences of the peace‘, Inside Story, 28 July 2016 Long article on the history of education policy from the nineteenth century, through the Labor Split of 1955, the Goulburn schools boycott in 1962 to the Karmel…
ASHET multiple authors Australian Society for History of Engineering and Technology Links to material about aspects of this sector, including articles on aviation, locomotion, bridges, telephones, frozen meat and sheep shearing.
ASSH multiple authors Australian Society for Sports History (website) Links to publications and other resources.
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
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…
Alan Atkinson & Marian Aveling, ed. Australians 1838, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 Twenty-five contributing authors describe Australia around 1838, looking at Aborigines, families, work, markets, government, justice and other topics. The diversity of Australian history –…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Atkinson, Alan The Europeans in Australia, Volume 3: Nation, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014 Follows Volume 1: The Beginning (1997) and Volume 2: Democracy (2004). This is the third and final volume of the landmark, award-winning series The Europeans in Australia that gives an…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Bain Attwood The Good Country: The Djadja Wurrung, the Settlers and the Protectors, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2017 A local history of the Djadja Wurrung people of Central Victoria, looking at the relationship between the people of this Aboriginal nation,…
ATUA multiple authors Australian Trade Union Archives Portal to archival resources, published material and information about Australian industrial organisations, mainly including trade unions and also employer bodies.
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…
Austin, AG & RJW Selleck, ed. The Australian Government School, 1830-1914: Select Documents with Commentary, Pitman, Carlton, Vic., 1975 Pioneering study in education history.
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving
Austin, AG Australian Education, 1788-1900: Church, State, and Public Education in Colonial Australia, Pitman, Carlton, Vic., 1961; online version available Pioneering study of early education in Australia. Does not mention Aboriginal education. See also this on the Education Acts of…
Australia. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade FOI disclosure log reference nos 15/25024 and others, Freedom of Information This material was disclosed under FOI to Vache Kahramanian on behalf of the Armenian National Committee of Australia. Reference number 15/25024 is…
Australia Australian Dance Portal site with brief history and many links to relevant sites and material.
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Australia Australian Inventions Portal site linking to many resources about the history of Australian inventing. Australian inventions have assisted with everyday activities such as hanging out the clothes to dry on a rotary washing line, putting food into the fridge…
Australia Film in Australia Portal site with brief history and many links to relevant sites and material.
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Australia Science and Technology Web portal to official sites in this field, including the National Library’s list of science and technology sites, the CSIRO, Questacon, defence science, and links to material on all branches of science, including from a historical…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving
Australia in the 21st Century (A21C) ‘We need a transformational foreign policy: Submission to the Minister for Foreign Affairs for the White Paper on Foreign Affairs and Trade‘, Pearls and Irritations, 9 December 2016 The submission is headed ‘FILLING THE…
Australian Bureau of Statistics ‘GDP growth moderates as dwelling investment and exports detract from growth‘ (Media release, 7 June 2017) Growth actually slowed in the March quarter (0.3 per cent) and the ABS presser was ‘just the facts’ but those…
Australian Council of Trade Unions 75th Anniversary Commemorative Booklet, ACTU, Melbourne, 2002 Basic illustrated history of union activity from the viewpoint of the peak body.
Australian Government Government Response to the Report of the Anzac Centenary Advisory Board on a Program of Initiatives to Commemorate the Anzac Centenary The response accepted 22 recommendations in full and three in principle. (The ‘in principle’ responses were to…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
Australian Medical Association More Than Just a Union: A History of the AMA, AMA, Canberra, 2012; downloadable A brief history, describing the development of the profession, changes in medicine and the role of the AMA in politics. 10 October 2013
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Australian Music History multiple authors Australian Music History A compendium popular music website with news items and comprehensive listings of bands, musicians and related information.
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
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…
Australian National University Noel Butlin Archives Centre The Noel Butlin Archives Centre (NBAC) collects business and labour records from Australian companies, trade unions, industry bodies and professional organisations. We are a national organisation interested in material from all states and…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Australian Screen multiple authors ‘All music‘, Australian Screen Online audio archive.
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Australian Screen multiple authors Australian Screen: History of Australian Film and Television Dozens of clips from Australian productions with teacher’s notes for some.
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Australian Screen multiple authors Australian Screen: Historical Collection of video and audio clips dating back to c. 1900, including rare footage of troops embarking for overseas, at Gallipoli, in France and returning home in 1918.
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Australian Teachers of Media Metro Magazine Screen Education Study Guides The site contains links to many resources, notably study guides to many Australian television productions, including The War That Changed Us, Gallipoli, and Australia: the Story of Us, all reviewed…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Australian War Memorial Afghanistan: The Australian Story Online version of exhibition at the Memorial opened August 2013. Stresses the impact on soldiers and families. Contains many short videos of soldiers’ and families’ stories. Honest History noted the exhibition here (under…
Australian War Memorial Australians at War Massive store of materials, under concise summaries, relating to the colonial period and 14 theatres of war. Includes links to the complete text of the official histories of the two World Wars, the Korean…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Home front, Reality of war
Australian War Memorial Reality in Flames: Modern Australian Art & the Second World War Opened on 3 July 2015, this is ‘the first exhibition dedicated exclusively to exploring how Australian modernist artists responded creatively to the Second World War’. Modern…
Why did the Australian War Memorial spend $366 000 on a painting depicting a massacre of Indigenous Australians by white settlers (when it refuses to commemorate the Frontier Wars)? The Australian War Memorial has acquired and unveiled the 1985 painting…
Australian War Memorial multiple authors ‘Education publications‘, Australian War Memorial Portal to small selection of AWM publications, including posters, teachers’ notes, and the substantial booklets M is for Mates: Animals in Wartime from Ajax to Zep, Forever Yours: Stories of…
Vicken Babkenian & Judith Crispin ‘Australia’s Armenian Story‘, Inside Story, 6 April 2017 This is a long extract from chapter 3 of The Honest History Book, published by NewSouth. It deals with the Armenian Genocide, which commenced 24 April 1915…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, People like us, Reality of war
Vicken Babkenian & Peter Stanley Armenia, Australia and the Great War, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016; available electronically Australian civilians worked for decades supporting the survivors and orphans of the Armenian Genocide. 24 April 1915 marks the beginning of two great epics of…
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…
Vicken Babkenian ‘Gladys Berejiklian, the Great War, Gallipoli and the Armenian Genocide‘, Independent Australia, 30 January 2017 Marks the election of Australia’s first premier of Armenian ethnicity. Ms Berejiklian’s grandparents were among those liberated by Allied forces in 1918, surviving…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, People like us, Reality of war
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…
Bach, Willy ‘Anzac-ed out 2015‘, Honest History, 5 May 2015 Willy Bach is a postgraduate research student, School of History, University of Queensland. He says this poem was written ‘in response to the tidal wave of ANZAC promotion’. He has…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Expressing ourselves
Willy Bach ‘Britain, Australia, New Zealand, SEATO, the secret war in Laos, and counter insurgency expert Colonel “Ted” Serong’, Honest History, 13 June 2017 updated Update 28 June 2017: Willy Bach died yesterday. Honest History sends condolences to his friends…
Bacon, Wendy ‘Getting Scott McIntyre: lest we forget the role of pundits, politicians and a social media mob‘, New Matilda, 6 May 2015 (updated) The author exhaustively analyses Twitter streams leading up to the sacking of SBS journalist, Scott McIntyre,…
Bain, Kevin ‘Review: Klaus Neumann’s Across the Seas: Australia’s response to refugees: a history‘, Independent Australia, 19 March 2016 Long, descriptive review of this book, published last year by Penguin, also reviewed in Fairfax, The Australian, Resident Judge blog, Sydney…
Mark Baker ‘Last posts’, Inside Story, 11 November 2022 This article is mostly about the difficulties the National Archives of Australia (NAA) has experienced in funding the digitisation of military service records from World War II. Baker notes the inevitable…
Baker, Mark Phillip Schuler: The Remarkable Life of One of Australia’s Greatest War Correspondents, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2016 A biography of The Age war correspondent, who reported unofficially from Egypt in 1914-15, spent time at Gallipoli, producing two ground-breaking…
Baker, Mark ‘Taken for a ride?‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 7 March 2013 Report on the federal government inquiry into whether John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the Man with the Donkey, should posthumously receive a Victoria Cross. The article describes how journalists, false…
Mark Baker The Emperor’s Grace: Untold Stories of the Australians Enslaved in Japan during World War II, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2021 The Emperor’s Grace is the story of the men of C Force – the first contingent of Australian, British…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Baker, Mark ‘The myth of Keith Murdoch’s Gallipoli letter‘, Inside Story, 26 July 2016 Extract from the author’s new book, Phillip Schuler: The Remarkable Life of One of Australia’s Greatest War Correspondents, just published. A brief biographical note on Schuler…
Baker, Patrick, Chris Turney & Jonathan Palmer ‘500 years of drought and flood: trees and corals reveal Australia’s climate history‘, The Conversation, 4 December 2015 The authors have published in a recent paper the most detailed record of Australia’s droughts…
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
Phillip Baker ‘Fat nation: the rise and fall of obesity on the political agenda‘, The Conversation, 26 May 2017 Tackling obesity should be a political priority but it is a tough challenge: many causes, no quick fix, lack of regulatory…
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Banivanua Mar, Tracey ‘Remember the Pacific’s people when we remember the war in the Pacific‘, The Conversation, 19 August 2015 Summarises the story of war in the Pacific from the point-of-view of the people who lived there and had to…
Bannerman, Colin ‘Making Australian food history‘, Australian Humanities Review, 51, 2011 The importance that food and eating have assumed as components of popular culture in Australia has not yet been matched by thorough historical analysis. This essay briefly surveys existing…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Stephen Bargwanna ‘Australian War Memorial needs to tell stories of Frontier Wars in colonisation of Australia‘, Canberra Times, 29 July 2022 (pdf from our subscription) The author is a descendant of WJ Wills of Burke and Wills fame, who died…
Renae Barker ‘Australians have an increasingly complex, yet relatively peaceful, relationship with religion‘, The Conversation, 21 December 2016 A good subject for a time of year in Australia when those who were nominally Christian in their youth (or perhaps a…
Karen Barlow ‘National Capital Authority finds little support or understanding: poll‘, Canberra Times, 9 August 2021 Reports poll from The Australian Institute (national poll of 1004 people) where respondents were asked whether they ‘agree or disagree that the National Capital…
Barnwell, Ashley ‘The Secret River, silences and our nation’s history‘, The Conversation, 28 March 2016 Explores the controversy surrounding the current stage adaptation of Kate Grenville’s novel, The Secret River. This controversy extends that associated with the original book: it…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, People like us, Using and abusing history
Lisa Barritt-Eyles ‘Remembering the Gulf War‘, Australian Outlook, 2 August 2018 Concise outline from a PhD student of Australia’s involvement in the Gulf War, 1990-91. On 2nd August 28 years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait amid the uncertainty of the changing…
Bashford, Alison & Stuart Macintyre, ed. The Cambridge History of Australia, Cambridge University Press, New York & Port Melbourne, Vic., two volumes, 2013 Histories like this underline the many-strandedness of our history and the range of historians active in the…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
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,…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Home front, Ruling ourselves
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Using and abusing history
Batt, Peter J. et al ‘Five pillar economy,’ The Conversation, 27 April-11 May 2015 The articles take up a 2013 theme of prime minister Abbott (‘the five pillar economy’) and look at agriculture (Batt), education (Michael Coelli), mining (Anne Garnett),…
Battistella, Edwin ‘How to write a compelling book review‘, OUPBlog, 11 August 2015 We normally write and/or publish the things but this seemed such good advice we thought we’d post it for the edification of all. The author kicks off…
Carol Baxter The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2017 When the young Jessie left suburban Melbourne and her newspaperman husband in 1927, little did she know that she’d become the first woman to complete an England to…
Beams, Nick ‘Foreign policy dilemmas confront new Australian PM over China‘, World Socialist Web Site, 18 September 2015 Long article dissecting the new prime minister’s attitudes to China taking note of some key speeches. A useful addition to whatever analysis…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
CEW Bean Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18: Vol. 1 The Story of Anzac, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, ninth edition, 1939; first published 1921 Takes the story from the outbreak of war to the end of the…
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…
Joan Beaumont, Ilma Martinuzzi O’Brien & Mathew Trinca, ed. Under Suspicion: Citizenship and Internment in Australia during the Second World War, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, 2008 Stories of internees, revealing ‘the sometimes disturbing nature of how the nation…
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,…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, People like us, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Beaumont, Joan, Evelyn Goh, Michael Wesley, Hugh White, ‘Asia today – 1914 redux?’ ANU School of International Political and Strategic Studies seminar, Canberra, 18 March 2014 Notes of the seminar were prepared by David Stephens. Read more… 258 Asia Today…
Beaumont, Joan, Lachlan Grant & Aaron Pegram, ed. Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century, Melbourne University Press, Carlton Vic. 2015; available electronically Over the twentieth century 35,000 Australians suffered as prisoners of war in conflicts ranging…
Joan Beaumont ‘ANZAC Day to VP Day: Arguments and interpretations’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, 40, February 2007, pp. 1-7 Historiography of war in Australia, including many references in notes. Beaumont asks what are the roles of historians and…
Joan Beaumont ‘Australian citizenship and the two world wars’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 53, 2, June 2007, pp. 171–82 This article surveys Australian citizenship: its distinctive characteristics in the first half of the twentieth century, and how these…
Joan Beaumont Australia’s Great Depression: How a Nation Shattered by the Great War Survived the Worst Economic Crisis it has Ever Faced, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2022; electronic version available How a nation still in grief from the Great War…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, People like us, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Beaumont, Joan Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2013 The Great War is, for many Australians, the event that defined our nation. The larrikin diggers, trench warfare, and the landing at Gallipoli have…
Beaumont, Joan ‘Comment: declining sense of grief over Anzac‘, SBS News, 25 April 2013 ANU historian Joan Beaumont says that, with the passage of time Anzac Day grief may have been replaced by a ‘much more sentimental nostalgia about the…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
Joan Beaumont ‘Gallipoli and Australian national identity’, Neil Garnham & Keith Jeffery, ed., Culture, Place and Identity, University College Dublin Press, Dublin, 2005, pp. 138-51 The article notes ‘the degree to which a conservative state continues to see Anzac as…
Joan Beaumont ‘Prisoners of war in Australian national memory’, Bob Moore & Barbara Hately-Broad, ed., Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace: Captivity, Homecoming and Memory in World War II, Berg Publishers, Oxford & New York, 2005, pp. 185-94 In a…
Joan Beaumont ‘The second war in every respect: Australian memory and the Second World War’, Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 14, 1, Fall 2011, pp. 1-15 Shows how ‘the Second World War is relegated to a secondary place in…
Margaret Beavis ‘A Nobel Peace Prize born in Australia‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 October 2017 updated Discusses the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to an Australian-founded organisation. The winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, the International Campaign to…
Margaret Beavis ‘US militarism: what are the costs to Australia?‘, Pearls and Irritations, 31 October 2017 It is time to reflect on the close enmeshment of Australian and US foreign policy, and the real costs of such close military ties.…
Mark Beeson ‘Trump triggers overdue policy debate‘, The Conversation, 8 February 2017 Whatever else Donald Trump’s election may have done, it’s had at least one welcome effect: it has finally sparked a long-overdue debate about the possible costs and benefits…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves
Beggs-Sunter, Anne ‘Eureka: gathering “the oppressed of all nations”‘, Journal of Australian Cultural History, 10, 1, 2008 Over the last one hundred and fifty years, the meaning of the Eureka Stockade has been characterised in different ways. To some it…
Behrendt, Larissa ‘Indigenous Australians know we’re the oldest living culture – it’s in our Dreamtime‘, Guardian Australia, 22 September 2016 Responds to recent material on DNA-based research on Indigenous culture. More. ‘Scientific research often reaffirms what is in an oral…
Diane Bell* ‘Read and savour the salt of Bruce Pascoe’s stories and essays of our land’, Honest History, 1 November 2019 Diane Bell reviews Bruce Pascoe’s Salt: Selected Stories and Essays Bruce Pascoe’s dedication of Salt, ‘For the three rivers…
Benbow, Heather Merle ‘Feeding the troops: the emotional meaning of food in wartime‘, The Conversation, 30 September 2015 Food is central to experiences of war [the author says], and not just for the soldiers for whom it is a daily…
Mervyn F. Bendle ‘Gallipoli: second front in the History Wars‘, Quadrant Online, LIII, 6, June 2009 Lengthy article with many citations taking to task historians like Joan Beaumont, Marilyn Lake, Mark McKenna, Robin Prior and Peter Stanley and commentators such…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
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…
Bentley, Tom & Jonathan West ‘Time for a new consensus: fostering Australia’s comparative advantages‘, Griffith Review 51 supplement, March 2016; available as pdf and electronically Australia has emerged from a spectacular resources boom without any clear approach to achieving growth…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
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.…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 2 June 1915 Our final insight into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915, 12 May 1915, 19 May 1915, 26 May 1915. Again, thanks to Vicken Babkenian for unearthing…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 5 May 2015 This is the complete edition for the date shown of an English language weekly newsletter published by the American missionaries in Constantinople. The issues from 1915 provide great insight from the ‘other side’…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 12 May 1915 We continue our presentation of these fascinating insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915. Our colleague, Vicken Babkenian, who has sourced…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 19 May 1915 We continue these insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915, presenting a different, English-language, view of the Dardanelles campaign. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915, 12 May…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 26 May 1915 More insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915, 12 May 1915, 19 May 1915. In this edition: [Translated from Ikdam:] While the English papers…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 28 April 1915 An unusual post for Honest History but a fascinating one, this is the complete edition for the date shown of an English language weekly newsletter published by the American missionaries in Constantinople. The…
Nicholas Biddle ‘First results from the 2016 Census paint a picture of who the “typical” Australian is‘, The Conversation, 11 April 2017 For the statistical agency of a supposedly diverse country to bother presenting a picture of ‘a typical Australian’…
Bird, Jacqueline: In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial
Bird, Jacqueline* ‘In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 15 March 2016 A detailed account of more than twenty years of history, leading up to the agreement by the Australian War Memorial…
John Birmingham ‘A time for war: Australia as a military power‘, Quarterly Essay 20, December 2005 Traces a revival of Australian militarism in the 1990s and early 2000s, partly associated with the increase in ‘breathless idolatry’ and ‘nostalgic urgency’ accorded…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
Black Inc. The Wisdom of Oz: Australian Aphorisms from the Profound to the Profane, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2017 A little book about truth, in a world defined by insidious lies. The Wisdom of Oz presents the finest pearls of wisdom from…
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…
Blainey, Geoffrey This Land is All Horizons: Australia’s Fears and Visions: Boyer Lectures, ABC Books, Sydney, 2001 This is a discussion of equality and equality of opportunity in Australian history, and of the changing way in which Australians see their…
Geoffrey Blainey Before I Forget: An Early Memoir, Penguin Books, Melbourne, 2019; electronic version available Before I Forget is the long-awaited memoir from Professor Geoffrey Blainey – Australia’s most significant and popular historian – that tells the story of the first…
Blainey, Geoffrey ‘The centenary of Australia’s Federation: what should we celebrate?‘ Australia. Senate: Papers on Parliament, 37, November 2001 Touches on some early history, including Australia’s pioneering political and social reforms, then answers the question by reference to one hundred…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Blainey, Geoffrey The Rush That Never Ended: A History of Australian Mining, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 5th revised edition 2003; first published 1964 ‘This text tells the story of Australia’s mineral discoveries, describes the giants of its mining history…
Blainey, Geoffrey The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia’s History, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1966; numerous later editions The book ‘describes how distance and isolation have been central to Australia’s history and in shaping its national identity, and will continue…
John Blaxland & Rhys Crawley The Secret Cold War: The Official History of ASIO, 1975-1989, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2016 The blurb reveals that the book deals with espionage by foreign agents, terrorist attacks, the underground Cold War of tensions…
Blaxland, John ‘Flying the flag for a fresh start‘, Canberra Times, 1 February 2014 Few realise that the overwhelming majority of Australia’s 102,000 war dead fought and died for the British Empire under Britain’s Union Jack as their national flag.…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history
John Blaxland ‘Twenty years in Afghanistan‘, Wartime [Australian War Memorial] No. 96, Spring 2021, pp. 10-16 John Blaxland is a distinguished academic, specialising in war and strategy. He is also a former member of the Australian Defence Force. For both…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Blight ‘The Battle for Memorial Day in New Orleans‘, The Atlantic, 29 May 2017 Examines the recent Memorial Day oration of Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, at a time when the former Confederate states of America are again…
Robert Bollard In the Shadow of Gallipoli: The Hidden History of Australia in World War I, New South, Sydney, 2013 Bollard urges us to revise the accepted “distorted, or at least unbalanced” view of the Great War. He looks at…
Geoffrey Bolton ‘The Gluckman Affair 1960: a bystander’s view‘, Labour History Canberra, 16 November 2017 Max Gluckman (makinganthropologypublic) John Myrtle, Honest History volunteer, author of our Online Gems, retired librarian and facilitator of this article’s republication explains its provenance: In…
Catherine Bond Anzac: The Landing, The Legend, The Law, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2017 The year 2016 marks an ‘Anzac’ anniversary of a different kind: the centenary of legal regulation over use of the term ‘Anzac’ in Australia and internationally.…
Bond, Catherine ‘Is it time to repeal Australia’s century-old laws on the use of the word “Anzac”?‘ The Conversation, 1 November 2016 Article marks the centenary of Australian restrictions on the use of the word ‘Anzac’. (The author has a…
Catherine Bond ‘Tyrannical power exercised untyranically?‘ Inside Story, 1 April 2020 updated Law has always been crucial to Australia’s involvement in war, whether through existing defence legislation or new provisions designed to deal with a developing incident or conflict. Law…
Frank Bongiorno & Grant Mansfield ‘Whose war was it anyway? Some Australian historians and the Great War’, History Compass, 6, 1, January 2008, pp. 62-90 Examining the debate over the Australian response to the outbreak of war in Europe in…
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…
Frank Bongiorno ‘An Iced Vovo and a broken heart‘, Inside Story, 5 January 2018 Honest History president and ANU professor, Frank Bongiorno, reviews volume I of former PM Kevin Rudd’s autobiography. The two Rudd prime ministerships were probably not the…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Frank Bongiorno ‘An obedient nation of larrikins: why Victorians are not revolting‘, The Conversation, 10 September 2020 Update 21 September 2020: Dave Milner in The Shot newsletter on the low-key Melburnian cope. Speculates about what (mostly supportive) Victorian attitudes to…
Frank Bongiorno ‘A nursery of unconventional ideas – sex radicalism in Australia‘, The Conversation, 11 December 2017 Honest History’s president and ANU professor, Frank Bongiorno, presents a historical smorgasbord of sex pioneers from William Chidley to Benjamin Law, via Germaine…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Frank Bongiorno ‘Australian labour history: contexts, trends and influences’, Labour History, 100, May 2011, pp. 1-18 Labour history’s relationship to the labour movement and to the practice of history generally.
Bongiorno, Frank ‘Gallipoli: an exhibition of photographs by Charles Snodgrass Ryan: Manning Clark House, launch speech, 4 p.m., 6 April 2014’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 Associate Professor Bongiorno addresses aspects of the commemoration of World War I, including the…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Reality of war, Using and abusing history
Bongiorno, Frank ‘Doing the dirty work‘, Inside Story, 19 February 2014 Places industrial relations policy choices in 2014 in historical context by recalling events in this field in the 1980s. Attempts to probe trade union governance have implications for the…
Frank Bongiorno ‘Donald Horne’s “lucky country” and the decline of the public intellectual‘, The Conversation, 11 July 2017 updated Honest History’s president reviews Donald Horne: Selected Writings, edited by Nick Horne. Horne’s message [in his most famous book, The Lucky…
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.…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Frank Bongiorno ‘From “Toby Tosspot” to “Mr Harbourside Mansion”, personal insults are an Australian tradition‘, The Conversation, 29 June 2018 ‘Political name-calling and insults are sometimes like water off a duck’s back. But others can stick.’ A useful survey. Frank…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Frank Bongiorno ‘Historical constructions of knowledge: Pymble Ladies College address, 12 September 2017‘ This address was delivered to History Extension students from Pymble and other schools. (Honest History representatives do these engagements frequently: contact admin@honesthistory.net.au to discuss possibilities.) All documents,…
Frank Bongiorno ‘Is Australian history still possible? Australia and the global Eighties: Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Australian National University, 10 May 2017‘, Honest History, 15 May 2017 This lecture canvasses some of the themes and subject matter in the author’s prize-winning…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows, Using and abusing history
Bongiorno, Frank ‘Lessons from history in how to run a good election campaign – or how to avoid a really bad one‘, The Conversation, 9 May 2016 Don’t make yourself a big target, don’t write a (policy) book – or…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Frank Bongiorno ‘On marriage equality, Australia’s progressive instincts have been crushed by political failure’, The Conversation, 18 September 2017 In the context of the forthcoming postal survey, the author looks at aspects of the history of sexuality in Australia. He…
Bongiorno, Frank ‘Politicians’ inability to speak freely on issues that matter leaves democracy all the poorer‘, The Conversation, 21 June 2016 The author notes the poor quality of political debate in Australia, particularly during the current election campaign, but also…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Bongiorno, Frank The Sex Lives of Australians, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2012 ‘Cross-dressing colonists, effeminate bushrangers and women-shortage woes – here is the first ever history of sex in Australia, from Botany Bay to the present-day. ‘ The book shows how…
Frank Bongiorno ‘The Australian history boom has busted, but there’s hope it may boom again‘, The Conversation, 25 January 2017 First in a series on Australian identity, this piece from one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters, Frank Bongiorno, looks at…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Bongiorno, Frank The Eighties: The Decade that Transformed Australia, Black Inc, Collingwood, Vic, 2015; hardback and electronic It was the era of Hawke and Keating, Kylie and INXS, the America’s Cup and the Bicentenary. It was perhaps the most controversial…
Frank Bongiorno ‘The year some things changed‘, Sydney Review of Books, 3 December 2018 updated Head of the ANU School of History (and Honest History president) reviews The Year Everything Changed: 2001 by Phillipa McGuinness, author (and publisher of The…
Frank Bongiorno ‘This storied land‘, The Monthly, February 2017 An essay riffing off Mark McKenna’s book, From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories, which tells four stories of encounters between Indigenous and settler Australians. Bongiorno divides histories of Australia into pre-…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Strands of Australian history, The land we live in
Frank Bongiorno, Iain Spence & John Moses, ed. ‘Mars and Minerva: Australian intellectuals and the Great War’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 53, 3, September 2007 (special edition) Covers the fields of science and technology, literature and literary criticism,…
DH Borchardt, ed. Australians: A Guide to Sources, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 One of the volumes in Australians: A Historical Library (other volumes have separate posts on the Honest History site). Dozens of contributors provide brief…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Bosler, Danae ‘Labour in vain: the forgotten novels of Australia’s radical women‘, Overland, 16 June 2015 Brief survey of novels by Betty Collins, Jean Devanny, Dorothy Hewett, Amanda Lohrey and others. These novels are seminal Australian texts because of their…
Bottoms, Timothy Cairns: City of the South Pacific: a History 1770-1995, Bunu Bunu Press, Cairns, 2015 The township of Cairns was established in the wake of the Palmer River Gold rush of 1873, and established as a port for the…
Timothy Bottoms ‘Massacre recollections Elder stories of Frontier Wars in FNQ‘, YouTube, 16 July 2019 North Queensland-based historian, Tim Bottoms, has posted this 13 minute video in which Aboriginal Elders recount specific instances of frontier violence. The late Kenny Jimmy…
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…
Leigh Boucher ‘Only Heaven Knows brings 1940s queer Sydney roaring back to life‘, The Conversation, 6 June 2017 A revived musical gives an insight into a Kings Cross lifestyle that flourished during the war years, then faded for a while. The…
Leigh Boucher, Jane Carey & Katherine Ellinghaus, ed. Historicising Whiteness: Transnational Perspectives on the Construction of an Identity, RMIT Press, Melbourne, 2007 Around sixty articles originally conference papers on Australian and international cases. Subjects include whiteness before White Australia, race…
Chris Bowen ‘The case for engagement with Asia‘ (speech to the Asia Society), Chris Bowen, 29 September 2017 updated Labor Shadow Treasurer says: Australia needs a step change in our economic relationship with Asia. Our economic relationship with Asia has…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Claire Bowern ‘The origins of Pama-Nyungan, Australia’s largest family of Aboriginal languages‘, The Conversation, 13 March 2018 The approximately 400 languages of Aboriginal Australia can be grouped into 27 different families. To put that diversity in context, Europe has just four…
Mike Bowers ‘Anzac Cove and Gallipoli: then and now – interactive‘, Guardian Australia, 25 April 2015 We missed it earlier but are running it now as it, briefly, won an award, until it was realised there had been a mistake.…
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…
Bowers, Mike ‘So much to remember‘, The Global Mail, 24 April 2012 Photojournalism ‘from a lifetime of wondering and wandering amid the Anzacs’. Depicts ‘the long shadow of Australia’s great war’ with images from France, Palestine and Gallipoli.
Sharon Bown One Woman’s War and Peace: A Nurse’s Journey in the Royal Australian Air Force, Exisle Publishing, Wollombi, NSW, 2016 In 1999, idealistic 23-year-old Registered Nurse Sharon Bown left her comfortable family life in Tasmania and joined the Royal…
Braganza, Karl & Steve Rintoul ‘State of the Climate 2016: Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO‘, The Conversation, 27 October 2016 Summarises the main points in the report and provides links to it, to a summary video and the portal Climate…
Braithwaite, Richard Wallace Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Only six escapees survived the Sandakan death marches of 1945 in North Borneo, the worst atrocity ever inflicted on Australian soldiers. 1787 Australian…
Bramston, Troy, ed. The Whitlam Legacy, Federation Press, Annandale, NSW, 2013 Wide-ranging collection of essays under general headings the Whitlam ascendancy, the Whitlam years and political style, managing government, policy, the dismissal, reflections and assessments, true believers. Authors include historians,…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Brandstrom, Annika, Fredrik Bynander & Paul t’ Hart ‘Governing by looking back: historical analogies and crisis management‘, [originally published] Public Administration, 82, 1, 2004, pp. 191-210 A common misunderstanding about crises – understood here as epochs of profound uncertainty and…
Brangwin, Nicole, Nathan Church, Steve Dyer & David Watt Defending Australia: a History of Australia’s Defence White Papers: Parliamentary Library Research Paper 2015-16, 20 August 2015 This is a timely publication, given the recent extended commitment to Iraq-Syria, defence spending…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history
Brayley, Annabelle Our Vietnam Nurses, Penguin, Sydney, 2016 When Australia joined the Vietnam War, civilian and military nurses were there to save lives and comfort the wounded. With spirit and good humour, they worked hard and held strong, even though…
Sally Breen ‘Friday essay: the 90s – why you had to be there‘, The Conversation, 9 June 2017 Review of – and thoughts provoked by – a new exhibition, Every Brilliant Eye: Australian Art of the 1990s, at the National…
Brennan, Frank ‘Deja vu for Timor as Turnbull neglects boundary talks‘, Eureka Street, 21 March 2016 Looks at the history of and recent developments in the boundary dispute between Timor Leste and Australia. Oil and gas lies beneath the sea…
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.…
Judith Brett & Anthony Moran Ordinary People’s Politics: Australians Talk about Life, Politics and the Future of their Country, Pluto Press Australia, Melbourne, 2006 Ordinary Australians interviewed about politics and its place in their lives during the Depression, the post…
Judith Brett Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2003 From middle-class liberal independence under Deakin to conservative populism under Howard, with lots of nuances in between.
Judith Brett Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, new edition 2007; first published 1992 Explores the links between Menzies’ values and language and the people he represented and who voted for him in the years after the World…
Judith Brett From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia got Compulsory Voting, Text, Melbourne, 2019; electronic version available It’s compulsory to vote in Australia. We are one of a handful of countries in the world that enforce this rule…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Brett, Judith ‘Relaxed and comfortable: the Liberal Party’s Australia‘, Quarterly Essay, 19, August 2005 Describes how John Howard as Prime Minister (ultimately for 11 years to 2007) kept his government attuned to ‘the moderate middle of national experience’. (p. 74)…
Judith Brett ‘The country, the city and the State in the Australian settlement’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 42, 1, 2007, pp. 1-22 (full reprint) Argues that ‘the [post-Federation] settlement between the country and the city, mediated by the state,…
Judith Brett The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2017, e-book available This insightful and accessible new biography of Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second prime minister, shines fresh light on one of the nation’s most significant figures. It brings out from…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Bright, Denis ‘The income divide in Australia: the return of class-based politics?‘, Australian Independent Media Network, 19 May 2016 Gets beyond the politics of campaigning to look at some statistics – some of which have been used previously in the…
Michael Brissenden, et al ‘Importance of Anzac Day‘, ABC Lateline, 25 April 2013 (video, transcript) Participants are Michael Brissenden (ABC), Bob Hawke (former Prime Minister), Brendan Nelson (Director, Australian War Memorial), Clare Wright (author). Hawke and Nelson support the role…
Michael Brissenden ‘Afghanistan: the war we hardly knew‘, ABC The Drum, 14 November 2013 Discusses Department of Defence attitudes to media coverage of the war in Afghanistan. Attracted 145 comments. The culture of secrecy that has built up over recent…
Michael Brissenden ‘Should Anzac Day inspire more than just fervour?’ ABC The Drum, 25 April 2013 Includes 100 comments showing a wide spectrum of views. Quotes Clare Wright, historian, that ‘Anzac Day has grown in appeal in inverse proportion to…
Peter Britton Working for the World: The Evolution of Australian Volunteers International, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2019 Since 1951 thousands of volunteers from all over Australia have worked in developing countries across the world. This is the story of the…
Harvey Broadbent ‘A simple epic’: Gallipoli and the Australian media (The 2009 Lone Pine Anniversary Lecture) Media includes newspapers, radio and television, internet, cinema, theatre and books. The article covers the whole period 1915-2009. ‘Media … was involved from the…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history, War literature
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…
Harvey Broadbent ‘Gallipoli: One great deception?’ ABC The Drum, 24 April 2009 Considers geopolitical motivations for the Gallipoli invasion. ‘The proposition is that it was the intention of the British and French Governments of 1915 to ensure that the Dardanelles…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
Brock, Peggy & Tom Gara, ed.: Colonialism and its Aftermath: A History of Aboriginal South Australia
Peggy Brock & Tom Gara, ed. Colonialism and its Aftermath: A History of Aboriginal South Australia, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2017 The colonial process in South Australia began decades before formal annexation with unregulated interactions between coastal Aboriginal people and European…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
John Brockman, ed. Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? The Net’s Impact on Our Minds and Future, Harper Perennial, New York & London, 2011 From the Edge Foundation. Not explicitly Australian but global and included here as a…
Nick Brodie The Vandemonian War, Hardie Grant, Melbourne, 2017; available electronically The Vandemonian War had many sides and shades, but it was fundamentally a war between the British colony of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and the Aboriginal people who lived…
Broinowski, Alison ‘Abbott’s dark state: war powers, invigilation and trust‘, Independent Australia, 4 December 2013 National security issues viewed from a particular perspective, with comments from readers.
Alison Broinowski ‘A foreign affairs Alt-White Paper‘, Independent Australia, 27 October 2017 Dr Broinowski suggests what should be in the foreign policy White Paper due for release soon. The themes are independence and innovation. For other material on this subject…
Alison Broinowski* ‘A novel about war on the home front and in the Middle East’, Honest History, 12 May 2019 Alison Broinowski reviews Julie Janson’s The Light Horse Ghost Julie Janson knows about the other Australia. Descended from the Darug…
Alison Broinowski ‘Anzackery and the preening peloton‘, Pearls and Irritations, 24 April 2018 Honest History vice president weaves together Australian Defence Force duchessing of politicians, MSM Anzac cliches, critiques of Anzackery, culminating in praise for Richard Flanagan’s recent NPC speech.
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Getting on with the world
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…
Alison Broinowski ‘Australia, 2018: Lies, cover-ups and suppression of free speech‘, Independent Australia, 20 June 2018 Honest History’s vice president summarises the current state and recent history of freedom in the wide brown land whose young men died in the…
Broinowski, Alison, et al ‘Australians for War Powers Reform initiative‘, PerthIndyMedia, 11 May 2015 Alison Broinowski is with AWPR, is Honest History’s vice president and the co-editor of a book shortly to be published, How Does Australia Go to War?,…
Alison Broinowski ‘Beware: armed response‘, Pearls and Irritations, 19 July 2017 updated Honest History vice president comments on the government’s anti-terrorism measures. If Turnbull’s plan [National Security Statement, last month] becomes law – and the prospects of the Opposition stopping…
Alison Broinowski* ‘Can we handle the truth? Henry Reynolds’ major 2021 work is crucial reference in this year of the Voice’, Honest History, 24 August 2023 Alison Broinowski reviews Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement, by Henry Reynolds Originally…
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…
Alison Broinowski* ‘Conspiracies are not all theoretical: some letters to Trump’, Honest History, 13 August 2018 ©Alison Broinowski 2018 Before the 2016 election, candidate Donald Trump told voters he would ‘find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center’.…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Alison Broinowski ‘Don’t ask about the war‘, Pearls and Irritations, 10 January 2017 Conservative leaders’ reputations grow over time, John Howard being an example. Howard has refused to apologise for his Iraq decision of 2003. ‘His actions and opinions have…
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…
Alison Broinowski ‘Incorrigible Optimist review: Gareth Evans’ account of his public life‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 January 2018 This book was launched by Bob Hawke and has been widely reviewed. (See especially Norman Abjorensen in the Canberra Times and Jock…
Alison Broinowski ‘Is militarism in Australia’s DNA?’ Pearls and Irritations, 6 February 2018 updated Australians who don’t live in other countries don’t realise how our self-image differs from the perception, particularly in Asia, that we were militarists from the start.…
Broinowski, Alison ‘A long way from Adelaide’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 295 Broinowski Long way from Adelaide Alison Broinowski explores connections between some Australian expatriates in China, some exotic figures from elsewhere and private schools in Adelaide and Sydney.…
Broinowski, Alison ‘Borderless war or, when you get in a hole, stop digging‘, Pearls and Irritations, 15 August 2015 The United States has formally asked for Australian involvement in Syria. Honest History vice president had already posted this article on…
Alison Broinowski ‘Murky wars and missions unaccomplished‘, Pearls and Irritations, 25 January 2018 This [Syria] longest war in Australia’s history is the latest in the list of foreign conflicts in which we have joined Americans, supposedly fighting communists or terrorists,…
Alison Broinowski ‘Now or never: Australia must develop its own foreign policy‘, Independent Australia, 3 March 2021 Surveys Australia’s foreign policy since the beginning and concludes thus: Regional solutions to regional differences will come from diplomacy, not armed force. But…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Broinowski, Alison ‘Officially acceptable war history‘, Honest History, 11 July 2015 The article discusses the projected official histories of the Australian involvements in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq. Dr Broinowski is Vice President of Honest History and of Australians for…
Alison Broinowski ‘Reading Room: Fighting with America‘, Australian Outlook, 8 May 2017 This is a review note of James Curran’s book, Fighting with America: Why Saying No to the US Wouldn’t Rupture the Alliance. Honest History previously linked to an…
Alison Broinowski ‘Reading Room: Russia and the West: The Last Two Action-Packed Years 2017-19‘, Australian Outlook, 14 November 2019 Review of recent book by former diplomat, Tony Kevin, in which the author offers two papers he gave to the Independent…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Alison Broinowski* ‘Reckless self-endangerment: Clinton Fernandes on Australia as a subimperial power’, Honest History, 28 December 2022 Alison Broinowski reviews Clinton Fernandes, Subimperial Power: Australia in the International Arena Australia is supposed to be significant internationally, yet Australians are remarkably…
Alison Broinowski ‘Review: The daughters of John Burton are determined to correct the public record of their parents‘, Canberra Times, 11 June 2022 (pdf from our subscription) updated Review of Persons of Interest: An Intimate Account of Cecily and John…
Alison Broinowski* ‘State of insecurity: how government secrecy preserves power and conceals stuff-ups’, Honest History, 3 September 2019 Alison Broinowski reviews Secret: The Making of Australia’s Security State, by Brian Toohey If you’re old enough to remember the National Times…
Broinowski, Alison ‘The streaker’s defence: history and the war powers’, Honest History e-Newsletter No 6, October 2013 The leaders who planned and executed the 2003 invasion of Iraq – one of the more notable disasters of recent war history – said they…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Alison Broinowski ‘The Merkel moment: wherever that works‘, Pearls and Irritations, 30 May 2017 Chancellor Merkel’s remark that the United States is no longer reliable, and that Europe should look after itself, should also be a wake-up call for Australia.…
Alison Broinowski ‘The trust deficit in Canberra‘, Pearls and Irritations, 13 February 2018 Looks at the implications of the appointment of Admiral Harry B. Harris as United States Ambassador to Australia. The Prime Minister has said we are joined at…
Alison Broinowski ‘Till war do us part‘, Pearls and Irritations, 30 August 2017 A Fairfax readers poll of some 1300 people showed resounding opposition to Australia sending even the token additional force to Afghanistan. The article also mentions the unwisdom…
Broinowski, Alison ‘Toxic warfare: Agent Orange revisited‘, Honest History, 16 July 2015 The article comments on the decision by the Australian War Memorial Council to commission a further volume on the medical aspects of the Vietnam War. Also relevant are…
Alison Broinowski* ‘Unreliable protection from unnecessary enemies: Scappatura on the US Lobby and us’, Honest History, 25 June 2019 Alison Broinowski reviews Vince Scappatura, The US Lobby and Australian Defence Policy A blast of fresh air blew through the Australian…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
Broinowski, Alison ‘What are we willing to fight for?‘, Independent Australia, 3 July 2016 Honest History Vice President, Alison Broinowski, reviews Firing Line: Australia’s Path to War Quarterly Essay 62 by James Brown (Anzac’s Long Shadow) and expands upon the…
Alison Broinowski ‘What Australian foreign policy?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 26 April 2017 updated Discusses Allan Gyngell’s new book, Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World since 1942. Gyngell, she concludes, ‘doesn’t endorse [former Prime Minister Malcolm] Fraser’s radical call for…
Broinowski, Anna (dir.) ‘Pauline Hanson: Please explain!‘ SBS, 1 August 2016 Full video and supporting material of the documentary shown on SBS on 31 July. Another link. The documentary moves back and forth between 1996 and more recently, interviewing many…
Richard Broinowski ‘“How to Defend Australia” is an important wake-up call‘, Australian Outlook, 14 July 2019 updated Hugh White’s latest book How to Defend Australia is reviewed by former senior diplomat, Richard Broinowski AO. ‘Hugh White should be praised’, says…
Richard Broinowski* ‘Buccaneers down through the generations: Lachlan Murdoch’, Honest History, 3 December 2022 Richard Broinowski reviews The Successor: the High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch, by Paddy Manning The tradition of swashbuckling press barons in the English-language is not new.…
Richard Broinowski* ‘Sam Roggeveen’s Echidna Strategy: priorities in foreign and defence policy’, Honest History, 2 October 2023 updated Richard Broinowski reviews The Echidna Strategy: Australia’s Search for Power and Peace, by Sam Roggeveen Sam Roggeveen came from the Australian government’s…
Richard Broinowski* ‘This book will increase hostility between Australia and China’, Honest History, 19 August 2022 Richard Broinowski reviews Jim Molan’s Danger On Our Doorstep As I write, the risk of war with China over Taiwan grows exponentially. Nancy Pelosi’s…
Nicholas Bromfield ‘The genre of Prime Ministerial Anzac Day addresses, 1973–2016‘, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 64, 1, March 2018, pp. 81-97 Statistical analysis based on the author’s PhD thesis. Includes some interesting insights. The last quarter of a…
Ben Brooker ‘100 years of Anzac: ludicrous spending for nationalist validation‘, Overland, 24 April 2018 updated Sets the Monash Centre at Villers-Bretonneux against the broader context of commemorative spending, quoting Honest History estimates. Sharp points on opportunity cost and musing…
Brookes, John* ‘Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac‘, Honest History, 15 March 2016 The article explores how nationalism is ‘a politically constructed discourse designed to delineate and reveal a community to itself. The rise of Anzac in…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Richard Broome, Charles Fahey, Andrea Gaynor, Katie Holmes Mallee Country: Land, People, History, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2019 Mallee Country tells the powerful history of mallee lands and people across southern Australia from Deep Time to the present. Carefully shaped and…
Richard Broome Aboriginal Australians: A History since 1788, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 4th edition, 2010; first published 1982; 3rd edition 2002 had sub-title Black Responses to White Dominance Richard Broome tells the history of Australia from the standpoint…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Broomhill, Ray ‘Australian economic booms in historical perspective‘, Journal of Australian Political Economy, 61, June 2008, pp. 12-29 Part of a special issue on The Australian Economic Boom 1992-? including a number of articles relevant to economic and social policy…
Click here for all items related to: The sweat of our brows
Brophy, Kevin ‘Friday essay: Judith Wright in a new light‘, The Conversation, 28 October 2016 Everyone loves Judith Wright [Brophy begins]. Her poetry was consistently brilliant and stunningly lyrical. She opened Australian eyes in the 1940s to the possibilities of…
Brotherhood of St Laurence Generation stalled: young, underemployed and living in poverty in Australia, Melbourne, 2017 In total [says the report] more than 650,000 young people were unemployed or underemployed – defined as having some work but wanting more hours…
Brown, AJ ‘To really reform the federation, you must build strong bipartisan support‘, The Conversation, 26 April 2016 Includes results of a survey of politicians, state and federal. The survey found an issue that stood out. But where the most…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Brown, Claire ‘What’s the best, most effective way to take notes?‘ The Conversation, 22 May 2015 Education researcher gives some useful tips for students and researchers. Also links to a later piece by the same author on taking notes on…
Brown, James Anzac’s Long Shadow: The Cost of Our National Obsession, Black Inc, Melbourne, 2014; also available electronically “A century ago we got it wrong. We sent thousands of young Australians on a military operation that was barely more than…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Reality of war
Martyn Brown Politics of Forgetting: New Zealand, Greece and Great Britain at War, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2019; electronic version available Greece was a poor country in turmoil and pain during the 1940s. A military dictatorship was followed by invasion…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Peter Browne & Seumas Spark, ed. ‘I Wonder’: The Life and Work of Ken Inglis, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2020 Ken Inglis was one of Australia’s most creative, wide-ranging and admired historians. During a scholarly career spanning nearly seven decades,…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Browne, Peter ‘Postwar boomer‘, Inside Story, 18 January 2016 Long essay looking back from Sir Robert Menzies’ retirement 50 years ago to the events of his 16-year reign (and even glances at his earlier time in office in 1939-41). Menzies…
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…
Bruns, Axel ‘A first draft of the present: Why we must preserve social media content‘, The Conversation, 16 May 2016 History is written on the basis of records that survive and are accessible. Even journalism has traditionally been described as…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Learning and improving, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Buch, Neville ‘Do professional historians have a future?‘ Honest History, 30 August 2016 The author, a professional historian based in Queensland, looks at statistics for tertiary history courses. He spells out the need to grow the non-academic employment market for…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history
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…
Bruce Buchan ‘Cooking the books’, Inside Story, 14 June 2018 Looks at a British Library exhibition on Cook and contrasts it with recent Australian announcements about celebrating the 250th anniversary of Cook’s 1770 voyage. Buchan draws this conclusion. Not long…
Ian Buckley ‘”Australia’s foreign wars: origins, costs, future?! and other essays”‘, Honest History, 4 August 2015 While we have categorised this as one post, it actually links to a trove of articles by this deep-thinking now 90-year-old. (The author made…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Ian Buckley ‘Learning from Adam Smith: help at hand today‘, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Buckley contests the view that Adam Smith argued ‘that unalloyed selfishness aimed solely at the maximisation of production, trade and profit is in the best…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, The land we live in, The sweat of our brows
Ian Buckley ‘A case history: Britain, Empire decline, and the origins of WW1, or, might the lessons of the Boer War have saved the day?‘ Honest History, 7 July 2015 Boer women and children in a British concentration camp during…
Bueskens, Petra ‘Malcolm Turnbull, Immanuel Kant and the Conundrum of small and big L Liberals‘, New Matilda, 6 October 2015 updated The article is interesting because it juggles shades of meaning in Kant, strains of opinion in the Liberal Party…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Gemmia Burden ‘The violent collectors who gathered Indigenous artefacts for the Queensland Museum‘, The Conversation, 28 May 2018 Detailed examination of the links between frontier violence and museum collecting. While there is no evidence of the museum being directly involved…
Burgess, Rob ‘The banks didn’t save Australia – they ate it‘, New Daily, 6 October 2016 Analysis in the context of the appearance of banking CEOs before a parliamentary committee, which was followed by a proposal for a banking tribunal…
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…
Burnside, Julian ‘What sort of country are we?‘ The Conversation, 29 September 2015 Article based on the Hamer Oration, delivered 28 September. Examines incidents in Australia’s treatment of refugees over the last decade and a half, considering Tampa, the Pacific…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, The sweat of our brows, Using and abusing history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Learning and improving, Using and abusing 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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, Using and abusing history
Butler, Ed ‘Manly men v wimps: what’s behind the macho language in Australian politics?‘ Guardian Australia, 27 February 2014 Discusses ‘the masculinisation of political language in Australia’, including the conflation of manliness and competence. The use of particular language is…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Richard Butler ‘Iraq 2003: the fabricated war of choice‘, Pearls and Irritations, 7 November 2017 Former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has revealed a report showing that US intelligence agencies knew Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and…
Butler, Richard ‘Nuclear disarmament – Australia’s profound and cynical failure‘, Pearls and Irritations, 23 August 2016 updated The author looks at Australia’s distinguished history in nuclear disarmament negotiations, before commenting on the recent decision by Australia to insist that there…
Richard Butler ‘The Alliance: the facts and the furphies‘, Pearls and Irritations, 19 September 2017 ‘A review of how we conduct our alliance relationship with the US is urgently required’, says the author, ‘not simply because it has elected a…
Richard Butler ‘The Honest History Book (UNSW Press 2017)‘, Pearls and Irritations, 15 May 2017 A review of The Honest History Book. This is a book of singular importance [says Butler]. It provides the evidence and materials for the correction…
Richard Butler ‘The myths of Australian foreign policy‘, Pearls and Irritations, 31 March 2017 The former senior Australian diplomat surveys the scene as Australia develops a foreign policy white paper. It will be of crucial importance in the review of…
Richard Butler ‘Trump: a sideshow?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 27 January 2017 updated Update 5 March 2017: More from Butler on Trump and the implications for Australia. Update 9 February 2017: related piece by Ramesh Thakur in Pearls and Irritations on…
Richard Butler ‘Turnbull, Trump and the Alliance‘, Pearls and Irritations, 14 June 2017 updated Update 3 August 2017: Richard Broinowski in Pearls and Irritations on the broader implications of the Talisman Sabre/Talisman Saber joint military exercise. Update 31 July 2017:…
NG Butlin, A Barnard & JJ Pincus Government and Capitalism: Public and Private Choice in Twentieth Century Australia, Allen & Unwin, North Sydney, 1982 Traces Australian economic and social history up to the 1970s in chapters addressing the ‘decline of…
Clarissa Bye ‘Military heroes in fight of their lives as more veterans die through suicide‘, Daily Telegraph, 16 June 2019 Continues a campaign by Daily Telegraph, including editorially, for a Royal Commission into suicide of Australian Defence Force veterans. Earlier…
Frank Byrne with Frances Coughlan and Gerard Waterford Living in Hope, Ptilotus Press, Alice Springs, 2017 A memoir of boyhood by a man who was removed as a child – from country, from culture and language, from family, from his…
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…
Cahill, Damien & Rowan Cahill ‘The 1978 military occupation of Bowral‘, Illawarra Unity: Journal of the Illawarra Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 6, 1, 2006, pp.24-37 Describes the response to the Sydney Hilton ‘terrorist’…
Cahill, Rowan ‘Alec Campbell, 1899-2002‘, The Hummer (Australian Society for the Study of Labour History), 3, 8, Winter 2002 Gives an honest perspective on Campbell, ‘the last Anzac’, whose military career lasted less than a year (including just six weeks…
Cahill, Rowan ‘A conscription story, 1965-69‘, The Hummer, 2, 4, 1995 (Australasian Society for the Study of Labour History) Memoir of a conscription resister. Such accounts are relatively rare, though see here. Includes the reasons the author gave for his…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Ruling ourselves, Using and abusing history
Cahill, Rowan ‘A khaki future?‘ Overland, 1 October 2013 Brief history of Australia’s ‘martial and warlike’ history from 1788, noting military rule by the New South Wales Corps in the first days of settlement, through preparations for World War I,…
Rowan Cahill ‘Martial love’, The Guardian (London), 7 May 2003 (reprint) ‘Part of the Anzac Myth is the proposition that Australia is a Peace-loving nation, that Peace is the preferred option of the Australian people, that as a nation, Australia…
Cahill, Rowan ‘Martial matters’, Radical Sydney/Radical History, 29 August 2012 A collection of blogs 2006-09 ‘relating to the Anzac tradition, and to the Australian martial tradition generally’ which ‘represent views of the Australian martial experience at radical odds with mainstream…
Rowan Cahill ‘The Battle of Sydney’, Overland, 169, Summer, 2002, pp. 50-54 ‘Account of the wartime strike by Australian troops in Sydney, 1916, in defence of their working conditions. This action involved thousands of soldiers, mutiny, and a march through…
Rowan Cahill ‘The dirty digger’, Green Left Weekly, 451, 6 June 2001 A selective and mythologised account of the past draws young people to Anzac Day celebrations. The chief of the armed forces is the Australian of the Year. Parliament…
Rowan Cahill ‘The military solution’, Green Left Weekly, 459, 7 March 2001 Military, police and private army responses to industrial unrest in the interwar years.
Rowan Cahill ‘Two poets (Denis Kevans and Henry Weston Pryce), war and a manuscript: a review essay’, Honest History, 17 December 2015 In the Special Collections of the Australian Defence Force Academy’s (ADFA) Academic Library is a manuscript by poet…
Frank Cain The Wobblies at War: A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2017; first published 1993 Driven by Marxist ideology, the Industrial Workers of the World sought to draw the Australian…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Cain, Frank The Wobblies at War: a History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia, Spectrum Publications, Melbourne, 1993 A simple account of an important industrial and political struggle on the home front. Frank Cain’s book traces the…
AA Calwell Be Just and Fear Not, Lloyd O’Neil, Hawthorn, Vic, 1972 Autobiography of Australia’s first Minister for Immigration (1945-49), later Leader of the (Labor) Opposition (1960-67). Includes a personal view of the commencement of the post-World War II immigration…
JCR Camm & John McQuilton, ed. Australians: A Historical Atlas, Fairfax, Syme and Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 A volume in the set Australians: A Historical Library. Maps, graphs and notes under the headings, ‘Place’, ‘People’ and ‘Landscapes’. Excellent illustrations.…
Campbell, Craig & Helen Proctor A History of Australian Schooling, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2014 A social history of school education in Australia, from dame schools and one teacher classrooms in the bush, to the growth of private…
Stuart Campbell ‘Realities of war never hit our TVs or our hearts‘, ABC The Drum, 21 June 2013 The author argues that after Vietnam, Western governments determined that there would never again be an uncensored TV conflict. As an Australian…
Canberra Youth Theatre & Long Cloud Youth Theatre, New Zealand Dead Men’s Wars A play by Ralph McCubbin Howell, directed by Brett Adam, a joint Aotearoa New Zealand-Australia production, which premiered in Canberra, 14 October 2015 with support from The…
Cane, Peter, ed. Centenary Essays for the High Court of Australia, LexisNexis Butterworths, Chatswood, NSW, 2004 ‘Covering the most significant High Court decisions across main legal areas and their subsequent impact on Australian life, this text also thoroughly considers and…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Jane Carey & Claire McLisky, ed. Creating White Australia: New Perspectives on Race, Whiteness and History, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 2009 Articles by Leigh Boucher, Jane Carey, Ann Curthoys and others ‘dealing with the question of whiteness in Australian history…
Bronwyn Carlson ‘“Change the date” debates about January 26 distract from the truth telling Australia needs to do‘, The Conversation, 26 January 2023 updated As every year for many years, 26 January generated debates this year, made more significant by…
Carlton, Mike ‘Staring at the abyss, thank God for Alan‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April 2013 The second part of the article is a meditation on Anzac Day, which the author feels has virtually become ‘Anzac Week’. ‘The remembrance of…
Carlyon, Les Gallipoli, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2002; first published 2001 The epitome of large war remembrance books, written for a general audience. The author was a member of the Australian War Memorial Council for some years.
Carlyon, Les The Great War, Macmillan, Sydney, 2006 Winner of the inaugural Prime Minister’s Prize for History, 2007. The author was a member of the Australian War Memorial Council for some years. He discusses his work here.
Andrew Carr ‘I’m here for an argument: why bipartisanship on security makes Australia less safe‘, The Australia Institute, 22 August 2017 updated While bipartisanship seems to be an innocuous idea it is actually making us less safe by restricting policy…
Carr, EH What is History? Penguin, Camberwell, Vic., 2008; first published Macmillan, London, 1961; 2nd edition 1987 A slim classic. Some of the key passages relate to fish and they are directly relevant to the recurring battles over the nature…
Carr, Nicholas ‘When our culture’s past is lost in the cloud‘, Washington Post, 25 March 2016 A review of Abby Smith Rumsey’s book When We are No More: How Digital Memory is Shaping our Future. (Perhaps significantly, some editions of…
Lauren Carroll Harris ‘The Iraq War gallery’, The Saturday Paper, 20-26 May 2023; pdf from our subscription In-depth review of the proposed Iraq War section of the new, bigger, Australian War Memorial. Includes revealing quotes from a Memorial creator and…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Noel Carthew, ed. Voices from the Trenches: Letters to Home, New Holland, Sydney, 2002 Letters of the Carthew brothers from Gallipoli, North Africa, Palestine and the Western Front. The dedication encapsulates a familiar attitude to incomprehensible death and stout service…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Phil Cashen ‘”Service and sacrifice” in the Great War: analysed (as it should be more often)’, Shire at War, 30 October 2022; 11 December 2022 Update 17 February 2023: Analysis of the wounded returned men from the Shire of Alberton…
Phil Cashen ‘192. Thanksgiving Sunday, 17/11/18‘, Shire at War, 12 November 2018 Another excellent microcosmic piece – Phil Cashen has done 192 of them to date – from the Shire of Alberton, this time closely examining sermons in local churches…
Cashen, Phil ‘Anti-German sentiment in the Shire of Alberton to the end of 1915‘, Shire at War, 7 November 2015 Thorough local research from this Gippsland-based blogger on the degree that people used the anti-German hysteria to flaunt their patriotism.…
Cashen, Phil ‘John Henry Adams‘, Shire at War, 11 August 2015 To further mark the centenary of Lone Pine, another cameo from the Shire at War blog from the Yarram area, Gippsland, Victoria. Adams is interesting because of his divided…
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…
Phil Cashen ‘103. Enlistments in the second half of 1916: background characteristics Part 2 – religion, units and service history‘, Shire at War, 5 February 2017 We have often linked to the sterling work of Phil Cashen of the Shire…
Cashen, Phil ‘Ireland, Empire and Irish-Australians‘, Shire at War, 4 June 2016 Microcosm in Yarram, Gippsland, Victoria, of tensions playing out across Australia. The article briefly outlines the movement towards Irish Home Rule, which stalled with the outbreak of war…
Cashen, Phil ‘Pressed to enlist in the first half of 1915‘, Shire at War, 1 July 2015 From the excellent Shire at War blog, out of Alberton, Gippsland, Victoria, comes this forensic examination of a war of letters to the…
Cashen, Phil ‘Soldiers’ farewells‘, Shire at War, 18 February 2016 Another well-researched piece from Gippsland, this one analysing local newspaper reports on 30 farewells to local soldiers during 1915. Many more men enlisted than received farewells (which is interesting in…
Phil Cashen ‘Spanish flu. Part 1‘, Shire at War, 29 October 2018 updated Update 25 April 2019: Glenn Davies in Independent Australia on Sister Rosa O’Kane, who nursed sufferers from the flu. Good general coverage on the epidemic. *** A…
Phil Cashen ‘The war against drink‘, Shire at War, 9 December 2016 Another post from the excellent Shire at War blog from down Alberton way in Gippsland. This one is about local efforts to defeat the demon drink during the…
Phil Cashen ‘The White Australia Policy: always in the background‘, Shire at War, 28 July 2020 From down Alberton, Gippsland, Victoria way comes this detailed post from blogger-historian, Phil Cashen. It looks at the treatment of the White Australia Policy…
Michael Cathcart Defending the National Tuckshop: Australia’s Secret Army Intrigue of 1931, McPhee Gribble/Penguin, Melbourne, 1988 Describes the anti-socialist vigilantism during the Great Depression, activities which were backed by secret armies with thousands of members. Ex-servicemen were deeply involved as…
Michael Cathcart Manning Clark’s History of Australia, Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1995 One volume abridgement.
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Michael Cathcart The Water Dreamers: The Remarkable History of Our Dry Continent, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2010 The book ‘offers an archaeology of our national psyche… and exposes the cultural forces that still powerfully shape our plans for this land’. (Tom…
Caulfield, Michael The Vietnam Years: From the Jungle to the Australian Suburbs, Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2007 Contains many extracts from interviews with both Vietnam veterans and Australians who opposed our involvement in the war. There are recollections of both the…
Committee for Economic Development of Australia Addressing Economic Disadvantage in Australia, CEDA, Melbourne, 2015 This report was released on 21 April 2015. It was described as ‘a policy perspective examining issues associated with the economics of disadvantage’. In other words,…
Cheeseman, Graeme & St John Kettle, ed. The New Australian Militarism: Undermining our Future Security, Pluto Press, Leichhardt, NSW, 1990 Collection of articles driven by a concern that the Hawke Labor Government at the time, driven by then Defence Minister,…
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…
Chynoweth, Adele ‘Forgotten or ignored Australians? The Australian museum sector’s marginalisation of Inside – Life in Children’s Homes and Institutions‘, International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, 6, 2, pp.171-182 In 2009, the Australian Government announced as part of the National Apology to…
Adele Chynoweth ‘The history wars are over, now it’s time to get politics back in our museums’, The Conversation, 6 March 2013 Australia’s museums should ‘take heart and more importantly show courage to tell the truth, the whole truth, and…
Michael Clanchy ‘In search of “civilised” capitalism: a non-neoliberal approach‘, Independent Australia, 28 February 2017 Socialism is not the answer, as it tends towards totalitarianism, but the ills of neoliberal capitalism still need tackling. These include boom-bust, inequality, underemployment, climate…
Clark, Anna & Paul Ashton, ed. Australian History Now, New South, Sydney, 2013; electronic version available The authors in this anthology include the editors and Alan Atkinson, Tony Birch, Leigh Boucher, Ann Curthoys, Graeme Davison, Tom Griffiths, Paul Kiem, Marilyn…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Anna Clark ‘Friday essay: the “great Australian silence” 50 years on‘, The Conversation, 3 August 2018 updated Marks the 50th anniversary of the famous Boyer lectures by anthropologist WEH Stanner, which drew attention to Australian reluctance to confront our Indigenous…
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,…
Anna Clark History’s Children: History Wars in the Classroom, NewSouth, Sydney, 2008 ‘The classroom has become the battleground of the “history wars”, yet no-one ever asks the children what they think about Australian history and what they like – or…
Clark, Anna ‘Friday essay: on listening to new national storytellers’, The Conversation, 2 September 2016 The author reminds us that ‘each piece of history has a message and context that depends on who wrote it and when. As the US…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, People like us, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Anna Clark ‘Plenty of fish in the sea? Not necessarily, as history shows‘, The Conversation, 3 October 2017 A look at the history of fishing in Australia, from pre-1788 and going back thousands of years, to now, with draft plans…
Clark, Anna Private Lives, Public History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2016 The past is consumed on a grand scale: popularised by television programs, enjoyed by reading groups, walking groups, historical societies and heritage tours, and supported by unprecedented digital…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Clark, Anna ‘Teaching national narratives and values in Australian schools‘, originally published, Agora (History Teachers Association of Victoria), 43, 1, 2008, pp. 4-9 Discusses the Howard Government’s education agenda, attitudes to it and the varying attitudes of students to the…
Clark, Anna Teaching the Nation: Politics and Pedagogy in Australian History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2006 Starts from Prime Minister’s Howard’s well-known remark in 2000 at Gallipoli that ‘history was not being taught as it should be in Australia’s…
Anna Clark ‘Trench warfare: The Honest History Book‘, Sydney Review of Books, 19 September 2017 Review of The Honest History Book (long read). [The authors, says Clark] provide a powerful argument against the superficial, the commercial, and the celebratory aspects…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
CMH (Manning) Clark A History of Australia, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., six volumes, 1962-87; later editions The sub-titles of some of the volumes attest to the deep themes running within the work: The Earth Abideth for Ever, 1851-1888 (Vol.…
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…
Clarke, Patricia & Niki Francis ‘Canberra women in World War I: community at home, nurses abroad‘, Women Australia, December 2015 An essay about the role played in the Great War by the women of Canberra – the town was one…
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.…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
Patricia Clarke ‘Jennie Scott Griffiths: a Texas-born red ragger‘, NLA Unbound: the National Library of Australia Magazine, June 2017 A biographical article on this feminist and anti-conscription campaigner during Australia’s Great War. She was an indefatigable worker in radical causes…
Stephen Clarke* ‘What nations remember: Martyn Brown on what happened in Crete in 1941’, Honest History, 30 November 2019 Stephen Clarke reviews Martyn Brown’s Politics of Forgetting: New Zealand, Greece and Britain at War On 20 May 2011, I was an…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Chris Clarkson, Ben Marwick, Lynley Wallis, Richard Fullagar & Zenobia Jacobs ‘Buried tools and pigments tell a new history of humans in Australia for 65,000 years‘, The Conversation, 20 July 2017 updated A report of work in the Kakadu area…
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…
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…
Peter Cochrane Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, 1914-18, Text, Melbourne, 2018 In the half-century preceding the Great War there was a dramatic shift in the mindset of Australia’s political leaders, from a profound sense of safety in…
Cochrane, Peter Colonial Ambition: Foundations of Australian Democracy, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2006 Colonial Ambition tells the story of the politicians and would-be politicians of Sydney, who were driven by a determination to lift themselves and their new colony…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Cochrane, Peter Industrialization and Dependence: Australia’s Road to Economic Development, 1870-1939, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1980; downloadable Shows how Australian industrial development in these years was built on close economic integration with Britain.
Cochrane, Peter ‘Book review: Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the birth of a dynasty‘, The Conversation, 13 November 2015 Cochrane reviews this new book by Tom DC Roberts. The book starts with Murdoch’s ‘Gallipoli letter’ but goes much further. It is…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Expressing ourselves, Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves
Peter Cochrane Simpson and the Donkey: The Making of a Legend, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1992; revised edition, 2014 The book explores ‘the legend’s popular appeal and its political significance, its permanent place in Australian folklore and its periodic…
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…
Bruce Coe Pulling Through: The Story of the King’s Cup, Slattery Media, Melbourne, 2019 The story behind the winning of the 1919 King’s Cup by the Australian Imperial Forces No. 1 crew is fascinating. Wartime authorities created diversions for war…
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…
Cohen, Roger ‘Australia’s offshore cruelty‘, New York Times, 23 May 2016 Cohen is visiting Australia. He writes on international affairs and diplomacy. This article had more than 100 comments by early on 24 May 2016 AEST. The Australian treatment of…
Colebatch, Hal GP Australia’s Secret War: How Unions Sabotaged our Troops in World War II, Quadrant Books, Balmain, NSW, 2013 Describes strikes and other industrial action on the waterfront during the war, its impact on the war effort and the…
Colebatch, Tim ‘Australia’s urban boom: the latest evidence‘, Inside Story, 5 April 2016 Sometime over the next three months, Sydney’s population will reach five million. If Melbourne keeps growing at its current pace, by 2020 it too will have five million…
Catharine Coleborne ‘The concept of “western civilisation” is past its use-by date in university humanities departments‘, The Conversation, 21 November 2017 Critiques moves driven by the new Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation to revamp BA courses around the idea of ‘Western…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Bernard Collaery Oil under Troubled Water: Australia’s Timor Sea Intrigue, Melbourne University Press, 2020; electronic edition available In May 2018 Bernard Collaery, a former Attorney-General of the Australian Capital Territory and long-term legal counsel to the government of East Timor,…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Sarah Collard ‘“It must all be a part of our reckoning with the truth’”: Albanese acknowledges Frontier Wars in House‘, SBS/NITV News, 16 February 2021 updated Update 23 February 2021: Paul Daley in Guardian Australia Albanese’s fine words in federal…
Alan Collins, Bo Yang & Grant Cox ‘What’s Australia made of? Geologically, it depends on the state you’re in‘, The Conversation, 21 November 2017 Tracks back billions of years to show that the western part of Australia is older than…
Paul Collins Burn: The Epic Story of Bushfire in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2006; Scribe, Melbourne, 2009 The ‘central argument’ of the book ‘is that fire is “part of the very fabric of our continent”, a positive and renewing…
Colmar Brunton Department of Veterans’ Affairs: ‘A Century of Service’: Community Research Phase II: Report (August 2011) Report of focus group research on how Australia should commemorate the Anzac centenary. An issue raised in the report of the Anzac centenary…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Home front, Reality of war
Connor, John, Peter Stanley & Peter Yule The War at Home: The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War Volume 4, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2015 The War at Home interprets the experience of the Australian people during the…
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…
John Cook with Jon Bauer The Last Lighthouse Keeper: A Memoir, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2020; electronic version available In Tasmania, John Cook is known as ‘The Keeper of the Flame’. As one of Australia’s longest-serving lighthouse keepers, John spent…
Coombs, Anne ‘It seems like a good time to ask: what are governments for?‘ Guardian, 24 June 2016 This piece was re-run in the latest Guardian Weekly (1-7 July) where it earned the additional headline: ‘We give them power to…
Alan Cooper, Ray Tobler & Wolfgang Haak ‘DNA reveals Aboriginal people had a long and settled connection to country‘, Guardian Australia, 9 March 2017 Summarises research reported in Nature (behind expensive paywall) that used historic hair samples collected from Aboriginal people…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Reality of war, Using and abusing history
Jan Cooper* ‘Searching for my father: a war story’, Honest History, 8 April 2019 Recently I went in search of information about my father, Doug Cooper. Like others born in 1940 or thereabouts, I suspected that I was not alone…
Michael Coper Encounters with the Australian Constitution, CCH Australia, North Ryde, NSW, 1988 Essays by a constitutional law academic on the role of the High Court, aspects of constitutional interpretation, whether there should be a Bill of Rights in the…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Aaron Corn ‘Friday essay: Dr Joe Gumbula, the ancestral chorus, and how we value Indigenous knowledges‘, The Conversation, 29 September 2017 An edited version of the Dr Joe Gumbula Memorial Lecture presented at the 16th Symposium on Indigenous Music and…
Costantino, Emma & Sian Supski, ed. ‘Culinary distinction‘, Journal of Australian Studies, 30, 87, 2006 (special issue) Articles on Indigenous cookery (Laurel Dyson, Colin Bannerman), Australian cuisine in the 19th and 20th centuries (Barbara Santich), Anzac biscuits (Supski), Scocth ovens…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
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,…
Cowlishaw, Gillian ‘Friend or foe? anthropology’s encounter with Aborigines‘, Inside Story, 19 August 2015 A reassessment of classical anthropological research (1890s to mid twentieth century). Condemnation of objectionable aspects of colonial power structures should not preclude appreciation of this research.…
Cox, Eva ‘Feminism has failed and needs a rethink‘, The Conversation, 8 March 2016 The author says women achieved formal legal equality ‘but moving past that into wider social equity changes seems definitely to have stalled’. Partly due to neo-liberalism,…
LF Crisp Ben Chifley: A Biography, Longmans, Croydon, Vic, 1963; first published 1961 Classic Australian political biography, though criticised by some as hagiography. Particularly useful on the period after World War II, when Chifley as Prime Minister and Treasurer dealt…
LF Crisp The Australian Federal Labour Party 1901-1951, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1978; first published 1955 Classic account of Labor’s first half century, written by a man who headed a Commonwealth public service department at the age of 32, was…
Crispin, Judith In Noah’s Country: a Roadtrip through Post-Genocide Armenia, T & G Publishing, Sydney, 2015 Australian history has been bound up with that of Armenia and the Armenians since 24 April 1915, which saw the beginning of the archetypal…
Jacky Croke ‘Old floods show Brisbane’s next big wet might be closer than we think‘, The Conversation, 10 January 2017 Historical view of flooding in the Brisbane area. It links to more detailed material done under an Australian Research Council…
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…
Martin Crotty, Martin & David Roberts, ed. Turning Points in Australian History, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2008 Contributors consider the separation of Tasmania from the mainland, the Gallipoli landing, the Great Depression, the arrival of television, the…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Martin Crotty & Marina Larsson, ed. Anzac Legacies: Australians and the Aftermath of War, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2010 The book explores the difficulties that returning soldiers have faced, from World War I to Iraq and Afghanistan, traces the physical…
Martin Crotty ‘In their footsteps? Anzac fun runs and the consumption of the past’, Honest History, 7 February 2017 The author, a fun runner, describes some Anzac-themed running events and what they say about the current desire of some of…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Expressing ourselves
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…
Shaun Crowe Whitlam’s Children: Labor and the Greens in Australia, MUP Academic, Melbourne, 2018; electronic version available Over the past three decades, progressive politics in Australia has undergone a gradual but unmistakable transformation. Where the Australian Labor Party once enjoyed…
Frank Crowley, ed. A New History of Australia, William Heinemann, Melbourne, 1974; later edition 1986 A multi-author history intended to take the place of the Gordon Greenwood edited Australia from twenty years earlier. Twelve authors dealt with the years 1788…
Crowther, Philip & Lindy Osborne ‘Building a nation: the state of play in Australian architecture‘, The Conversation, 1 November 2013 Brief historical survey, leading to the point where Australia now has seven of the 100 largest architectural practices in the…
Denis Cryle Behind the Legend: The Many Worlds of Charles Todd, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2017 “Telegraph” Todd [the man behind the Overland Telegraph through Central Australia] became a legend in his own lifetime for introducing Australian colonists to a…
Culture Victoria Out of the Closets, Into the Streets This project documents the very beginning of the Gay Liberation Movement in Melbourne. Through the manifestos, photographs, flyers and recollections of those who were part of the movement, this digital story…
Curby, Pauline ‘An urban myth or surfing history?‘, Honest History, 17 June 2015 The author explores the story surrounding a famous change to the rules regarding sea-bathing in pre-Great War Sydney. As this story is part of our surfing history,…
Curnoe, Darren ‘Ancient Australia: world’s first nation of innovators‘, The Conversation, 11 May 2016 Discoveries of Indigenous Australian history discount the idea that pre-European society was ‘primitive’. Instead, ‘the continent’s Indigenous people were truly pioneers in the global (collective) journey…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
James Curran ‘Trump and the future of the US-Australia alliance‘, Daily Review, 17 December 2016 Extract from a Lowy Institute paper to be published 19 December and titled, Fighting with America. The tag line of this publication is ‘Why saying…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Curran, James Unholy Fury: Whitlam and Nixon at War, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2015 (e-book available) In the early 1970s, two titans of Australian and American politics, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and President Richard Nixon, clashed over the end…
Ann Curthoys & Ann McGrath, ed. Writing Histories: Imagination and Narration, Monash Publications in History, Monash University, Melbourne, 2000; republished Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2009 (full text online free) ‘Nine historians reflect on their work as writers, exploring some of…
Ann Curthoys & Ann McGrath How to Write History that People Want to Read, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2009 ‘Aimed at all kinds of people who write history – academic historians, public historians, professional historians, family historians and students of all…
Ann Curthoys & John Docker, ed. “Genocide”? Australian Aboriginal history in international perspective’, Aboriginal History, 25, 2001, special section (downloadable) Multiple contributors on aspects of genocide and aboriginality. There is a brief survey here of instances of genocide in world…
Ann Curthoys & John Docker Is History Fiction? University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2010; first published 2005 ‘John Docker and Ann Curthoys find that history has a double character. It is both a rigorous scrutiny of sources, and,…
Curthoys, Ann & Marilyn Lake, ed. Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective, ANU e-press, Canberra, 2006; free online version This volume brings together historians of imperialism and race, travel and modernity, Islam and India, the Pacific and the Atlantic to…
Ann Curthoys, AW Martin & Tim Rowse, ed. Australians from 1939, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 One of the volumes in Australians: A Historical Library. Thirty historians, political scientists and citizens contribute to sections on Australians and…
Have your say with the National Capital Authority on the Memorial’s ‘early works’ application. You don’t need to live in Canberra. Arguments here. *** Katina Curtis ‘War Memorial redevelopment will force Anzac Day ceremonies to move‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 29…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war 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…
John Daley & Brendan Coates ‘Why every generation feels entitled‘, The Conversation, 15 December 2016 Refers to the Grattan Institute’s report Age of Entitlement, on age-based tax breaks, which concluded ‘senior Australians get tax breaks unavailable to younger Australians worth…
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…
Daley, Paul with Michael Bowers Armageddon: Two Men on an Anzac Trail, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2011 Retraces the steps of the Australian Light Horse through Palestine with the author and photographer finding occasion for both happiness and sadness. The speech…
Paul Daley ‘As long as we always remember them…‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November 2010 Compares Australian attitudes to Remembrance and Anzac Days, suggesting this grew from the early attitudes of the Diggers, who felt the former day was more…
Daley, Paul ‘25 years of reconciliation and what do we have to show for it?‘ Guardian Australia, 3 June 2016 Written in Reconciliation Week, the article argues indicators are going backwards, gaps are widening and sovereignty is unacknowledged. And, after…
Paul Daley ‘A $500m expansion of the war memorial is a reckless waste of money‘, Guardian Australia, 9 April 2018 Picks up the issue also canvassed by David Stephens of Honest History. Having spent more than half a billion dollars…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Ruling ourselves
Daley, Paul ‘Anthony Martin Fernando: the Aboriginal activist who took his people’s fight to London‘, Guardian Australia, 3 July 2015 [Fernando] is probably the first Indigenous Australian to dedicate his life to activism in Europe … His attempt to petition…
On the anniversary of the Cronulla riots between flag-draped anglo-australian and Lebanese youths, Paul Daley writes in the The Guardian online questioning the appropriation of the Australian flag and the Southern Cross motif, as well as the politicisation of race divisions…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Reality of war, Using and abusing history
Paul Daley ‘As the toll of Australia’s frontier brutality keeps climbing, truth telling is long overdue‘, Guardian Australia, 4 March 2019 updated Major article on our continuing neglect of killings of Indigenous Australians from 1788 till at least 1928. Examines…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
Daley, Paul ‘In the Anzac centenary, it’s time to honour Australia’s forgotten soldiers‘, Guardian Australia, 15 March 2014 The author notes the centenary expenditure of $8 million on refurbishing war graves and memorials in Australia and overseas. He refers to…
Paul Daley ‘Australian patriotism: it’s not about war, it’s in our love of the land‘, Guardian Australia, 7 May 2016 updated Daley rejects violent metaphors for election campaigns and suggests patriotism, always evoked at such times, is more subtle and…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history, The land we live in
Daley, Paul ‘Australian War Memorial: the remarkable rise and rise of the nation’s secular shrine‘, Guardian Australia, 19 May 2015 Lengthy extracts of interview with Director Brendan Nelson. He touches on the AWM’s tourism pulling power (one ahead of the…
Paul Daley ‘Beating the khaki drum: how Australian identity was militarised‘, Guardian Australia, 1 February 2018 Pulls together the themes of Anzackery, arms manufacturers inflicting advertising on Canberra airport users, and the same manufacturers donating to the Australian War Memorial…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, In the media, Using and abusing history
Paul Daley Beersheba: A Journey through Australia’s Forgotten War, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2009; later editions Combines a history of the cavalry charge at Beersheba and the massacre at Surafend (by Australians and New Zealanders of around 137 local Arabs)…
Daley, Paul ‘Black diggers: challenging Anzac myths‘, Guardian Australia, 14 January 2014 Looks at the stories of black servicemen during World War I, in the context of a new play ‘Black Diggers’. About 400 Indigenous Australians joined up. Notes that…
Paul Daley ‘Both major parties were suckerpunched into supporting the $500m war memorial expansion‘, Guardian Australia, 22 April 2019 updated One of the signatories of the open letter against the War Memorial extensions provides a passionate but well-reasoned analysis of…
Paul Daley ‘Story of cities #17: Canberra’s vision of the ideal city gets mired in “mediocrity”‘, Guardian, 7 April 2016 Long article for London Guardian about the history of Canberra. Daley has written a book on the city also. This…
Paul Daley Collingwood: A Love Story, MUP, Carlton, Vic., 2011 Intertwines strands of family history, war and sport in the story of Collingwood footballers, Malcolm ‘Doc’ Seddon, Percy Rowe, also known as Paddy Rowan (killed in France, 1916) and Louisa…
Paul Daley ‘Colonial Australia’s foundation is stained with the profits of British slavery‘, Guardian Australia, 21 September 2018 Riffs off recently published book, Island Off the Coast of Asia: Instruments of Statecraft in Australian Foreign Policy, by Clinton Fernandes. Fernandes…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, The sweat of our brows, Using and abusing history
Daley, Paul ‘Our major cultural institutions are in crisis – and our history is being militarised‘, Guardian Australia, 22 February 2016 updated ‘What price do we put on a nation’s memory? And what should that memory recall?’ Analyses the current…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history
Paul Daley ‘Decolonising the dictionary: reclaiming Australian history for the forgotten‘, Guardian Australia, 17 February 2019 updated Long article pointing to the deficiencies in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB, located at the Australian National University), especially its earlier volumes…
Daley, Paul ‘Gough Whitlam: 40 years on, the Dismissal’s bastardry still intrigues‘, Guardian Australia, 31 October 2015 Grows out of the author’s involvement in the ‘Live Tweeting the Dismissal‘ exercise run by the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Paul Daley ‘Five factors that will shape the outcome for “recognise” at Uluru‘, Guardian Australia, 24 May 2017 updated Surveys the state of play as the Uluru conference gets under way. The ‘five factors’: the lack of interest of many…
Daley, Paul ‘Why does the Australian War Memorial ignore the frontier war?‘ The Guardian Australia, 12 September 2013 Bordered with militarily precise shrubs including the herb of remembrance, rosemary, the outer walls are adorned with a series of elaborately carved…
Paul Daley ‘The Heart of Honest History’ (Honest History Launch, 7 November 2013, Manning Clark House, Canberra), Honest History, 8 November 2013 Thanks Peter [Stanley]. Thanks Sebastian [Clark]. I, too acknowledge the traditional owners of this land [Canberra]. And thanks…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Paul Daley ‘How do we settle the “statue wars”? Let’s start by telling the truth about our past‘, Guardian Australia, 29 June 2018 The author says colonial-era statues, properly considered, can lead us towards an honest history. The article riffs…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, People like us, Using and abusing history
Daley, Paul ‘Restless indigenous remains‘, Meanjin, 73, 1, March 2014 The author explores the storage facilities of the National Museum of Australia and writes about the implications for the way we treat the dead from our wars, overseas and at…
Daley, Paul ‘Indigenous songlines: a beautiful way to think about the confluence of story and time‘, Guardian Australia, 4 July 2016 For NAIDOC Week (3-10 July), a sensitive introduction (by a whitefeller) to songlines, a central part of Indigenous Australian…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Strands of Australian history, The land we live in
Daley, Paul ‘It’s not “politically correct” to say Australia was invaded, it’s history‘, Guardian Australia, 30 March 2016 updated This article comments on the Daily Telegraph‘s comment on a diversity guide at the University of New South Wales, pointing out…
Paul Daley Jesustown: A Novel, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2022 From award-winning journalist Paul Daley comes a gripping multi-generational saga about Australian frontier violence and cultural theft that will capture the national imagination … Morally bereft popular historian Patrick Renmark…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, People like us, Ruling ourselves, Using and abusing history
Daley, Paul ‘Lachlan Macquarie was no humanitarian: his own words show he was a terrorist‘, Guardian Australia, 5 April 2016 Discusses the strategy employed towards Indigenous Australians by New South Wales Governor (1810-22) Lachlan Macquarie. Macquarie is perhaps the most…
Daley, Paul ‘Australia’s lavish spending on Anzac memorials cloaks a more distasteful reality‘, Guardian Australia, 11 November 2015 [A] century after the first world war began, I think it is well and truly time to reflect on how it is,…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
Paul Daley ‘Military buff Tony Abbott is the wrong choice for the Australian War Memorial‘, Guardian Australia, 9 October 2019 updated The war memorial’s council lacks a professional historian and critics say it’s like a hospital being run by homeopaths…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Paul Daley ‘Morrison says troops died “for a great cause” in Afghanistan. To quote a grieving father, that’s bullshit‘, Guardian Australia, 16 August 2021 Scott Morrison is shamelessly audacious to claim Australian service personnel died for “a great cause” in this country’s…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Expressing ourselves, People like us
Paul Daley ‘Narcha’s remains have been repatriated. But colonialism’s malevolence lingers‘, Guardian Australia, 3 April 2017 Douglas Grant is perhaps Australia’s best known Indigenous Anzac. The remains of one of Grant’s close relatives – Ngadjon elder Narcha, also known as…
Daley, Paul ‘A contest about peace not war‘, Canberra Times, 21 April 2013 Contrasts the Anzac Day AFL match with an Anzac Day parade in a small town. My view has always been that Anzac commemoration, while largely a communal…
Daley, Paul ‘Love him or hate him, Peter FitzSimons gives republicanism a megaphone‘, Guardian Australia, 24 February 2016 Looks at the rejuvenation of republicanism under Peter FitzSimons, including the support that has been extracted from most State premiers and chief…
Daley, Paul ‘Anzac Day should be quarantined from politicians – a solemn moment to reflect on the agony of war‘, Guardian Australia, 23 April 2015 In a generation’s time the Anzacs will have slipped from living memory entirely. None of…
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…
Daley, Paul ‘Australia spares no expense as the Anzac legend nears its century‘, The Guardian Australia, 15 October 2013 Notes the mystical place of Gallipoli in Australian history and how this is reflected in ever-increasing expenditure on the Anzac centenary.…
Paul Daley ‘Statues are not history. Here are six in Australia that need rethinking‘, Guardian Australia, 25 August 2017 Daley targets statues of Lachlan Macquarie, John Batman, Thomas Mitchell, Angus McMillan, Alfred Canning and James Cook. We do not learn…
Paul Daley ‘The Anzac skull that tells a shocking and tragic story of battlefield violence‘, Guardian Australia, 25 September 2017 updated Story of an Anzac soldier’s skull exhibited in an American medical museum’s online exhibition. The soldier was shot near…
Paul Daley ‘The Armenians and the Warlpiri: two genocides that sparked a pilgrimage to the outback‘, Guardian Australia, 8 December 2016 Describes the journey of two Armenian priests into Warlpiri country. The visit was organised by Judith Crispin, who has…
Paul Daley ‘The Australian War Memorial’s expansion money would be better spent on traumatised veterans‘, Guardian Australia, 3 July 2020 Update later: More than 85 comments by 6.00 pm AEST, most with thumbs up attached – and not one supporting…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Paul Daley ‘The legacy reverberates: how a repulsive image reminds us of our ugly past‘, Guardian Australia, 19 June 2017 Riffs off Every Mother’s Son is Guilty: Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882-1905, by Chris Owen, the cover…
Paul Daley ‘The National Picture: overwhelming reminder of wilful gaps in Australia’s history‘, Guardian Australia, 14 May 2018 Review of a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ‘The National Picture: the art of Tasmania’s Black War’. The…
Paul Daley ‘The strange case of the weapons maker and the Australian children’s charity‘, Guardian Australia, 4 December 2020 Chronicles the slow retreat of Australian charity, The Smith Family, from its involvement with arms manufacturer, BAE Systems. Persistent pressure, ultimately…
Paul Daley ‘Tim Fischer’s ties‘, Museum of Australian Democracy Old Parliament House Blog, 7 June 2017 An example of how to hang an insightful biographical piece off a clothing accessory (which, in this case, itself hangs, but hangs correctly only…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Paul Daley ‘Uluru, reconciliation and republic: a chance to reimagine Australia?‘ Guardian Australia, 4 April 2018 There is an awakening among constitutional progressives that perhaps the Australian republic ought not be so divorced from the cry out of Uluru last…
Daley, Paul ‘“He should have died”: the Vietnam veteran who never really returned‘, Guardian Australia, 25 November 2015 Partly a review of historian Michael McKernan’s memoir (When this Thing Happened) about his brother-in-law, Joe Stawyskyj, a national servicemen, injured for…
Paul Daley ‘War and pieces‘, The Global Mail, 9 November 2012 updated Story of the pilfering (or, depending on your point of view, rescuing or taking as a legitimate trophy of war) of the Shellal Mosaic by members of the…
Paul Daley ‘Who should lead the Australian War Memorial?‘ ArtsHub, 2 September 2019 Criticises the suggestion that Tony Abbott might become Director of the Memorial, or even (perhaps) join its Council. Like Anzac, the memorial has been immune to political…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Daley, Paul ‘Why Australia Day and Anzac Day helped create a national “cult of forgetfulness”‘, Guardian Australia, 16 October 2016 updated Update 21 August 2017: Tony Smith on Pearls and Irritations muses about the proposal by Yarra Council in Melbourne…
Damousi, Joy & Marilyn Lake, ed. Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2nd edition, 2011; first published 1995 Essays which explore ‘the inter-relationship of gender and war in Australia for the first…
Damousi, Joy Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in Post-war Australia, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2001; e-book available The book ‘based on oral testimonies, focuses on the shifting patterns of mourning and grief in the experiences of Australian…
Damousi, Joy The Labour of Loss: Mourning, Memory and Wartime Bereavement in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1999; e-book available The Labour of Loss explores how mothers, fathers, widows, relatives and friends dealt with their experiences of grief and loss…
Stephen Dando-Collins Heroes of Hamel: The Australians and Americans whose WWI Victory Changed Modern Warfare, Vintage & Random House, Melbourne, 2018; e-book available The battle of Hamel was remarkable for its speed, the tactics employed, numerous acts of extreme bravery,…
Dando-Collins, Stephen The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill, Penguin Random House, Melbourne & Sydney, 2016 In The Hero Maker, award-winning historical author and biographer Stephen Dando-Collins exposes the contradictions of one of Australia’s most successful, but troubled, writers.…
Mark Dapin Australia’s Vietnam: Myth vs History, NewSouth, Sydney, 2019 This book should be read by anyone interested in the way myths become accepted as history.’ — Peter Edwards, author of Australia and the Vietnam War Why everything you think you…
Mark Dapin Public Enemies: Russell “Mad Dog” Cox, Ray Denning and the Golden Age of Armed Robbery, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2020; electronic version available In the Australia of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, armed robbers were the top of…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Dapin, Mark The Nashos’ War: Australia’s National Servicemen and Vietnam, Penguin Viking, Melbourne, 2014 [O]ur ideas of national service contain strange contradictions and inaccuracies: that the draft was unpopular but militarily necessary; that the nashos in Vietnam all volunteered to…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Home front, Reality of war
Darian-Smith, Kate, Patricia Grimshaw & Stuart Macintyre, ed. Britishness Abroad: Transnational Movements and Imperial Cultures, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2007 Britishness Abroad explores the cultural, economic and political aspects of Britishness in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Canada and…
Davey, Melissa ‘Australia’s gun laws stopped mass shootings and reduced homicides, study finds‘, Guardian Australia, 23 June 2016 Over 500 comments on this piece which reports a longitudinal (20 year) study by Sydney and Macquarie University researchers. The original article…
‘When history does more harm than good: highlights reel’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 David Rieff is about to publish a new book In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies. His short work, Against Remembrance, published in 2011,…
Davidson, Alistair From Subject to Citizen: Australian Citizenship in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997 ‘The central theme is that making proofs of belonging to the national culture a precondition of citizenship is inappropriate for a multicultural society…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Jared Davidson Dead Letters: Censorship and Subversion in New Zealand 1914-20, Otago University Press, Dunedin, 2019 Intimate and engaging, this dramatic narrative weaves together the personal and political, bringing to light the reality of wartime censorship. In an age of growing…
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, People like us
Davies, Alan An Eye for Photography: The Camera in Australia, Miegunyah Press & State Library of New South Wales, Carlton, Vic., & Sydney, 2004 The book ‘traces the development of photography in Australia from the earliest daguerreotypes to digital imagery…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Geoff Davies ‘Lest we also forget‘, Pearls and Irritations, 20 November 2018 Pungent and telling piece by an author and retired scientist. He enjoins us regarding a number of important events and issues, introducing each one with the words ‘lest…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Robin Davies & Andrew Rosser ‘FactCheck: What are the facts on Australia’s foreign aid spending?‘ The Conversation, 31 January 2017 Questions the assertion by World Vision’s Tim Costello that Australia’s best foreign aid performance was under the Menzies government before…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Graeme Davison, JW McCarty & Ailsa McLeary, ed. Australians 1888, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 One of the volumes in Australians: A Historical Library. The authors write about land and people, the regional mosaic, private lives and…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Davison, Graeme, John Hirst & Stuart Macintyre, ed., with the assistance of Helen Doyle & Kim Torney The Oxford Companion to Australian History, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Vic., 1998; revised edition 2001; e-version available This superb new companion provides…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Graeme Davison with Sheryl Yelland Car Wars: How the Car Won Our Hearts and Conquered Our Cities, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2004 War snuffs out lives and begets dreams. For servicemen and civilians alike, World War II was…
Davison, Graeme ‘Distance and destiny‘, Inside Story, 28 July 2016 Reflection on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Geoffrey Blainey’s The Tyranny of Distance. The Tyranny of Distance changed our map of the Australian past. It was a bestseller…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Strands of Australian history, The land we live in
Graeme Davison ‘Do we belong here? Reflections on family, locality and community (Address to the Victorian Community History Awards, 16 October 2017)‘, RHSV News, November 2017, pp. 4-5 This speech was delivered in Melbourne. It asks some important questions: Do…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Graeme Davison ‘The habit of commemoration and the revival of Anzac Day’, Australian Cultural History, 22, 2003, pp. 73-82 A recent survey on ‘Australians and the Past’ questioned the assumption that ‘public celebrations are a clue to private sentiments’. (p.…
Davison, Graeme Narrating the Nation in Australia: Menzies Lecture 2009, Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, Kings College London, The Australia Centre, London, 2009 Explores four narratives or foundation myths of settler societies such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa…
Graeme Davison ‘The year of living anxiously‘, Inside Story, 26 June 2018 Long review of the recently published book by Phillipa McGuinness, NewSouth publisher. The book is called The Year Everything Changed: 2001. The book offers, says Davison an understanding…
Davison, Graeme The Use and Abuse of Australian History, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2000 Wide-ranging collection on many aspects of public, local and cultural history. The first chapter, ‘Introduction: Australian history on the eve of the millennium’, is…
David Day Andrew Fisher: Prime Minister of Australia, Fourth Estate/Harper Collins, Pymble, NSW, 2008 Fisher seems to personify the fracture that the Great War wrought in the Labor Party and in Australia: from presiding over significant nation-building and social reforms…
David Day Ben Chifley, Harper Collins, Pymble, NSW, 2001; paperback edition 2007 as Chifley: A Life Draws upon 40 years of research and writing since Crisp’s Ben Chifley but still produces a largely favourable portrait. Essential reading regarding the political…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Home front, Ruling ourselves
David Day John Curtin: A Life, Harper Collins, Pymble, NSW, 1998; paperback edition 2006 Curtin played a part on the home front in World War I as an anti-conscription agitator, then led the nation as a war prime minister in…
Dean, Peter, ed. Australia 1943: the Liberation of New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, 2013 Includes chapters on the strategies of both sides and on army, navy and air operations in the Pacific and New Guinea. Authors include Dean,…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Peter J. Dean, ed. Australia 1942: In the Shadow of War, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, Vic., 2013 A collection of essays on a momentous year in Australia’s history. The authors include David Horner, Kate Darian-Smith, Ross McMullin, Alan Powell…
Dean, Peter J. ‘Commemoration, memory, and forgotten histories: complexity and limitations of Australian army biography‘, War and Society, 29, 2, October 2010, pp. 118-36 Addresses the question ‘how far has biography been utilized in understanding the history of the Australian…
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…
Defending Country Memorial Project Inc.[1] ‘Time to be honest about the Australian Frontier Wars: No. 1 in a series’, Honest History, 9 August 2023 updated The Australian War Memorial must properly recognise and commemorate the Australian Frontier Wars as an…
Defending Country Memorial Project Inc.[1] ‘Time to be honest about the Australian Frontier Wars: No. 2 in a series’, Honest History, 13 August 2023 updated The Australian War Memorial must properly recognise and commemorate the Australian Frontier Wars as an…
Defending Country Memorial Project Inc.[1] ‘Time to be honest about the Australian Frontier Wars: No. 3 in a series’, Honest History, 16 August 2023 updated The Australian War Memorial must properly recognise and commemorate the Australian Frontier Wars as an…
Defending Country Memorial Project Inc.[1] ‘Time to be honest about the Australian Frontier Wars: No. 4 in a series’, Honest History, 20 August 2023 updated The Australian War Memorial must properly recognise and commemorate the Australian Frontier Wars as an…
Defending Country Memorial Project Inc.[1] ‘Time to be honest about the Australian Frontier Wars: No. 5 in a series’, Honest History, 23 August 2023 updated The Australian War Memorial must properly recognise and commemorate the Australian Frontier Wars as an…
Delaney, Brigid ‘Cold Chisel: writing Australia’s unofficial national anthems since 1973‘, Guardian Australia, 6 October 2015 Historical look at the songs of an Australian rock band. Cold Chisel’s lyrics always felt like stories – Carveresque with an Australian accent –…
Dan De Luce & John Hudson ‘U.S. allies are learning that Trump’s America is not the “indispensable nation”‘, Foreign Policy, 27 February 2017 U.S. allies are resigning themselves to the likelihood that Trump’s administration will remain unpredictable and often incoherent,…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
William De Maria ‘Australian War Memorial: from keeper of the flame to hider of shame?‘ Michael West Media, 16 September 2020 Conceived during World War I amidst the mustard gas, the dead soldiers, and rotting horses on the wet battlefields…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
De Moore, Greg & Ann Westmore: Finding Sanity: John Cade, lithium and the taming of bipolar disorder
De Moore, Greg & Ann Westmore Finding Sanity: John Cade, Lithium and the Taming of Bipolar Disorder, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2016 The first biography of the ground breaking Australian doctor who discovered the first pharmacological treatment for mental illness.…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows, Using and abusing history
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Historical Documents Published official records of foreign relations, commencing in 1937 – Australia lacked an independent foreign affairs capacity before this date – and carrying the story forward to 1959 (as at October 2013) with some…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
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…
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, People like us, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Diamadis, Panayiotis Personal Experience, Public Memory: Rockdale’s Monuments to Military Service (Entry for 2015 Ron Rathbone Local History Prize), The author, Rockdale, 2015 The author provides a detailed examination of monuments and memorials in this Sydney suburb, covering street and…
Diamadis, Panayiotis ‘Friendships are based on truths: looking again at the crime of crimes’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 Analysis of recent press articles on the genocides of the indigenous Hellenes, Armenians and Assyrians of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Two…
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…
Diamond, Marion ‘Street names and naming conventions‘, Historians are Past Caring, 20 August 2015 Whimsical but well-informed piece about how our capital city streets came to get the names they bear today. Street names say a lot about who and…
Jacqueline Dickenson, Nick Dyrenfurth & Sean Scalmer, ed. ‘The rebirth of political history’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 56, 1, March, 2010 (special edition) The essays consider how political history has been written and how it ought to be…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Doug Dingwall ‘Australian War Memorial reverses plan to build on nature park‘, Canberra Times, 6 August 2019 Front page story on hard copy. Reports that the Memorial has decided to confine its expansion-related car parking to the current boundaries of…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Djubal, Clay, Catriona Mills, Robert Thomson & Kerry Kilner, ed. ‘World War I in Australian literary culture: from the first shot to the centenary‘, AustLit This is a major research project on the way World War I has featured in…
Graeme Dobell ‘Fire, ash and official secrecy‘, Inside Story, 5 June 2023 Long read reviewing Born of Fire and Ash: Australian Operations in Response to the East Timor Crisis 1999–2000, an official war history. Craig Stockings’s work on the official…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
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…
Bob Douglas ‘What will it take to restore governance to its rightful owners?’, Pearls and Irritations, 26 July 2018 Around the world, and also here in Australia, voters are turning away from the political process, alarmed at the capture of…
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,…
Dow, Aisha ‘Thousands face mental scars from modern war service‘, The Age, 5 June 2016 Like the generations before them, many of today’s returned soldiers are facing enormous challenges adapting back to everyday life. Forty-one Australians serving in the Australian…
Peter Dowling* ‘The Australian War Memorial: a changed future’, Honest History, 2 June 2021 In August 1916, a tall, lean figure, dressed in the khaki of the Australian Imperial Force, strode through the battlefield of Pozières, in the Somme department…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
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…
Doyle, Brian ‘The national sport‘, The American Scholar, 15 April 2016 An American offers a note on Australian football – and does it in one long, lyrical paragraph. He is from the Pacific North-West so perhaps we should expect this.…
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.
Michael Duffy & Nick Hordern World War Noir: Sydney’s Unpatriotic War, NewSouth, Sydney, 2019 It seems that not even world war could stop crime in Sydney. In fact, World War Noir confirms that war and crime — in the form of…
Dunbar, Raden ‘“Jeune Barbarine“: sexual slavery and prostitution in Egypt circa 1914‘, Honest History, 9 June 2015 The author of The Secrets of the Anzacs tells of the human costs – and, for the entrepreneurs, the benefits – of prostitution…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Dunbar, Raden The Secrets of the Anzacs: the Untold Story of Venereal Disease in the Australian Army, 1914-1919, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic., 2014 During World War I, about 60 000 soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force were treated for venereal diseases,…
Duncan, Macgregor, Andrew Leigh, David Madden & Peter Tynan Imagining Australia: Ideas for Our Future, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2004 Long chapters on national identity, democracy, nation-building, growth, social policy and global citizenship. Young authors; Leigh later entered…
Dunn, Amanda, Emil Jeyaratnam & Fron Jackson-Webb ‘How we live now: Australian families at a glance‘, The Conversation, 24 May 2016 Collection of graphics introducing a ten-part series on the Australian family. The first article, on how diversity and change…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
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.
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Department of Veterans’ Affairs multiple authors ‘Education resources: wars, conflicts and peace operations‘, Department of Veterans’ Affairs Links to 27 online publications, many with associated work books and teacher’s guides, some with CDs and some with primary and secondary versions,…
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…
Dyrenfurth, Nick & Frank Bongiorno A Little History of the Australian Labor Party, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2011 Brief chronological study. Notes the rarity of labour parties – that is, parties organically linked with trade unions – world-wide and the resilience of…
Dyrenfurth, Nick, Mark Hearn & Harry Knowles, ed. ‘The Fisher Labor Government, 1910-13‘, Labour History, 102, May 2012 Collection of articles to mark the centenary of the first majority Labour government anywhere in the world. Hearn and Dyrenfurth set the…
Dyrenfurth, Nick Mateship: A Very Australian History, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic., 2014 In the first book-length exploration of our secular creed, one of Australia’s leading young historians and public commentators turns mateship’s history upside down. Did you know that the first…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, People like us, Strands of Australian history, The sweat of our brows
Eales, Robert ‘Morant, the expendable icon‘ (and other Boer War resources), Boer War Topics (website) Update 28 November 2020: Military historian Tom Richardson reviews Peter FitzSimons’ Morant book in Nine Newspapers and gives it a mixed report. ‘Still, for all…
Earls, Nick ‘Australia once banned Catholics from mass and vilified the Irish. Haven’t we learned anything?‘ Guardian Australia, 22 July 2016 Reminiscences about the historical treatment of Irish in Australia – and other immigrants – and draws some parallels with…
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…
Edgar, Bill ‘The Western Australian convicts: a crucial phase in the British convict transportation phenomenon‘, Honest History, 19 July 2015 Much has been handed down about the severity and iniquities of the Australian convict system, but much has been falsely…
Education, health and welfare multiple authors ‘History of Australian education, health and welfare‘, University of Wollongong Library Portal site leading to bulk resources in this field, including journal and media articles, books, statistics and photographs.
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving
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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, Using and abusing history
John Edwards John Curtin’s War: Volume I, Penguin Random House, Sydney, 2017; Volume II, Penguin Random House, Sydney, 2018; also available electronically Using much new material John Edwards’ vivid, landmark biography places Curtin as a man of his times, puzzling…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
John Edwards ‘The plight of the Right‘, Inside Story, 5 December 2016 A long, thoughtful review of an expensive book of essays published in July, following a conference in Perth in 2014 of ‘conservative’ economists and journalists. The book is…
Edwards, Peter Australia and the Vietnam War, NewSouth and the Australian War Memorial, Sydney, 2014 The Vietnam War was Australia’s longest and most controversial military commitment of the twentieth century, ending in humiliation for the United States and its allies…
Peter Edwards Law, Politics and Intelligence: A Life of Robert Hope, NewSouth, Sydney, 2020 Robert Marsden Hope (1919–99), a NSW Supreme Court judge, shaped the structures, operations and doctrines of Australia’s intelligence agencies more than any other individual. Commissioned by…
Elias, Ann ‘Hidden history: Max Dupain, modernism and war time camouflage‘, The Conversation, 26 July 2013 Intersection between the arts (photography) and war (camouflage techniques). Describes how artists ‘used the techniques of abstraction, cubism and surrealism to help the military…
John Eligon ‘Australia through American eyes‘, New York Times, 26 June 2017 Journalist Eligon, who writes about race for the Times, visits the Kimberley, Murray Island, Inala (Brisbane) and other parts of Australia, talking to Indigenous Australians. The article complements…
Eltham, Ben ‘Malcolm “Boom Boom” Turnbull is an old ideas man‘, New Matilda, 10 December 2015 Anyone older than 40 should be able to remember at least three ‘innovation statements’ by Australian governments. They may also have a shelf of…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Ennis, Helen Photography and Australia, Reaktion Books, London, 2007 A leading Australian photography historian, Ennis argues that the colonial experience is a central element of these visual testaments, and embedded within this experience are the tumultuous relations between white settlers…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Errington, Wayne & Peter Van Onselen John Winston Howard: The Biography, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, Vic., 2007 Dominant political figure of the 1990s and early 21st century. Crucial in the revival of the Anzac legend as a central motif of…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Esterman, Matt ‘Undermining education‘, My Mind’s Museum, 24 May 2015 Blog post from Sydney history teacher about the development of professional learning networks which throw open ‘the question of precisely which school one belongs to and which students are the…
Click here for all items related to: Teaching history
Kevin Evans ‘Koalas are at the centre of a perfect storm. The species is slipping away‘, Guardian Australia, 16 January 2017 Climate change threatens koala habitat, adding to their usual problems with fire and drought. But more to the point…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, The land we live in, The sweat of our brows
Evans, Mark ‘Evidence-based policy making: what Westminster policy officers say they do and why‘, The Policy Space, 16 June 2015 This article appears in a blog from the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis at the University of Canberra. It…
Evans, MDR & Jonathan Kelley with Peter Dawkins, et al Australian Economy and Society 2001: Education, Work, Welfare, The Federation Press, Annandale, NSW, 2002 The book provides data for the later decades of the 2oth century on six broad areas,…
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…
Evans, RJW ‘The greatest catastrophe the world has seen‘, New York Review of Books, 6 February 2014 Extended review of six books on the beginnings of World War I. The authors are Margaret Macmillan, Charles Emmerson, Sean McMeekin (two titles),…
Steve Evans ‘Huge Australian War Memorial building project delays fuel doubt‘, Canberra Times, 26 May 2023; pdf from our subscription Notes the massive reduction in equity injection from government to the Memorial in this year’s Budget compared with the Forward…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Evershed, Nick & Michael Safi ‘All of Australia’s national security changes since 9/11 in a timeline‘, Guardian Australia, 19 October 2015 (updated) In case you haven’t been keeping up surveillance on recent history, here is a useful guide to 2002-15,…
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…
Faber, David ‘Anzac Day, Gallipoli and the Great War: a futurological retrospective‘, Honest History, 7 May 2015 The author takes a tour d’horizon of the world of 1914-15 with sallies forward to the world of today. He touches on imperialism,…
David Faber* ‘Beersheba, occupation and the mind of God: a reflection on the centenary of the Beersheba charge‘, Honest History, 8 November 2017 The paper concerns the recent centenary of the Battle of Beersheba and what the author sees as…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Reality of war
John Fahey Australia’s First Spies: The Remarkable Story of Australia’s Intelligence Operations, 1901-45, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2018; available electronically The first systematic account of Australian intelligence operations in the early 20th century offers fascinating new insights into Australian politics…
Michelle Fahy ‘Australia captured: how the military-industrial complex has captured Australia’s top strategic advisory body‘, Declassified Australia, 9 December 2021 Analysis of the compromised position of the allegedly independent Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) in…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, The sweat of our brows
Michelle Fahy* ‘Brothers-in-Arms: the high-rotation revolving door between the Australian government and arms merchants‘, Michael West Media, 11 March 2020 A disturbing number of Australia’s military personnel, senior defence and intelligence officials and politicians leave their public service jobs and…
Michelle Fahy ‘Invictus Games, glossing over inconvenient truths – the arms trade and the British royals‘, Pearls and Irritations, 19 October 2018 updated Michelle Fahy from Medical Association for Prevention of War provides a forensic analysis of the links between…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Ruling ourselves
Michelle Fahy ‘Landforces’ brothers in arms: how a weapons peddler qualified for charitable status‘, Michael West Media, 4 June 2021 [C]onsider the activities of a not-for-profit organisation that many Australians will be astounded to discover has gained privileged charitable status…
Michelle Fahy ‘LobbyLand “culture of cosiness”: colossal conflicts of interest in Defence spending blitz‘, Pearls and Irritations, 13 October 2020 updated On corporate influence on government policy and how weapons makers cultivate relationships with politicians and top officials in the…
Michelle Fahy ‘Selling arms with impunity‘, Pearls and Irritations, 30 January 2020 updated Detailed piece by a researcher into the arms trade. Covers: government funding for Australian arms exports; role of federal, state and local governments; developments in the United…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
Falzon, John ‘The history of colonisation: “In the Absence of Treaty” book launch, Australian National University, 6th February 2014‘ Speech by CEO of St Vincent de Paul Society National Council launching a book on the Northern Territory intervention. There are…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Claudia Farhart Give Peace a Chance, YouTube, 6 November 2017 A 50 minute documentary featuring interviews with Australian protesters against conscription and against the Vietnam War, interspersed with comments from academics and archival film. The interviews were collected by Larry…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
Frank Farrell International Socialism and Australian Labour: The Left in Australia, 1919-1939, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1981 Discusses the impact of Leninism, international trade unionism, socialism and communism. Considers the attitudes of the Labour movement to World War I and…
Farrell, Paul, Nick Evershed & Helen Davidson ‘The Nauru files: 2,000 leaked reports reveal scale of abuse of children in Australian offshore detention‘, Guardian Australia, 10 August 2016 updated Leaked files reveal assaults, sexual assault and self-harm. The devastating trauma…
Elizabeth Farrelly ‘Dull, wasteful and overblown – is this the best Australia can do?‘, Age, 30 November 2019 Architecture critic and commentator looks at the expansion plans for the Australian War Memorial against a backdrop of consideration of Canberra’s planning:…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Ruling ourselves
Fathi, Romain ‘”A piece of Australia in France”: Australian authorities and the commemoration of Anzac Day at Villers-Bretonneux in the last decade’, Shanti Sumartojo & Ben Wellings, ed. Nation, Memory and Great War Communication, Peter Lang, Bern & Oxford, 2014,…
Update 14 April 2016: Kaching! Another $5 million from corporates The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Dan Tehan, has announced a $5 million donation to the Anzac Centenary Public Fund from Suncorp, one of Australia’s…
Romain Fathi Our Corner of the Somme: Australia at Villers-Bretonneux, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2019 One of the Australian Army History Series, edited by Professor Peter Stanley of UNSW Canberra. By the time of the Armistice, Villers-Bretonneux – once a…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
Romain Fathi Submission to the Senate’s inquiry into opportunities for strengthening Australia’s relations with the Republic of France, 2 April 2020 As a result of having a historical narrative that is curated by DVA and not WWI experts, the John…
Romain Fathi* ‘Why have Australians forgotten Belgium when we obsess about our Diggers’ deeds in France?’ Honest History, 30 August 2021 Romain Fathi reviews Matthew Haultain-Gall’s The Battlefield of Imperishable Memory: Passchendaele and the Anzac Legend The central question this…
Faulkner, John & Stuart Macintyre, ed. True Believers: The Story of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2001; electronic version available Frank Bongiorno on the origins of Caucus, Macintyre on the first Caucus, Ross McMullin…
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…
Featherstone, Lisa Let’s Talk about Sex: Histories of Sexuality in Australia from Federation to the Pill, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, 2011 Covering the period to 1961, the book ‘explores the ways sexuality has been constructed, understood and experienced in…
Nigel Featherstone Bodies of Men, Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2019; electronic version available A beautifully evocative tale of two men whose lives are brought together in tragedy – for lovers of books by Kevin Powers and Sebastian Barry. There is nothing…
Clinton Fernandes Island off the Coast of Asia: Instruments of Statecraft in Australian Foreign Policy, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018 Island off the Coast of Asia: Instruments of Statecraft in Australian Foreign Policy is an unprecedented 230-year Australian study that reveals…
Clinton Fernandes Subimperial Power: Australia in the International Arena (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2022); electronic version available How does Australia operate in the world? And why? In this closely evidenced, original account, former Australian Army intelligence analyst Clinton Fernandes categorically…
Ferns, Nicholas ‘PNG marks 40 years of independence, still feeling the effects of Australian colonialism‘, The Conversation, 16 September 2015 September 16 marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the sovereign nation of Papua New Guinea. Celebrations are being held throughout…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Kevin Fewster, ed. Bean’s Gallipoli: The Diaries of Australia’s Official War Correspondent, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 3rd edition, 2007; first published 1983; paperback edition 2009 Covers the period October 1914 to December 1915. Bean landed at Anzac Cove…
Terry Fewtrell ‘War Memorial needs a new Act, not a new building’, Canberra Times, 5 December 2019 For an institution with the title “Australian War Memorial”, it is incomprehensible, and ultimately indefensible, for it not to recognise and commemorate the…
Fielding, Victoria ‘The big election story the media missed‘, New Matilda, 7 July 2016 PhD student writes on the lack of attention during the election campaign to growing inequality. (The Honest History website has collected extensive resources on inequality.) She…
Mark Finnane* ‘A Museum of Australian Policing: That’s a good idea, but what stories will it tell?’, Honest History, 9 April 2022 In one of the flurry of pre-Budget news drops, the Home Affairs Minister, Karen Andrews, announced recently that…
Firth, Stewart Australia in International Politics: An Introduction to Australian Foreign Policy, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 3rd edition, 2011 Looks at the evolution of policy since 1901 (emphasising the period since 1983), security issues, economic relations (including the…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
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…
Stephen FitzGerald ‘Managing Australian foreign policy in a Chinese world‘, The Conversation, 17 March 2017 An edited extract of the 2017 Whitlam Oration, delivered by Stephen FitzGerald, Australia’s first ambassador to the People’s Republic of China (1973-76), at the Whitlam…
Fitzhardinge, LF William Morris Hughes: A Political Biography: Vol. 1: That Fiery Particle, 1862-1914; Vol. 2: The Little Digger, 1914-1952, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1978, 1979; electronic version available Fifty years of history of Australia as a nation from the…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Home front, Ruling ourselves
Sheila Fitzpatrick White Russians, Red Peril: a Cold War History of Migration to Australia, La Trobe University Press, Melbourne, 2021; electronic version available Making use of newly discovered Russian-language archives and drawing on a lifetime’s study of Soviet history and…
Peter FitzSimons Fromelles and Pozières: In the Trenches of Hell, Random House, Sydney, 2015; electronic version available On 19 July 1916, 7000 Australian soldiers – in the first major action of the AIF on the Western Front – attacked entrenched…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Peter FitzSimons Monash’s Masterpiece: The Battle of Le Hamel and the 93 Minutes that Changed the World, Hachette, Sydney, 2018; e-book available Peter FitzSimons brings to life the story of the battle of Le Hamel – the Allied triumph masterminded…
Richard Flanagan ‘”Our politics is a dreadful black comedy” – press club speech in full’, Guardian Australia, 19 April 2018 Man Booker Prize winner considers the possibilities for authoritarian politics around the world, before moving on to look at whether…
Flanagan, Richard ‘Australia has lost its way: The inaugural Boisbouvier Lecture, Melbourne Writers Festival 2016’, The Monthly, 1 September 2016 This article, originally a lecture, is subtitled, ‘Does writing matter?’ The author says he does not believe in national literature,…
Richard Flanagan ‘The world is being undone before us. If we do not reimagine Australia, we will be undone too‘, Guardian Australia, 5 August 2018 Speech at Garma festival, NT, by distinguished author. (Over 500 comments at time of this…
Flannery, Tim The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People, Reed Books, Chatswood, NSW, 1994; later editions, including Reed New Holland 2006 This is the story of how human beings have consumed the resources they need…
Flitton, Daniel ‘ANZAC centenary: the costly price of history lessons‘, The Age, 10 October 2015 Discusses the politics of the Monash interpretive centre at Villers-Bretonneux, quoting historians Joan Beaumont, Bruce Scates and Peter Stanley with criticisms. The Department of Veterans’…
Flood, Josephine The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2007 The Original Australians tells the story of Australian Aboriginal history and society from its distant beginnings to the present day. From the wisdom…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Steve Flora* ‘Robert Macklin’s Castaway is an interesting and informative read in a modest-sized, though wide-ranging, book’, Honest History, 10 September 2019 Steve Flora reviews Castaway: The Extraordinary Survival story of Narcisse Pelletier, a Young French Cabin Boy Shipwrecked on…
Steve Flora* ‘Story of 1797 mutiny is a work in search of an identity’, Honest History, 13 May 2019 updated Steve Flora reviews Elsbeth Hardie’s The Passage of the Damned: What Happened to the Men and Women of the Lady…
Rosetta Flynn* ‘Politics‘, The Woman Voter, 11 May 1917 (Honest History document) ‘Father, what’s politics?’ the inquiring son demanded. ‘Um – well – er – er – it’s like this, my son. There are two boys, one’s name is Liberal…
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…
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…
Fornasiero, Jean, Peter Monteath & John West-Sooby Encountering Terra Australis: The Australian Voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders, Wakefield Press, Kent Town, SA, 2004 ‘Encountering Terra Australis traces the parallel lives and voyages of the explorers Flinders and Baudin,…
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
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…
Fox, Sharon ‘The Gallipoli experience – a traveller’s reflection’, Online Opinion, 21 April 2011 Balanced view by a mature age student of a pilgrimage to Gallipoli, noting both the manipulation of the Anzac myth and the losses suffered on both sides.…
Frame, Tom, ed. Anzac Day: Then & Now, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 John Connor, Jeff Doyle, Tom Frame, Michael Gladwin, Jeffrey Grey, Carolyn Holbrook, Ken Inglis, Gareth Knapman, John A. Moses, Heather Neilson, Robert Nichols, Christina Spittel and Peter Stanley explore…
Frances, Raelene & Bruce Scates, ed. Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Much of the scholarship on the Great War, and especially the Dardanelles/Çanakkale campaign, has been viewed through a narrow national prism and focused…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, Reality of war
Francis, Adrienne ‘”All commemoration is political”: historians lead charge against Gallipoli “myth”‘, ABC News, 11 November 2013 Interviews Professor Joan Beaumont about commemoration fatigue and the way commemoration is used for political purposes. The emphasis on Gallipoli and the Anzac…
Frankopan, Peter The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2015 For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in the west – in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Strands of Australian history, The sweat of our brows
Fraser, Malcolm & Margaret Simons Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, Vic; 2009; paperback edition 2010; electronic version available Part memoir, part third person biography of a prime minister who has changed his allies, if not his…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Nancy Fraser, Susan Neiman, Thomas Piketty, and 3000 scholars from 600 universities around the world ‘Humans are not resources. Coronavirus shows why we must democratise work‘, Guardian, 16 May 2020 For a while (2014-17), Honest History ran ‘Inequality’ as a…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Peg Fraser Black Saturday: Not the End of the Story, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018 The Victorian bushfires of February 2009 captured the attention of all Australians and made headlines around the world. One hundred and seventy-three people lost their…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, People like us, Ruling ourselves
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Ruling ourselves, Using and abusing history
Graham Freudenberg A Certain Grandeur: Gough Whitlam in Politics, Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic., 1977; updated Penguin paperback edition 2009 as A Certain Grandeur: Gough Whitlam’s Life in Politics Biography of Whitlam by his long-time speechwriter and adviser. Glosses over some…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Froggatt, Emma ‘Australian Life prize 2015: the colour, the joy, the weird and wonderful – in pictures‘, Guardian Australia, 2 September 2015 Finalists in this photographic exhibition, which is on in Sydney from 18 September to 11 October. There is…
Update 12 August 2024: so-called AUKUS 2.0. *** In October 2021, we posted a piece on Honest History decrying the focus on the submarine part of the AUKUS story. That was when the Morrison government (remember them?) was still in…
Frost, Alan Voyage of the Endeavour: Captain Cook and the Discovery of the Pacific, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 1998 Places Cook in the context of European exploration of the Pacific. Based on extensive work with primary sources.
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
Frost, Alan The First Fleet: The Real Story, Schwartz, Melbourne, 2012 Disagrees with Manning Clark, Robert Hughes and others that the First Fleet was a shambles. Based on extensive work in primary sources although Frost’s work here and in other…
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
Fuller, Robert S. ‘How ancient Aboriginal star maps have shaped Australia’s highway network‘, The Conversation, 7 April 2016 Fuller writes about the extensive network of trade routes used by Aboriginal people before 1788 for trading in goods and stories. Aboriginal…
Furst, David, Tomas Munita, Jodi Rudoren, Isabel Kershner, Jon Huang, Sergio Pecanha ‘Walking in war’s path‘, New York Times, 22 August 2015 We don’t normally feature the Gaza Strip on Honest History but this is an exceptional piece of reportage…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
Gaita, Raimond ‘Friday essay: reflections on the idea of a common humanity‘, The Conversation, 12 August 2016 Gaita argues that ‘to recognise the humanity of others we must rise to the humanity in ourselves, but to do that we must…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Learning and improving, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Gale, Trevor & Deborah Tranter ‘Social justice in Australian higher education policy: an historical and conceptual account of student participation‘, Critical Studies in Education, 52, 1, 2011, pp, 29-46 This article provides a synoptic account of historically changing conceptions and…
Emily Gallagher ‘The first war for country, for nation‘, Inside Story, 18 May 2017 A review of the For Country, For Nation exhibition at the Australian War Memorial. Another review, by David Stephens for Honest History, is here and should…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, People like us, Using and abusing history
Emily Gallagher ‘“Bang, bang, bang!”: the shock of a boy playing with a gun on a suburban street‘, The Conversation, 25 October 2017 A perceptive brief survey of the changing patterns of children’s urban play in Australia. Over the last…
Galligan, Brian & Winsome Roberts, ed. The Oxford Companion to Australian Politics, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Vic., 2007 Four hundred entries of varying lengths, covering all levels of politics, including historical material. Multiple authors including Judith Brett, Galligan, Ian…
Galligan, Brian A Federal Republic: Australia’s Constitutional System of Government, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, 1995 The book ‘argues that Australia is already a federal republic rather than a constitutional monarchy. It argues that by adopting a federal…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Gallop, Geoff & Greg Patmore, ed. ‘Social democratic parties and business: an historical analysis‘, Labour History, 98, May 2010 (special issue) Given their traditional links to trade unions and the ideological Left, social democratic parties frequently face questions concerning their…
Bill Gammage & Peter Spearritt, ed. Australians 1938, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 One of the volumes in Australians: A Historical Library. Dozens of contributors, historians and others, present sections under the headings ‘Pioneers on Parade’, ‘Aborigines’,…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history
Gammage, Bill The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2011 Bill Gammage’s The Biggest Estate on Earth argues that the Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific…
Bill Gammage* ‘For Anzac 2023: Michael Thomas Kennedy: from Myall, Victoria, to Sens, France’, Honest History, 24 April 2023 [This article was originally a talk at Alliance Francaise, Turner, ACT, 18 March 2016, to mark the Centenary of the AIF…
Bill Gammage The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War, Penguin Books, Ringwood, Vic., 1975; first published ANU Press 1974; illustrated edition Penguin 1990; illustrated paperback edition Melbourne University Publishing 2010; other editions The groundbreaking use of 1000 soldiers’…
Stephen Gapps ‘Blackbirding: Australia’s slave trade?‘ Australian National Maritime Museum blog, 25 August 2017 updated Update 30 October 2017: (Waskam) Emelda Davis, president of Australian South Sea Islanders, writes in The Conversation: “Blackbirding” comes from the African slave trade and…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, The sweat of our brows
Stephen Gapps The Sydney Wars: Conflict in the Early Colony, 1788-1817, NewSouth, Sydney, 2018 The Sydney Wars tells the history of military engagements between Europeans and Aboriginal Australians – described as “this constant sort of war” by one early colonist –…
Garbutt, Rob ‘Social inclusion and local practices of belonging‘, Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 1, 3, 2009 The paper argues for the importance of considering relational aspects (the connections between people and the wider society) when developing social inclusion…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Expressing ourselves
Deborah Gare & David Ritter, ed. Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past since 1788, Thomson Learning, South Melbourne, 2008 Includes an introduction on ‘making history and the politics of the past’ and articles by Mark McKenna on ‘values and…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Garner, Bill Born in a Tent: How Camping Makes Us Australian, New South, Sydney, 2013 The sub-title emphasises the multifarious influences on Australia and Australians. The author shows that the history of Australia can be told through a history of…
Garton, Stephen The Cost of War: Australians Return, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1996 The achievements of Australian servicemen and women have played a central role in shaping Australia’s national identity. But while we rightly commemorate the sacrifices of Australians in…
Adam Gartrell ‘Rudd, Keating “at war” over Gallipoli‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 31 October 2008 The former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, had said it was ‘utter and complete nonsense’ that Australia was redeemed or born again at Gallipoli in 1915, that…
Denise George Mary Lee: The Life and Times of a “Turbulent Anarchist” and Her Battle for Women’s Rights, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2018 Suffragist and social justice advocate Mary Lee was determined to leave the world a better place than she…
Joelle Gergis ‘Northern NSW is no stranger to floods, but this one was different‘, The Conversation, 7 April 2017 Looks at the factors behind the most recent flood and compares them with some historical examples, notably 1954 and 1974. We…
Rolf Gerritsen* ‘A tour de force investigation of Indigenous and labour history’, Honest History, 12 May 2020 Rolf Gerritsen reviews On Red Earth Walking: The Pilbara Aboriginal Strike, Western Australia 1946-1949, by Anne Scrimgeour This history is the product of…
Gerster, Robin Big-noting: the Heroic Theme in Australian War Writing, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1987; reprint with different pagination 1992 The author is critical of CEW Bean and many others, writers of both fiction and non-fiction from World War…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, War literature
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…
Gillard, Julia Dawn Service, Gallipoli, 25 April 2012 We come back. As we will always come back. To give the best and only gift that can matter anymore – our remembrance. We remember what the Anzacs did in war. And…
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…
Julia Gillard ‘John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library Anniversary Lecture, Perth‘, Beyond Blue, 28 June 2017 Former prime minister, now chairperson of a mental health organisation, Beyond Blue, speaking about another former prime minister who had mental health issues. Curtin’s determination…
Gillard, Julia ‘Julia Gillard speaks in London in memory of Jo Cox MP‘, Julia Gillard, 11 October 2016 (updated) As well as being a tribute to the assassinated British Labour MP this is a wide-ranging speech on women in politics.…
Gillard, Julia Lone Pine ceremony, Gallipoli, 25 April 2012 Our federal bond was young when the Anzacs came to this place. The laws and institutions of our nation were laid down in 1901. But here, in 1915, its spirit and…
Gillespie, Mark ‘Friday essay: on the Sydney Mardi Gras march of 1978‘, The Conversation, 19 February 2016 updated Considers whether the original Mardi Gras marchers should get a formal apology. A motion calling for an apology was adopted unanimously in…
Tom Gilling Project Rainfall: The Secret History of Pine Gap, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2019; electronic version available Pine Gap is a top secret American spy base on Australian soil, but how much do we really know about it? At…
Gilpin Faust, Drew ‘Two wars and the long twentieth century‘, New Yorker, 13 March 2015 Honest History just found this one but it is a useful comparison of the American Civil War and the Great War in terms of the…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Given, Jock Turning Off the Television: Broadcasting’s Uncertain Future, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2003 Writing at the beginning of the digital age, the author addresses a range of issues arising from the move from analog to digital broadcasting. He takes a…
Si Gladman ‘Time to take religion out of Anzac Day services‘, Rationale, 25 May 2024 [Years ago, Honest History attended a service at the Australian War Memorial, presided over by a Bishop in a cassock. We thought that odd. Someone…
Gladman, Si: War Memorial raises concerns about religious dominance of Anzac Day with veterans group
‘War Memorial raises concerns about religious dominance of Anzac Day with veterans group’, Rationale, 23 August 2024 [The piece below follows an earlier article from Si Gladman. He is Executive Director of the Rationalist Society of Australia and Editor of Rationale.…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Glover, Dennis ‘The unmaking of the Australian working class – and their right to resist‘, The Conversation, 3 August 2015 An edited extract from the author’s book, An Economy is Not a Society: Winners and Losers in the New Australia.…
Gluckstein, Donny, ed. Fighting on All Fronts: Popular Resistance in the Second World War, Bookmarks, London, 2015 Collection of ten articles and introduction. Fighting on All Fronts brings together ten writers to take up the story of popular resistance. The…
Judith Godden Crown Street Women’s Hospital: A History, 1893-1983, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2017 Crown Street Women’s Hospital was the largest women’s hospital in NSW. Located in the heart of Surry Hills, it was a referral hospital for women throughout…
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…
Gollan, RA Radical and Working Class Politics: A Study of Eastern Australia, 1850-1910, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1960; later editions Like Ward’s Australian Legend, a pioneering work which set up a particular image of Australian society and politics which…
Jane Goodall ‘Waking up a quiet country, five nights a week‘, Inside Story, 13 April 2017 Is it really 50 years since This Day Tonight started? The late Bill Peach, TDT’s first compere, had a good grasp on the significance…
Paul Goodwin with Gordon Goodwin The Last Navigator, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2020 Promoted as ‘From the Queensland bush to Bomber Command and Pathfinders … a true story of courage and survival against the odds’. This is the powerful first-hand…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Alyx Gorman & Rick Kuhn ‘If Australia had its current refugee policy in 1939, we wouldn’t be alive today‘, Guardian Australia, 19 September 2016 Compares Australia’s treatment of 1930s refugees from Nazism with today’s treatment of detainees on Manus and…
Gorman, Sean, et al ‘Indigenous writing’, Griffith Review We apologise for not discovering this portal earlier. It links (at the time of posting, September 2015) to 54 articles from Griffith Review on Indigenous affairs and another 33 articles from the…
Gourley, Paddy ‘Two-per centers and defence spending’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 293 Two per cent spending Shibboleths, sacred cows and knee-jerk reactions abound in government and politics. Paddy Gourley nails one that afflicts the nation’s defence as well as…
Steve Gower Remembrance and commemoration: speech (Sir Albert Coates Oration) delivered by Steve Gower AO AO (Mil) ME, Director, Australian War Memorial on 25 November 2008 at Ballarat University The speaker touches on individual stories (Coates, Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop,…
Steve Gower The Australian War Memorial: A Century on from the Vision, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2019 In this book, Steve Gower, the highly successful director of the Australian War Memorial from 1996 to 2012, gives a comprehensive account of the…
Chris Graham ‘How we failed Elijah Doughty, and countless others‘, New Matilda, 23 July 2017 updated Riffs from the recent conviction and sentencing (to a relatively short time in gaol) of a West Australian man for running down and killing…
Graham, Chris Update 4 August 2016: Calla Wahlquist in Guardian Australia on Indigenous incarceration rates. Thalia Anthony in The Conversation on the same subject. Update 1-3 August 2016: Take 2: Commissioner No. 1 steps down and Commissioners Nos 2 and…
Bruce Grant Subtle Moments: Scenes on a Life’s Journey, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2017 Veteran journalist and foreign affairs commentator writes about his long life and his views of the world. Bruce Grant was Australian High Commissioner to India (1973–76),…
Grant, Corinne ‘I’m strayan and I love stayin’ dumb‘, The Hoopla, 23 January 2014 Stand-up comic and writer critical at Australia Day of Australians’ alleged liking for trivia: ‘We want short slogans, simple solutions and lots and lots of drama’.…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, People like us, Strands of Australian history
Grant, Stan ‘A 10-year-old girl has taken her own life. How can we possibly look away?‘, Guardian Australia, 9 March 2016 Discusses the death by suicide of a 10-year-old Indigenous girl in Western Australia, one of 19 Indigenous suicides in…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Gray, Don ‘The Australian military and Anzac‘, Honest History, 17 May 2015 Former soldier, Don Gray, makes some points about commercialisation of Anzac, Anzac Day sport, the reasons soldiers serve and the entitlements they should expect. The next area I…
‘Great War chaplains after the tumult and shouting’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 John A. Moses* reviews Linda Parker’s Shellshocked Prophets: Former Anglican Army Chaplains in Inter-War Britain _______________________________________ At a time when all denominations are being pilloried for the…
Green, Jonathan & Marilyn Lake ‘Newsmaker: Marilyn Lake on Anzac and Aussie identity‘, ABC Sunday Extra, 1 April 2012 (audio and transcript) Marilyn Lake talks to Jonathan Green. Marilyn Lake makes clear that she has no objection to commemoration of…
Jonathan Green, Paul Daley & Clare Wright ‘Imagine Australia without Anzacs‘, ABC Sunday Extra, 21 April 2013 (audio, no transcript) Paul Daley and Clare Wright talk with Jonathan Green and try to imagine Australia without the Anzac legend. Who would…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
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…
Green, Jonathan ‘Why must a war define us?‘ ABC The Drum, 24 April 2014 (Honest History highlights reel) Over the last three years Honest History has tried to collect significant pieces written about Australia’s relationship with war. We have commissioned…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Green, Michael ‘Once were warriors‘, The Age, 5 February 2014 Looks at moves in Melbourne to commemorate two Indigenous warriors, hung in 1842 for killing two white men. The City Council has agreed to a memorial but needs to decide…
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,…
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Home front, Reality of war
Grey, Jeffrey ‘The big idea: we are making a mess of commemorating WWI‘, Australian, 24 April 2013 The author says Australia historically is not very good at centenaries. ‘If Australia’s centenary observance is little more than a four year long…
Ben Griffin ‘We will NOT fight for Queen and Country‘, Oxford Union Debate, February 2013 updated A former British SAS officer speaks about his experiences of war and the views derived from it. A video uploaded by the Stop the…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Billy Griffiths Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2018; electronic version available Soon after Billy Griffiths joins his first archaeological dig as camp manager and cook, he is hooked. Equipped with a historian’s inquiring mind, he embarks…
Griffiths, Tom Forests of Ash: An Environmental History, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, Vic., 2001 This beautifully written and presented book tells the story of Australia’s giant eucalypt, the mountain ash. Dependent on fire for its survival, the mountain ash…
Tom Griffiths ‘Odyssey down under‘, Inside Story, 8 September 2023 In the beginning, on a vast tract of continental crust in the southern hemisphere of planet Earth, the Dreaming brought forth the landscape, rendering it alive and full of meaning.…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Strands of Australian history, The land we live in
Griffiths, Tom ‘The story behind the story’, Inside Story, 24 July 2015 A long essay on Graeme Davison’s new book, Lost Relations: Fortunes of My Family in Australia’s Golden Age, which also provokes musings by Griffiths about the nature of…
Griffiths, Tom The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2016 No matter how practised we are at history, it always humbles us. No matter how often we visit the past, it always surprises us. The art…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Sasha Grishin ‘Arthur Streeton: The art of war at the National Gallery of Australia combines beauty and barbarity’, Canberra Times, 10 January 2018 Review of an exhibition at the National Gallery, Canberra, until 29 April, just after Anzac Day. Reminds…
Grishin, Sasha ‘Art review: Tom Roberts at the National Gallery of Australia, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 December 2015 Reviews the recently opened exhibition, which is open until March 2016. The chief aim of this exhibition is to take a fresh…
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…
Grudnoff, Matt & Dan Gilchrist Charity Ends at Home: the Decline of Foreign Aid in Australia – Policy Brief, September 2015, Australia Institute & Jubilee Australia Research Centre, Canberra, 2015 A brief historical view of Australia’s foreign aid performance over…
Daphne Habibis, Maggie Walter & Penny Taylor ‘To move forward on reconciliation, Australia must recognise it has a race relations problem‘, The Conversation, 20 September 2016 updated Our research in Darwin [survey of 474] shows most Indigenous people feel judged,…
Haig, Bryan ‘New estimates of Australian GDP: 1861-1948/49‘, Australian Economic History Review, 41, 1, March 2001, pp. 1-34 Surveys statistics from the earliest days of their collection. Useful bibliography to 2001. Suggests that national accounting data are of little use…
Click here for all items related to: The sweat of our brows
Bruce Haigh ‘The ANZACS: ransacked by the Right‘, Independent Australia, 24 November 2018 Retired diplomat writes that the Anzac myth has been constructed to serve conservative interests. Australia’s default position is to the right of centre. We are just emerging…
Haigh, Gideon ‘Basic income for all: a 500-year-old idea whose time has come?‘ Guardian Australia, 11 November 2016 Long article under the heading ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, with links to other relevant material. Haigh looks at ‘the potential of ideas such…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, People like us, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Haigh, Gideon Stroke of Genius: Victor Trumper and the Shot that Changed Cricket, Penguin Random House, Sydney, 2016 If Trumper is a legend, George Beldam’s ‘Jumping Out’ has become an icon. But that image has almost paradoxically obscured the story…
Halford, James ‘Reading three great southern lands: from the outback to the pampa and the karoo‘, The Conversation, 11 July 2016 The common threads of the literature of Argentina, Australia and South Africa as presented in the work of a…
Halloran, Neil ‘The fallen of World War II‘, Vimeo, 4 May 2015 Fifteen minute interactive video illustrating comparative deaths, military and civilian, by country. Comparisons with other wars. Should be compulsory viewing for Australians fixated on our national figures. David…
Hamilton, Andrew ‘Anzac Day celebrates humanity, not nationalism‘, Eureka Street, 17, 7, 16 April 2007 Extended discussion of the religious aspects of Anzac Day, including whether it qualifies as a secular religion. (The author suggests ‘that in the Christian tradition,…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Andrew Hamilton ‘Remembering shared humanity on Anzac Day’, Eureka Street, 22 April 2018 [Politicians have] spent heavily on facilities for remembering the war, focused on the site of the battle rather than on the hometowns of those who grieve, and…
Hamilton, Clive ‘What do we want? Charting the rise and fall of protest in Australia‘, The Conversation, 17 November 2016 updated Discusses the author’s new book, What Do We Want? The Story of Protest in Australia, just published. Traces the…
Rebecca Hamilton ‘Australia’s refugee policy is a crime against humanity‘, Foreign Policy, 23 February 2017 The author, an Australian lawyer working in Washington, writes that a brief has been lodged with the International Criminal Court, which gives ‘every indication that…
Hancock, Keith Discovering Monaro: A Study of Man’s Impact on his Environment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1972; republished 2009 Discusses the Aboriginal occupation of the Monaro region near Canberra, tribal territories, the population before white settlement, economic life, the use…
Kerrie Handasyde ‘Anzac theology and women poets under the Southern Cross‘, Colloquium: The Australian and New Zealand Theological Review, Vol. 49 No. 1, May 2017, pp. 17-30 (pdf courtesy of author; open access) During the Great War Australians lived within…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Home front, War literature
Hannaford, John & Janice Newton ‘Sacrifice, grief and the sacred at the contemporary “secular” pilgrimage to Gallipoli‘, Borderlands, 7, 1, 2008 Looks at Gallipoli travel from a religious perspective. The authors were from the Australian College of Ministries and the…
Hannaford, Scott ‘The silent war‘, Canberra Times, 8 February 2014 Article and interactive material on the experiences of Australian veterans of the war in Afghanistan. While the technology of war has ‘advanced’ much of the evidence recounted could be applied…
Elsbeth Hardie The Passage of the Damned: What Happened to the Men and Women of the Lady Shore Mutiny, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2019 In an extraordinary move, in 1797, the British government pressed a small group of French and…
Hardie, Giles ‘Why Australians are addicted to family dramas‘, New Daily, 7 October 2015 Summaries of 40 years of the ‘most iconic’ Australian TV soap operas. As a country, we’ve long loved drama series but our family dramas have a special…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Kristyn Harman ‘Explainer: how Tasmania’s Aboriginal people reclaimed a language, palawa kani‘, The Conversation, 19 July 2018 Tasmanian Aboriginal people continue to live on the Bass Strait Islands, in rural and urban Tasmania and elsewhere. Their culture, although severely disrupted…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
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…
Rhondda Harris, ed. Ashton’s Hotel: The Journal of William Baker Ashton, First Governor of the Adelaide Gaol, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2017 South Australia was meant to be the perfect colony: free settlers, no crime, and no mental illness. But good…
Nick Haslam ‘Aussies don’t always copy the US – unlike Americans, our self-esteem has stayed the same since the 70s‘, The Conversation, 11 May 2017 An article about Australian psychology over the decades, reviewing 141 studies of Australian self-esteem between 1978…
Riaz Hassan ‘Australians aren’t as Islamophobic as we’re led to believe‘, The Conversation, 27 February 2017 There were two hundred or so comments on this piece which analyses a recent survey on the extent of Islamophobia in Australia. There were…
Hassan, Toni ‘The War Memorial: what’s it good for?‘ Age, 6 November 2015 Also in other Fairfax papers, this piece takes up themes common in Honest History: the Australian War Memorial shies away from recognising the Frontier Wars, it plays…
Toni Hassan ‘Why does the War Memorial proudly display this booty from an illegal war?‘, Canberra Times, 3 May 2017 Also in other Fairfax and in Canberra Times hard copy. Reports the disappointment of former Australian War Memorial education officer,…
David Hastings Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018; New Zealand edition published by Auckland University Press In 1928 the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia produced 10,000 copies of a poster asking for help…
Matthew Haultain-Gall ‘Forgetting and remembering the Anzacs in Flanders Fields‘, Overland, 26 September 2017 Discusses why the battles of Ypres (including Passchendaele) have not had a higher profile in Australian collective memory. The third battle of Ypres did not fit…
Matthew Haultain-Gall ‘Same old relics, same old story? Displaying the third battle of Ypres at the Australian War Memorial, past and present‘, History Australia, vol. 14, no. 3, August 2017, pp. 1-17 (link to online version supplied by author) When…
Matthew Haultain-Gall The Battlefield of Imperishable Memory: Passchendaele and the Anzac Legend, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2021 Given the extent of their sacrifices, the Australians’ exploits in Belgium ought to be well known in a nation that has fervently commemorated…
Hawke, Robert Speech by the Prime Minister, Dawn Service, Gallipoli, 25 April 1990 While the military objectives of the Australians at Gallipoli were not achieved ‘because of the courage with which they fought, because of their devotion to duty and…
Robert Hawke Speech for the Prime Minister, Lone Pine ceremony, Gallipoli, 25 April 1990 It is not in the waste of war that Australians find the meaning of Gallipoli then or now. I say “then or now” for a profound…
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…
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…
Jo Hawkins Consuming Anzac: The History of Australia’s Most Powerful Brand, UWA Publishing, Perth, 2018 Australians have been consuming Anzac for a century. While commemoration and commerce have never been entirely separate they have become increasingly intertwined. How does the…
Jo Hawkins ‘Lest we forget what?‘ historypunk, 26 August 2013 (blog) Discussion of aspects of Anzac commemoration, including two videos, one addressing the appropriateness of the AFL Anzac Day Match as a form of commemoration.
Jo Hawkins ‘Why is military history so popular?‘ historypunk, 5 March 2013 (blog) ‘Military history is the best-selling genre of historical writing in Australia, yet remains unpopular with historians, many of whom feel uncomfortable with the kinds of narratives disseminated…
Sarah Hayes ‘Gold Rush Victoria was as wasteful as we are today‘, The Conversation, 29 June 2017 Archaeological excavations across Melbourne have uncovered masses of rubbish dating back to the Gold Rush era of the 1850s and 1860s. Artefacts recovered…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Learning and improving, People like us, The sweat of our brows
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…
Mike Head ‘Australia’s billionaires celebrate a “wealth boom”‘, World Socialist Web Site, 29 May 2017 Useful analysis of this year’s Australian Financial Review (AFR) Rich 200 List. The article nicely captures the breathless style of John Stensholt’s original piece (which…
David Headon & John Uhr, ed. Eureka: Australia’s Greatest Story, Federation Press, Sydney, 2015; electronic version available Papers from a conference held in Canberra, December 2014, plus some additional papers. The editors of this book boldly proclaim that Eureka is…
Hearder, Rosalind ‘Memory, methodology and myth: some of the challenges of writing Australian prisoner of war history‘, Journal of the Australian War Memorial (2007) Discusses the relative lack of attention to POWs, the reticence of former POWs (partly due to…
Hearn, Mark & Greg Patmore, ed. Working the Nation: Working Life and Federation, 1890-1914, Pluto Press, Annandale, NSW, 2001 The book explores the impact of Federation on working life in Australia 1890-1914 and how national policy development affected ‘the working…
Mark Hearn ‘Writing the nation in Australia : Australian historians and narrative myths of nation’, Stefan Berger, ed., Writing the Nation: A Global Perspective, Palgrave Macmillan, London 2007, pp 103-25 [The article] surveys a range of culturally influential twentieth-century Australian…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Heaton, Barbara Carol* ‘A history of unrest and turmoil: coal miners during World War II’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 An examination of coal mining in wartime, drawing heavily on resources collected by former mining official, Jim Comerford, and now…
Anne-Marie Hede & Ruth Rentschler, ed. Reflections on ANZAC Day: From One Millennium to the Next, Heidelberg Press, Heidelberg, Vic., 2010 Articles from a conference in 2006 under the headings, ‘Myth’, ‘Custodians’, ‘Heritage and pilgrimage’ and ‘New forms of engagement’.…
Anita Heiss, ed. Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2018 What is it like to grow up Aboriginal in Australia? This anthology, compiled by award-winning author Anita Heiss, showcases many diverse voices, experiences and stories in order to…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
Hemming, Judy & Michael McKinley ‘Expanding space, compressing time and the psychopathology of drones: paper presented to the 55th Annual Convention Panel TD 49 The International Studies Association, 27 March 2014, Toronto, Canada’ The paper 268 Hemming McKinley Toronto ISAPaper…
Henderson, Gerard ‘The lingering myth of Anzac Day‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 April 2005 Speculates about Anzac’s resurgence and denies the ‘left-wing’ view that Australians in 1915 were fighting someone else’s war.
Gerard Henderson Mr Santamaria and the Bishops, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, second revised edition, 1983; first published Studies in the Christian Movement 1982 The Labor Split of the 1950s and the proper role of religion in politics. The author had…
Heather Henderson, ed. Letters to My Daughter: Robert Menzies, Letters, 1955-1975, Pier 9, Millers Point, NSW, 2011; e-book available Fairly intimate views of Sir Robert Menzies, the dominant politician of the early post World War II decades. Useful to read…
Ben Henley & Nerilie Abram ‘The three-minute story of 800,000 years of climate change with a sting in the tail‘, The Conversation, 13 June 2017 Includes a short video which puts recent climate change and carbon dioxide emissions into the context…
Henry, Adam ‘The nation-state, killing and death‘, Library of Social Science Guest Newsletter, 7 October 2015 The author examines some paradoxes and hypocrisies in how nations, even ‘modern’ nations, rationalise their involvement with war. Despite the fact that graphic images…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
Henry, Adam Hughes The Gatekeepers of Australian Foreign Policy 1950-1966, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2015 Analyses the role of, and networks between, important individuals, elected and in the bureaucracy, as they influenced the direction of Australian foreign policy during…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, The land we live in, The sweat of our brows
Henry, Nicola & Karolina Kurzak with Charles Sherlock ‘Religion in Australia‘, The Australian Collaboration: A Collaboration of National Community Organisations (October 2012) Factsheet on religious affiliations (including Australian Bureau of Statistics figures summarised), interfaith developments and the place of religion…
Heriot, Geoff ‘The public interest in public broadcasting‘, Inside Story, 6 March 2014 A former ABC executive discusses the relationship between public broadcasters, governments and the public, in the light of 2014’s iteration of this perennial and noting past episodes.…
Rob Hess ‘Growth of women’s football has been a 100-year revolution – it didn’t happen overnight‘, The Conversation, 3 February 2017 Marks the commencement of the Australian Football League Women’s competition. Hess is co-author with Brunette Lenkić of Play On!…
Michelle Hetherington, ed. Glorious Days: Australia 1913, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, 2013 The book of the exhibition marking the centenary of Canberra. Chapters on ‘Australia in the world’ (Nicholas Brown), Mawson in Antarctica (Tom Griffiths), ‘Dreams of Empire’…
Claire Higgins Asylum by Boat: Origins of Australia’s Refugee Policy, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2017 Claire Higgins’ [book] is driven by the question of how we moved from a humanitarian approach to policies of mandatory detention − including on remote islands…
Higgins, Winton Engine of Change: Standards Australia since 1922, Brandl & Schlesinger, Blackheath, NSW, 2005 Traces the history of the national standards body and the contribution of standards to our standard of living and quality of life. Without standards, virtually…
Fiona Hilferty, Ellie Lawrence-Wood, Ilan Katz & Miranda Van Hooff ‘5,800 defence veterans homeless in Australia, that’s more than we thought‘, The Conversation, 30 September 2019 Our research puts a new number on the problem. We still do not know…
Hill, Anthony For Love of Country, Penguin Viking, Melbourne, 2016 At the close of the First World War, and after surviving a gas attack on the Western Front, Captain Walter Eddison moved his family from war-ravaged Britain to start a…
Lisa Hill ‘Our Mob Served: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories of War and Defending Australia, edited by Allison Cadzow and Mary Anne Jebb’, ANZ LitLovers, 9 July 2019 ‘I expect’, says Lisa Hill in the course of this post,…
Hillier, Ben & Tom O’Lincoln ‘Five hundred lashes and double irons: the origins of Australian capitalism‘, Marxist Left Review, 5, Summer 2013 Thoroughly researched and theoretically grounded view of the first 30 years of the colony of New South Wales.…
Hillman, Nick ‘The ten commandments for influencing policymakers‘, Times Higher Education Supplement, 26 May 2016 Honest History has always been interested in how the discipline of history can be used for good or ill in government. Many of our resources…
Roger Hillman ‘A transnational Gallipoli?‘ Australian Humanities Review, 51, November 2011, pp. 25-42 (free download) ‘Changing perceptions of Gallipoli’, the author argues, ‘are an instructive case study in a world of increasingly transnational perspectives’. (p. 25) Considers the views of…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history, War literature
Hirst, John ‘An oddity from the start: convicts and national character‘, The Monthly, July 2008 Argues against the idea that our convict heritage made us an anti-authoritarian people. Includes criticism of the Russel Ward thesis in his The Australian Legend…
John Hirst The Australians: Insiders and Outsiders on the National Character since 1770, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2007; later edition Penguin 2010 Hirst compiles and comments upon multiple assessments of the Australian character, from Charles Bean to Charles Dickens, Dorothea McKellar…
History Teachers’ Association of Australia AC History Units Eight units developed by the History Teachers’ Association of Australia to support teachers in the implementation of the Australian Curriculum: History (ACH). The units relate to Years 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9,…
Click here for all items related to: Teaching history
Zvi Hochman, David L. Gobbett & Heidi Horan ‘Changing climate has stalled Australian wheat yields: study‘, The Conversation, 25 January 2017 In this article, CSIRO researchers take a historical view of Australian wheat yields, concentrating particularly on the years since 1990.…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, The land we live in, The sweat of our brows
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…
Jenny Hocking ‘“A royal green light”: the Palace, the Governor-General and the dismissal of the Whitlam Government‘, Pearls and Irritations, 23 October 2017 Contrary to the accepted story that the Queen was not involved in the dismissal of the Whitlam…
Jenny Hocking ‘Archival secrets and hidden histories‘, Griffith Review 67: Matters of Trust, February 2020 Access is the pivot between archives and history; it is the filter through which an archival record steps out from a shadowy past and becomes…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Jenny Hocking ‘The palace letters case: “a matter of our national history”‘, Pearls and Irritations, 29 November 2016 Update 16 October 2017 referring to further discoveries in UK archives. Revised edition of Professor Hocking’s book. Whitlam biographer and constitutional activist…
Hocking, Jenny Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History; Gough Whitlam: His Time, Melbourne University Publishing & Miegunyah Press, Carlton, Vic. & Melbourne, 2009, 2012 Sympathetic portrait of the dominant political figure of the 1960s and 1970s. A review of Volume…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Carolyn Holbrook, Frank Bongiorno & Michelle Arrow, ‘The Australian War Memorial must deal properly with the frontier wars‘, The Conversation, 24 April 2023 The authors note the recent efforts of War Memorial Council Chair, Kim Beazley, and the resistance provoked.…
Carolyn Holbrook, James Walter & Paul Strangio ‘Is the COVID vaccine rollout the greatest public policy failure in recent Australian history?‘, The Conversation, 21 July 2021 There are three principal factors for measuring public policy success or failure. The first…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Failure to attach: Australians and their Federation: History and Policy Conference, King’s College, London, 17 December 2018‘, Soundcloud The Australian federation was hailed as a beacon of democratic governance at the time of its establishment in 1901—a cutting-edge…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Q & A with Peter Stanley and other historians, including early career historians‘, Australian Historical Association Early Career Researchers, 1 April 2017 updated Research professor at UNSW Canberra (and Past President of Honest History), Peter Stanley, discusses aspects…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history
Holman, Brett ‘The one day of the century‘, Airminded, 3 May 2015 A level-headed description of the writer’s personal ‘Anzac journey’ plus a comment on Anzac commemoration 2015. The comment on screaming military jets in fly-past deserves quoting: So why…
Brett Holman* ‘“The aeroplane is the nearest thing to animate life that man has created”: Ross Smith’s 1919 account of an epic flight’, Honest History, 11 July 2019 Brett Holman reviews Flight to Fame: Victory in the 1919 Great Air…
Holmes, Brenton ‘Tracking the push for an Australian republic‘, Australia. Parliamentary Library. Background Notes, 24 April 2013 Thorough and balanced description of events since the referendum of 1999 with voting statistics and analysis of key issues and models. Extensive notes.
Jack Holmes ‘Does it matter that the President knows nothing about history? We asked 3 historians‘, Esquire, 13 April 2019 From the politics editor of Esquire magazine, interviews three youngish American historians, riffing off the Trumpian ignorance of history (and…
Stephen Holt* ‘A genuine Aussie digger: Vere Gordon Childe 1892-1957’, Honest History, 19 April 2020 Stephen Holt reviews The Fatal Lure of Politics: The Life and Thought of Vere Gordon Childe, by Terry Irving The Honest History project, since it…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Stephen Holt* ‘Another Philipp (sic) encounters Australia: one of many stories in a rich second Dunera volume’, Honest History, 30 September 2020 Stephen Holt reviews Dunera Lives: Profiles, by Ken Inglis, Bill Gammage, Seumas Spark and Jay Winter with Carol…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
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…
Stephen Holt ‘Is Ordinary Joe our most forgotten PM?‘ Canberra City News, 3 October 2018 In this article, Canberra (indeed Belconnen, Canberra) writer, Stephen Holt, presents Joseph Cook, Australia’s prime minister for 16 months in 1913-14, later Minister for the…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Honest History ‘Darwin bombing keeps on giving’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 The newish Director of the Australian War Memorial, Brendan Nelson, reckons that 1942 is one of the two most significant dates in Australian history. He may…
Honest History ‘Eureka: have we found it?’ Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 The forces of law and order killed more white civilians at Eureka than in any other incident in our history. Perhaps that explains why the attention…
Honest History ‘Freedom’s call resonates still’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 One phenomenon Honest History hopes to explore is how geopolitical (or just political) reasons for going to war are transformed, apotheosised into more abstract, sublime justifications, especially…
‘History in secondary schools Part I: Honest History Factsheet’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 6, October 2013 Honest History’s researchers match sections of Australian Curriculum History Year 9 against sections of the Honest History website which is to be launched 7…
Click here for all items related to: Teaching history
Honest History ‘Honest portrayal of the POW experience’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 3, August 2013 Peter Stanley says there is a lot more to war history than stories of blokes in khaki fighting battles in faraway places. Being a prisoner…
Honest History ‘Not only Anzac but also plenty of other stories, as well’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 1, May 2013 An honest view of our history will reveal many themes. It will provide a ‘not only… but also’ view –…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Honest History ‘Military history is not war history: we owe it to future generations not to airbrush out the non-heroic parts’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 1, May 2013 A temporary emphasis on our military past may be inevitable during the…
Honest History ‘The national history curriculum and the coalition: Honest History Factsheet’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 5, September 2013 When you change the government, do you change the curriculum as well? Should you? This article brings together some Coalition remarks…
Honest History ‘Using and abusing history’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 The use and misuse or abuse of history will be a strong theme of Honest History. We condemn the abuse of history but we vigorously support its…
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history
Honest History ‘What was the dream, federationally speaking?’ Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 Chris Masters, in his recent ABC program, The Years That Made Us, said that World War I destroyed ‘the Federation dream’, which he described as…
Honest History ‘When America looked to Australia’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 Australian history has not always been about our need to retain great and powerful friends. There have been times when the rest of the world looked…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Honest History ‘Young people and the Anzac tradition today’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 Young Australians have differing views on Anzac and related matters. Two university students and an entrant in a secondary schools essay competition are quoted.…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, People like us
Donald Horne Looking for Leadership: Australia in the Howard Years, Viking, Ringwood, Vic., 2001 Almost his last book. Among wide ranging comment on the Australia of 2001, he asks ‘What use is the Anzac myth?’. In response, he writes of…
Donald Horne The Lucky Country, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic., third revised edition, 1974; first published 1964; later editions Classic analysis of the emerging ‘modern’ Australia of the 1960s, touching on Anzac along the way, as it seemed to the author 50…
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…
Horrocks, Lucinda ‘Memories of war: A film and research project in Ballarat‘, Honest History, 8 August 2016 Hearing about this Ballarat project, Honest History agreed with producer Lucinda Horrocks that she should describe what the project set out to do,…
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. …
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, The land we live in, The sweat of our brows
Houlbrook, Matt ‘On being a one trick historian‘, The Trickster Prince, 29 June 2015 The author looks at why he always ends up writing the same sort of history. Habits shape and constrain how we work as historians. From the…
John Howard Transcript of the Prime Minister, the Hon. John Howard MP, address at the Anzac Day parade, Canberra, 25 April 2001 The transcript is headed, ‘The Anzac tradition’ and the then Prime Minister noted that Australians are drawn together…
John Howard Address at Anzac Day Dawn Service, Gallipoli, 25 April 2005 Those who fought here in places like Quinn’s Post, Pope’s Hill and the Nek changed forever the way we saw our world and ourselves. They bequeathed Australia a…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Howard, John The 1996 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture: the beliefs and values which guide the Federal Government (18 November 1996) Criticises the ‘black armband’ view of history, amid a wide-ranging speech on aspects of Australia’s political history. May be compared…
John Howard A sense of balance: the Australian achievement in 2006: address to the National Press Club, Great Hall, Parliament House, 25 January 2006 See also this; together the two references give a good insight into this Prime Minister’s views…
HTAA multiple authors ‘Resources‘, History Teachers’ Association of Australia Website page linking to a number of resources, including a separate site geared to the Australian Curriculum: history, the ACARA site, the education sections of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and…
Click here for all items related to: Teaching history
Hudson, Marc ‘25 years ago the Australian government promised deep emissions cuts, and yet here we still are‘, The Conversation, 9 October 2015 Looks at ‘the largely forgotten history’ of the 25 years since the then minister brought Australia’s first…
Marc Hudson ‘Who tilts at windmills? Explaining hostility to renewables‘, The Conversation, 29 May 2017 Looks at the history of why Australian policy makers have opposed solar and wind energy options. In a search for explanations for this, my paper…
Hughes, Robert The Fatal Shore, Vintage, New York, 1986; many later editions and electronic versions Tells the story of freemen (and women) and convicts and the Indigenous people to whose country they came. Covers the period 1787 to 1868. Many…
Hughes Henry, Adam ‘Australian nationalism and the lost lessons of the Boer War‘, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, 34, June 2001 In the jingoism of the time [of the Boer War] can be seen the paradoxical nature of Australian…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Hughes Henry, Adam ‘Nationalism, politics, history and war’, Australian Rationalist, 74, Winter, 2006, pp. 23-38 The article ranges widely, addressing the remembrance of war, death in conflict as a righteous sacrifice, war criminality, the distortion of history through the filter…
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…
Hurst, Daniel ‘Say after the minister: old is new again‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 September 2013 Minister Pyne’s first extensive interview, touching on the history curriculum and other aspects. Comments from Honest History spokesperson.
Margaret Hutchison Painting War: A History of Australia’s First World War Art Scheme, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, 2018 Part of the Australian Army History series, edited by Peter Stanley. During the First World War the Australian Government established an…
Lewis Hyde A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past, Canongate, Edinburgh, 2019; originally published Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2019; electronic version available We live in a culture that prizes memory—how much we can store, the quality of…
Tom Hyland ‘The worst-reported and least understood foreign conflict in Australian history‘, Inside Story, 22 January 2014 Review of Don’t Mention the War: The Australian Defence Force, the Media and the Afghan Conflict by Kevin Foster. The reviewer notes that…
Tom Hyland ‘“What have I become?”‘ Inside Story, 14 December 2017 A review of – and a look at the politics behind – Chris Masters’ just published book No Front Line: Australian Special Forces at War in Afghanistan. Hyland notes…
Hynd, Doug ‘Reflections on an Anzac Day service’, Honest History, 4 December 2013 The author probes the theology of an Anzac Day Dawn Service and asks how compatible are the claims embodied in the liturgy of the Dawn Service and…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history
Hynd, Doug ‘Moral judgments, asylum seekers and why historians can be helpful in public policy-making’, Honest History, 12 March 2014 Taking a historical perspective can give depth and clarity to controversial policy issues. The current debate about who is morally…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves, Using and abusing history
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…
Hynd, Doug ‘St Mark’s remembers Anzac Day’, Honest History, 19 September 2015 Doug Hynd reviews the April 2015 issue of St Mark’s Review, published by St Mark’s National Theological Centre, Canberra. The table of contents of the issue are here…
Ken Inglis, Bill Gammage, Seumas Spark & Jay Winter, with Carol Bunyan Dunera Lives: Profiles, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2020 The story of the “Dunera Boys” is an intrinsic part of the history of Australia in the Second World War…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
Ken Inglis, Jay Winter & Seumas Spark, with Carol Bunyan Dunera Lives: A Visual History, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018 In July 1940, around 2000 refugees, most of whom were Jewish and from Germany or Austria, were sent from Britain…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
Inglis, Ken ‘Letters from a pilgrimage‘, Inside Story, 23 April 2015 Ken Inglis introduces reprints of his seven articles for the Canberra Times reporting the Gallipoli visit of 1965 by veterans and descendants. Two are printed here and the others…
KS Inglis, assisted by Jan Brazier Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., third updated edition, 2008; first published 1998; other editions Takes the Australian history of war memorials from the colonial period, through…
Inglis, KS ‘The Anzac tradition’, John Lack, ed., Anzac Remembered: Selected Writings by K.S. Inglis, History Department, University of Melbourne, 1998, pp. 18-42; first published, Meanjin, 100, March 1965 Considers at length writings inspired by Anzac, stressing CEW Bean’s descriptions…
Inglis, KS ‘The Australian military tradition’, John Lack, ed., Anzac Remembered: Selected Writings by K.S. Inglis, History Department, University of Melbourne, 1998, pp. 120-47; first published, Current Affairs Bulletin, 64, 11, April 1988 Describes how the Australian military tradition or…
Inglis, KS ‘The Little Boy from Manly grows up’, John Lack. ed., Anzac Remembered: Selected Writings by K.S. Inglis, History Department, University of Melbourne, 1998, pp. 9-12; first published, The Age, 24 April 1964 Discusses early Australian attempts to find…
Inglis, KS ‘Anzac Day: the One Day will endure’, John Lack. ed., Anzac Remembered: Selected Writings by K.S. Inglis, History Department, University of Melbourne, 1998, pp. 13-17; first published, The Age, 25 April 1964 Discusses early arguments about Anzac Day,…
Inglis, KS ‘Return to Gallipoli’, John Lack, ed., Anzac Remembered: Selected Writings by K.S. Inglis, History Department, University of Melbourne, 1998, pp. 43-62; first published, ANU Historical Journal, 3, October 1966 Describes a pilgrimage to Gallipoli on the 5oth anniversary…
KS Inglis The Australian Colonists: An Exploration of Social History 1788-1870, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1974 While the subject matter is ostensibly people, war and peace, holidays and ‘the stuff of history’ in the years nominated, the book begins…
Inglis, KS This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932-1983, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2nd edition, 2006; first published Melbourne University Press, 1983 The development of the ABC parallels that of Australia over these years. ‘Inglis shows us the ABC’s…
Inglis, KS Whose ABC? The Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1983–2006, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2006; e-book available Takes the story of the national broadcaster into the 21st century, interweaving institutional, cultural and political history. The author talks about the book here and…
Melanie Innes & Heather Sharp ‘World War I commemoration and student historical consciousness: a study of high-school students’ views‘, History Education Research Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, 26 October 2018, pp. 193-205 (open access) Establishes that ‘Gallipoli and, more broadly,…
Institute of Public Affairs ‘How history teaching became arts and crafts‘, Foundations of Western Civilisation Program, 27 March 2013 Criticises the national curriculum for its ‘focus on sources, projects and technological gimmicks’ which ‘ultimately confuse children, who end up unable…
Click here for all items related to: Teaching history
‘Invasion, massacre and the Queen’s uniform: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 4 April 2016 updated This little collection pulls together a few threads relating to the following: the event of 1788 and afterwards that some of us call ‘white settlement’…
Jessica Irvine ‘This is what would happen if Australia halted immigration‘, Age, 2 October 2016 Considers effects in terms of faltering economic growth, aging work-force, Budget blow-out, still crowded roads, still expensive housing, education and tourism impacts and difficulties in…
Irving, Helen To Constitute a Nation: A Cultural History of Australia’s Constitution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, updated edition, 1999; first published 1997 The men who drafted the Australian Constitution in the 1890s may have thought that they…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Irving, Nick ‘What does glorifying the Anzac myth say about our attitudes to violent men today?‘ Junkee, 21 April 2016 Reflections on Anzac leave out the violence that soldiers inflict. The author looks at remarks by David Morrison as head…
Irving, Terence H & Sean Scalmer ‘Labour intellectuals in Australia: modes, traditions, generations, transformations‘, International Review of Social History, 50, 1, 2005, pp. 1-26 The labour movement has been replete with educators, readers, advocates, stirrers, brokers, editors, writers, painters, theorists,…
Irving, Terry The Southern Tree of Liberty: The Democratic Movement in New South Wales before 1856, The Federation Press, Annandale, NSW, 2006 Publication marking the sesquicentary of responsible government in New South Wales. Describes Charles Harpur, poet of liberty, Johann…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Terry Irving The Fatal Lure of Politics: The Life and Thought of Vere Gordon Childe, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2020 Renowned Australian-born archaeologist and prehistorian Vere Gordon Childe (1892–1957) had a lifelong fascination with socialist politics. In his early life…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Isaac, Joe & Stuart Macintyre, ed. The New Province for Law and Order: 100 Years of Australian Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, 2004 Commemorating the centenary of the Australian system of settling industrial disputes –…
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,…
Jabour, Bridie ‘Boomers and millenials: this is not intergenerational warfare, it’s class warfare‘, Guardian Australia, 6 April 2016 Talk about intergenerational conflict is really about class conflict, based on differential access to capital, particularly housing. Some millenials can rely on…
Andra Jackson ‘The lasting legacy of the Vietnam Moratorium‘, Eureka Street, 8 May 2020 An appropriate marking of the 5oth anniversary of the Moratorium demonstration in Melbourne’s Bourke Street, by someone who was there (as was the author of this…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Using and abusing history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, The sweat of our brows
Jakubowicz, Andrew ‘How national multicultural legislation would strengthen Australian society‘, The Conversation, 5 November 2015 The author looks at 40 years of history of how governments, state and federal, have dealt with multiculturalism. He finds they have lacked ‘the courage…
James, Clive Latest Readings, Yale University Press, New Haven CT & London, 2015 In 2010, Clive James was diagnosed with terminal leukemia. Deciding that “if you don’t know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as…
Jonathan D. James ‘As Australia becomes less religious, our parliament becomes more so‘, The Conversation, 21 August 2017 An interesting examination as the marriage equality issue bubbles. Even though the 2016 Census revealed that more than 30% of the Australian population identify…
Julie Janson The Light House Ghost, Nibago, Avalon, NSW, 2018; electronic version available From the World War 1 Middle Eastern Theatre of War, the Desert Campaign and the Light Horse military victory, to a quiet family life in a gold…
LC Jauncey The Story of Conscription in Australia, Macmillan of Australia, South Melbourne, Vic., 1968; first published 1935 There has not been as detailed an account of the World War I conscription battles since this book was written. This edition…
Laksiri Jayasuriya, David Walker & Janice Gothard, ed. Legacies of White Australia: Race, Culture, and Nation, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, WA, 2003 The authors assess whether controversies about asylum seekers have refuelled White Australia.
Simon Jenkins ‘No more remembrance days – let’s consign the 20th century to history‘, The Guardian, 9 November 2017 Other Honest History material on Remembrance Day 99 is here and linked therefrom. Simon Jenkins’ piece was shared 12 000 times…
Jennings, Garry ‘How Australians die: cause #1 – heart diseases and stroke‘, The Conversation, 6 June 2016 First of five articles (they will link from this one) on the leading causes of death in Australia and on how death rates…
Greg Jericho ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s myth of “middle Australia” ignores both gender and reality‘, Guardian Australia, 18 April 2017 Looks at taxation statistics to ‘highlight that middle Australia earns much less than the government would have you believe and that women…
Jericho, Greg ‘It’s time to expose the myths of the neoliberal economic model‘, Guardian Australia, 30 May 2016 Election commentary which takes a broad historical sweep. The writer looks at trend figures for GDP growth going back 20, 30 and…
Jericho, Greg ‘As the “rising tide” of living standards starts to ebb, the poorest will go under‘, Guardian Australia, 19 September 2015 Close summary analysis of the NATSEM report recently released. See also our collection of material on inequality, with…
Emil Jeyaratnam ‘Twelve charts on race and racism in Australia‘, The Conversation, 28 November 2018 Graphs on ancestry, country of birth, overseas-born residents, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, migration patterns, attitude to diversity, attitude to non-discriminatory migration policies, attitudes…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
JM Talkback ‘Anzac Day under PC attack‘, 979 FM Community Radio, Melton, Vic., 29 March, 4 April 2012 Comments on the reaction to the Colmar Brunton report on public opinion about how the Anzac centenary should be commemorated. (Prime Minister…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library “Doing the Best for the Country”: Behind the Scenes of Australia’s Wartime Decision-making 1939-45 Text and dozens of photographs under the headings ‘Australia’s wartime Prime Ministers’, ‘War Cabinet and Advisory War Council’, ‘Wartime discussions and…
Johnson, Ian ‘China’s memory manipulators‘, Guardian, 8 June 2016 Honest History has followed recent events in the South China Sea because of their relevance to Australia. We are also interested in material that shows how governments manipulate history, for example,…
Ian M. Johnstone Armidale and the Great War, The author, Armidale NSW, 2017 The book describes the impact of World War I on this New South Wales town and its people. The author has previously written on aspects of New…
Jones, Ann ‘Australian lighthouses in the spotlight‘, ABC Radio National ‘Off Track’, 6 July 2015 (audio and story) Australia’s first lighthouse (Macquarie Lighthouse in Sydney) lit up in 1818 (though it was rebuilt later) but 2015 marks the centenary of…
Jones, Barry ‘Asylum is the greatest moral challenge of our time‘, The Conversation, 29 July 2013 The fact that non-European migration has been so significant since the end of White Australia ought to make us sympathetic to refugees, but I…
Barry Jones ‘Democratic opposition to war: the 1916-17 anti-conscription campaigns – impacts and legacies (Keynote address, Brunswick-Coburg Anti-Conscription Commemoration Campaign Conference, 20 May 2017)’, Honest History, 13 June 2017 This one day conference addressed a number of aspects of the…
Benjamin T. Jones, Frank Bongiorno & John Uhr, ed. Elections Matter: Ten Federal Elections that Shaped Australia, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018 Taking ten examples, this book argues that elections do matter (even when it seems they don’t). It is…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Benjamin T. Jones This Time: Australia’s Republican Past and Future, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2018; e-book available In This Time, Benjamin T. Jones charts a path to an independent future. He reveals the fascinating early history of the Australian republican movement of…
Benjamin T. Jones ‘Where does Mark Latham sit among Labor rats?‘ Independent Australia, 13 July 2018 Historical survey from 1911 through Hughes, Lyons, Lang and the Groupers, with a few more mentioned in the comments from readers. ‘Contrary to [Graham]…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Jones, Gemma & Paul Tatnell ‘Furore over image branding of Anzac centenary‘, Herald-Sun, 6 January 2012 Some public concern reported over plans by the Anzac Centenary Advisory Board to market research an appropriate logo for the Anzac centenary. The successful…
Click here for all items related to: Centenary Watch
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…
Rebecca Jones Slow Catastrophes: Living with Drought in Australia, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2017 Living with drought is one of the biggest issues of our times. Climate change scenarios suggest that in the next fifty years global warming will increase…
Tony Jones, et al ‘Anzac Day special‘, ABC Q & A, 26 April 2010 (video, transcript, questions, summary, biodata of panellists) Panellists were Germaine Greer, General Peter Cosgrove, Peter FitzSimons, Brigadier Alison Creagh and Professor Henry Reynolds, with Tony Jones.…
Lucas Jordan* ‘Rowing on after the Great War: the origins of the King’s Cup’, Honest History, 8 July 2019 Lucas Jordan reviews Bruce Coe’s Pulling Through: The Story of the King’s Cup On Saturday, 5 July 1919, an eight-man rowing…
Ann-Mari Jordens Alien to Citizen: Settling Migrants in Australia, 1945-75, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1997 Administrative history describing the profound changes in Australia’s demography after World War II. Strong on the role of the Immigration Department and its…
Jordens, Ann-Mari Hope: Refugees and Their Supporters in Australia since 1947, Halstead Press, Sydney, 2012 In-depth consideration of the resettlement experiences of refugees. The author notes that the outsourcing of resettlement services to specialist providers ‘conveys the impression that the…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Jupp, James, John Nieuwenhuysen & Emma Dawson, ed. Social Cohesion in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, Vic., 2007 Australia’s reputation as a successful large scale immigrant-receiving nation is well formed. In the latest wave, not only have millions of…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Jupp, James From White Australia to Woomera: The Story of Australian Immigration, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2nd edition, 2007; first published 2002 [S]urveys the changes in policy over the last thirty years since the seismic shift away from the…
Kahn, Andrew & Rebecca Onion ‘Is history written by men, about men?‘ Slate, 6 January 2016 We examined a set of 614 works of popular history from 80 houses, which either published books we defined as trade history or landed…
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history
Matthew Kahn ‘How far must Trump “unravel” before the 25th Amendment kicks in?‘ Foreign Policy, 23 October 2017 A detailed and sober assessment of the possibilities of using the 25th Amendment (presidential disability) to the United States Constitution to remove…
Kaine, Sarah ‘The state of the union(s): how a perfect storm weakened the workers’ voices‘, The Conversation, 21 April 2016 The author says that, given the current political focus on unions, an observer would think Australian unions were at the…
Ashley Kalagian Blunt ‘Life after genocide: legacies of a shattered culture‘, Griffith Review, July 2015 A Canadian-Armenian now living in Australia examines her heritage and touches on Australian connections as well. She notes how the Armenian genocide provided lessons for…
Ashley Kalagian Blunt My Name is Revenge, Spineless Wonders Publishing, Melbourne, 2018; electronic version available My Name is Revenge is in two parts. There is a novella, and an essay reflecting on the historic events that inspired that novella, and meditating…
Binoy Kampmark ‘NZ shooter: the myth of Australian values‘, Eureka Street, 19 March 2019 The painful truth is that Anning and Tarrant are representative of an aspect of Australian national identity. For decades, they were entirely representative. Their increasing loss of relevance,…
Effie Karageorgos ‘An urgent rethink is needed on the idealised image of the ANZAC digger‘, The Conversation, 21 November 2018 Having spent all that money on Great War commemoration we need to become more honest – respectfully – about the way…
Robert Kearney & Sharon Cleary Valour and Violets: South Australia in the Great War, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2018 Close to 35,000 South Australians enlisted for service overseas during the Great War. Around 5500 never came back. Countless more returned with…
Keating, Michael & John Menadue, ed. ‘Fairness, opportunity and security: a policy series‘, Pearls and Irritations, 11 May 2015 (updated) Update 27 May 2015: There have been 20 or so papers already on democratic renewal, the role of government, foreign…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Michael Keating ‘The future Budget outlook – a comment on the Parliamentary Budget Office report on trends affecting the sustainability of Commonwealth taxes‘, Pearls and Irritations, 24 July 2018 The independent Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has released a report on…
Michael Keating ‘Why Australia needs a stronger revenue base‘, Pearls and Irritations, 19 April 2018 Former senior public servant stresses the importance of boosting the revenue base through taxation. Fundamentally the reason for taxation is to pay for the services…
Keating, Paul ‘Paul Keating’s address at the Australian War Memorial 2013: we are too wise to be cannon fodder again‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November 2013 Speech (official text here) marking 2oth anniversary of Keating’s speech as Prime Minister at…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
PJ Keating After Words: The Post-Prime Ministerial Speeches, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2011 Notable for the former Prime Minister’s distinction, following George Orwell, between nationalism and patriotism. He prefers the latter, which is ‘belief in a particular place and its…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
Keating, PJ Statement by the Prime Minister, the Hon. PJ Keating MP, Anzac Day 1995 This is the eightieth anniversary of the event from which Anzac Day derives, the landing at Gallipoli and the tragic and disastrous military campaign which…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
Keating, PJ Speech by the Hon Prime Minister, PJ Keating MP, Australian Launch of the International Year for the World’s Indigenous People, Redfern, 10 December 1992 The then Prime Minister placed the treatment of Indigenous Australians within a broader narrative,…
Keating, PJ ‘Remembrance Day, 1993‘ He is all of them. And he is one of us … The Unknown Australian Soldier we inter today was one of those who by his deeds proved that real nobility and grandeur belongs not…
Kelly, Paul The March of Patriots: The Struggle for Modern Australia, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2009 ‘[The book’s] focus is how Keating and Howard as Prime Ministers altered the nation’s direction, redefined their parties and struggled over Australia’s new…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Paul Kelly The End of Certainty: The Story of the 1980s, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1992; second edition, subtitled Power, Politics and Business in Australia, 2008 Influential book describing a decade of politics and economics. Kelly’s broader theme…
Paul Kelly ‘The next Anzac century‘, The Australian, 23 April 2011 Kelly is interested first in the differing attitudes of intellectuals and others towards Anzac. The re-energising of Anzac has become the central organising principle of Australia’s past and how…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
Kelly, Sean ‘It’s time to change our traditions: let’s celebrate Australia – but not on 26 January‘, The Monthly Today, 25 January 2016 One of a number of articles (this year and previous years) on the theme of finding a…
Kelly, Sean ‘Trump and circumstance‘, The Monthly Today, 22 July 2016 updated The teaser to this piece runs, ‘How Donald Trump is exploiting the rules of politics and media, and what it means for Australia’. The article is about much…
Kelly, T. Mills ‘Teaching students to lie: historical method through hoaxes‘, The Conversation, 18 August 2012 Fifty-one posters commented on this article which claims that, when you teach students how to lie, they become better historians. Kelly’s aim is to…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, People like us, Strands of Australian history
Thomas Keneally Australians Vol. II: Eureka to the Diggers, Crows Nest, NSW, 2012; first published 2011 Keneally’s second volume of three and continues in the style of the first, except that the cast of characters march more chronologically in chapters…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, People like us, Strands of Australian history
Thomas Keneally Australia: Origins to Eureka: Volume 1, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2010; first published 2009 Novelist and historian Keneally ‘tells the stories of a number of Australians from the Pleistocene Age to 1860. The people whose tales…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Mark Kenny ‘Why looking back is the only way forward: COVID-19, the Federation, and the chance of genuine reconciliation: 2020 Henry Parkes Oration‘, Parkes Foundation, 19 October 2020 Makes the case for an Indigenous museum; contrasts it with spending on…
Ann Kent* ‘Submission to the National Capital Authority: The Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 13 May 2021 [This is one of the 599 submissions received by the Authority on the current consultation. HH] I write in defence of the proper…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Kent, James (dir.) Testament of Youth, BBC Films and other production companies, UK, 2014 Movie adaptation of Vera Brittain’s memoir, Testament of Youth, first published in 1933. The movie is scripted by Juliette Twohidi and stars Alicia Vykander, Kit Harington,…
Kenyon, Andrew T., ed. TV Futures: Digital Television Policy in Australia, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2007 Multiple authors consider legal, cultural and technical issues associated with the move to digital broadcasting after decades of analog technology.
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving
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…
Kerkhove, Ray ‘Barriers and bastions: fortified frontiers and white and black tactics: paper presented at “Our shared history: resistance and reconciliation”, CQU seminar, Noosa, 11 June 2015‘, Honest History, 22 June 2015 Nineteenth century Australia had fortifications erected to protect…
Kerr, Darren ‘Review essay: Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of Anzac‘, Australian Army Journal, VII, 2, Winter, 2010, pp. 139-44 The reviewer is a colonel in the Australian Army. For the Australian Army, the Anzac legend has not been…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Kevin, Tony ‘Legislating for War Powers Reform: a report‘, Australians for War Powers Reform, 23 October 2015 and updated This is a report of a seminar held at the Australian National University on 23 October. It is reprinted here in…
Kevin, Tony ‘Australian foreign policy needs a shake-up after two decades of sclerotic decline‘, The Conversation, 1 October 2015 The author, a commentator and former diplomat, argues that the last two decades were years of sclerosis and decline in Australia’s once creative…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Keys, Richard ‘The “Great” War‘, Honest History, 2 June 2015 Retired film curator Richard Keys sums up the Great War from his point of view a century on, where he detects bellicose tendencies again in today’s Australia. Read more …
Kidd, Briony ‘Reading between the credits for Australian women directors‘, SBS Movies, 14 July 2015 Asks why women film-makers are consistently overlooked in Australian cinema. Examines possible answers to this question, looks at some history, discusses the work of many…
Kindt, Julia ‘Guide to the classics: The Histories by Herodotus‘, The Conversation, 23 May 2016 For his pioneering critical enquiry into the past [Herodotus] was named “father of history” by Cicero. His love of stories and storytelling, however, was notorious…
Andrew King, David Karoly, Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Matthew Hale, Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick ‘Climate change’s signature was writ large on Australia’s crazy summer of 2017‘, The Conversation, 2 March 2017 updated Summarises analysis that links record summer heat to the effects…
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
Kirby, Tim (dir.) ‘Gallipoli: When Murdoch went to war‘, BBC Two (2015); rebroadcast on SBS, 22 May 2016 One-hour documentary on the Keith Murdoch letter and subsequent events of September-October 1915. The letter is described by one of the talking…
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…
Gareth Knapman* ‘Bain Attwood on the not so terra nullius’: a review article’, Honest History, 31 August 2021 In 2020, Bain Attwood published Empire and the Making of Native Title: Sovereignty, Property and Indigenous People. Attwood presents a compelling argument…
Gareth Knapman* ‘The Batman Treaty’s feudal obligation to the Kulin and the unpaid debt of $68 million a year’, Honest History, 10 February 2022 [Dr Knapman is writing a book which addresses the question, how did British colonial figures understand…
Christopher Knaus ‘Australian War Memorial cannot be given “blank cheque” to cover cost blowouts, Labor MP says‘, Guardian Australia, 31 August 2022 No blank cheque remark comes from ACT Labor MP, David Smith, from this week. Smith had been a…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Christopher Knaus ‘Brendan Nelson denies “conflict of interest” after passing on fees from arms firm to war memorial‘, Guardian Australia, 24 April 2019 updated Article in the Guardian‘s ‘Transparency Project’ series looks at Director Nelson’s receipt of fees from arms…
Christopher Knaus ‘Brendan Nelson warned to avoid “potential conflict” of paid role with Thales‘, Guardian Australia, 24 May 2019 Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show that the then Minister, Senator Ronaldson, warned War Memorial Director Nelson of potential conflicts…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Knox, Malcolm Boom: The Underground History of Australia, From Gold Rush to GFC, Viking, Melbourne, 2013 The author looks at how mining has shaped Australia, arguing, among other things, that the history of Queensland could be written in terms of…
Kociumbas, Jan Australian Childhood: A History, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1997 ‘In Australian Childhood Jan Kociumbas explores the experience of growing up in Australia since white settlement. She acknowledges the resilience and adaptability of the young and re-evaluates…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Miyakatsu Koike Four Years in a Red Coat: the Loveday Internment Camp Diary of Miyakatsu Koike (translated by Hiroko Cockerill; edited with an introduction by Peter Monteath and Yuriko Nagata), Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2022 Four Years in a Red Coat…
Catharina Koopman* ‘Campo 78 – the WWII Aussie camp in Abruzzo‘, Dante Alighieri Society, Canberra, 29 June 2016 updated A review of the bilingual book, Campo 78: The Aussie Camp, by Gabriella Di Mattia (Accademia degli Agghiacciati, Sulmona, Italy, 2015).…
Lack, John & Jacqueline Templeton, ed. Bold Experiment: A Documentary History of Australian Immigration since 1945, Oxford University Press, Melbourne & New York, 1995 Documents and commentary covering post-war policy development, refugees and displaced persons, the ideology of assimilation, ‘New…
Lake, Marilyn & Henry Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008; e-book and print on demand available Places Australia’s late 19th and early 20th century…
Marilyn Lake & Henry Reynolds with Mark McKenna and Joy Damousi What’s Wrong with Anzac? The Militarisation of Australian History, New South, Sydney, 2010 The book caused considerable controversy on its release and since, although many of the themes in…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Ruling ourselves, Using and abusing history
Lake, Marilyn ‘Fractured nation’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 6, October 2013 Marilyn Lake writes that World War I led to the desolation of the national spirit, the nation’s joie de vivre and its high reputation in the world as an…
Lake, Marilyn Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1999 Getting Equal is the first full-length history of the movements – and their feisty, ebullient, determined leaders – who fought for women’s political and economic rights,…
Lake, Marilyn ‘Minimum wage is more than a safety net, it’s a symbol of Australian values‘, Age, 9 April 2014 updated Attacks a call by the Institute of Public Affairs to abolish the minimum wage. Traces the early history of…
Lake, Marilyn ‘“This great America”: HB Higgins and Transnational Progressivism‘, Historical Studies, 44, 2, June 2013, pp. 172-88 Australian history has not always been about our need to retain great and powerful friends. There have been times when the rest…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Lake, Marilyn ‘Unequal to the task‘, The Age, 22 March 2012 Notes that Australian egalitarian principles were strongly in evidence before World War I, as seen, for example, in the work of HB Higgins (see also here). It is timely…
Marilyn Lake ‘We must fight free of Anzac, lest we forget our other stories‘, Age, 24 April 2009 Rehearses many of the arguments put in What’s Wrong with Anzac? Looks at the troubles of soldier settlers after World War I,…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Lake, Marilyn, Graham Wilson, Jeff Sparrow, Brendan Nelson, John Martinkus, Nicholas Jans ‘Intelligence Squared Debate: Anzac Day is More Puff Than Substance, 30 April 2013‘, The Wheeler Centre (video, audio, no transcript) The plucky bravery of the Anzacs is one…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Meredith Lake The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History, NewSouth, Sydney, 2018 In this surprising and revelatory history of the Bible in Australia, Meredith Lake gets under the skin of a text that’s been read, wrestled with, preached and tattooed,…
Michael Lambert ‘Review of Fair Share by Stephen Bell and Michael Keating; Part I; Part II‘, Pearls and Irritations, 28-29 May 2018 The coverage of topics [in the Bell-Keating book] is extensive. While its overall theme is exploring the mitigation…
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…
Lamperd, Ruth ‘Families speak about military loved ones lost and how we failed them‘, Sunday Herald-Sun, 13 August 2016 The story reveals 41 military personnel and veterans died this year from suicide, the same as the number of Australians who…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch
La Nauze, JA Alfred Deakin: A Biography, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1965; later editions 1979, 2009 Early political history and social policy development from the perspective of three time Prime Minister. Basic facts about Deakin are here and a…
Landers, Rachel Who Bombed the Hilton? NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 On 13 February 1978 a bomb exploded outside the Hilton Hotel in George Street, Sydney. Two garbage collectors and a police officer were killed. Often called the first act of terrorist…
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,…
Larsson, Marina Shattered Anzacs: Living with the Scars of War, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009 Living with the Scars of War tells the untold story of thousands of Australian families who welcomed home disabled soldiers after the…
Mark Latham From the Suburbs: Building a Nation from our Neighbourhoods, Pluto Press, Annandale, NSW, 2003 Written before the author became the Leader, then the former Leader of the Labor Party. Beyond its political prescriptions, it is an expression of…
Mark Latham ‘Insiders and outsiders (The 2002 Menzies Lecture, Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College London, 17 September 2002): Highlights reel’, Honest History, 21 March 2017 updated This is a 4000 word article, originally presented as a speech and…
Jack Latimore ‘The stolen generations apology anniversary should stand as a day of shame‘, Guardian Australia, 13 February 2018 The difficulty and reluctance in recognising the way this intergenerational trauma impacts upon the lives of First Nations people says a…
Latimore, Jack, Allan Clarke, Paul Daley, Amy McQuire, and Steve Hodder Watt ‘New News 2015: From the ground up: New Media and Indigenous reporting’, Wheeler Centre, 10 October 2015 One hour video of panel discussion, chaired by Latimore, who is…
Laugesen, Amanda Boredom is the Enemy: the Intellectual and Imaginative Worlds of Australian Soldiers in the Great War and Beyond, Ashgate, Farnham, UK, 2012 War is often characterised as one percent terror, 99 per cent boredom. Whilst much ink has…
Laugesen, Amanda Convict Words: Language in early Colonial Australia, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2002 This book explores the language of the Australian convict era, taking the form of a dictionary with supporting quotations from contemporary texts, including newspapers, government…
Laugesen, Amanda Diggerspeak: the Language of Australians at War, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2005 Wars have been highly significant in the development of Australian English, generating new words and meanings. Rather than a collection of military slang or jargon,…
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…
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.…
Carmen Lawrence Fear and Politics, Scribe, Carlton North, Vic., 2006 The author was Premier of Western Australia and a federal Minister. She is now a professor of psychology. She explores the human experience of fear, looks at how xenophobia shapes…
Susan Lawrence & Peter Davies Sludge: Disaster on Victoria’s Goldfields, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2019 Everyone knows gold made Victoria rich. But did you know gold mining was disastrous for the land, engulfing it in floods of sand, gravel and silt…
Kate Leadbeater* ‘Teaching Indigenous archaeology: when the evidence is just next door’, Honest History, 13 June 2017 When I took on the Stage 1 Ancient Studies class my thoughts instantly went to the Roman Empire, Egypt, Greece, and all those…
Leadbeater, Tim ‘Anzac Day and the politics of forgetting‘, 100yearsoftrenches.blogspot, 8 August 2015 Text of (long) speech delivered to International Socialist Organisation meetings in Wellington and Dunedin. It is a fascinating ‘compare and contrast’ exercise for readers on the western…
David Lee John Curtin, Connor Court, Brisbane, 2022 (Australian Biographical Monographs 16) Acclaimed by many as Australia’s greatest prime minister, John Curtin overcame alcoholism and a troubled relationship with the Scullin Labour Government to win the Labor leadership by one…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Home front, Ruling ourselves
Nicole Lee ‘Three charts on: Australia’s changing drug and alcohol habits‘, The Conversation, 1 June 2017 updated Australians are using less alcohol, tobacco and other drugs than they did a decade ago, according to the Australian Institute of Health and…
Leigh, Andrew Battlers and Billionaires: the Story of Inequality in Australia, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2013 From egalitarian beginnings, Australian inequality rose through the nineteenth century. Then we became more equal again, with inequality falling markedly from the 1920s to the…
Leigh, Andrew What Do We Eat after the Low-Hanging Fruit? A Brief Economic History of Australia, with Some Lessons for the Future, Speech to the McKell Institute, 18 May 2012 (audio, text and Q & A) The low-hanging fruit were…
Click here for all items related to: The sweat of our brows
Leigh, Andrew ‘“A victory won by a lost battle”: What Eureka means to Australians today: Eureka Lecture, Ballarat, Tuesday, 3 December 2013‘, Andrew Leigh Blog, 3 December 2013 Was Eureka a youth movement of an 1850s clash of generations? A revolt…
Leigh, Andrew ‘Markets, monopolies and moguls: the relationship between inequality and competition: John Freebairn Lecture in Public Policy, University of Melbourne, 19 May 2016‘, Andrew Leigh MP website, 20 May 2016 Like a large tree that overshadows the saplings around…
Andrew Leigh ‘Why corporate Australia should care about inequality – Speech, Minerals Council of Australia Tax Conference, Friday 10 March 2017‘, Andrew Leigh MP Blog, 10 March 2017 updated Over the past generation [says Leigh], Australia has seen an increase…
Leitenberg, Milton Deaths in Wars and Conflicts in the 20th Century: Cornell University Peace Studies Program, Occasional Paper #29, Centre for International Security Studies at Maryland, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 3rd edition, 2006 Extensively…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Lesh, James ‘Preserving cities: how “trendies” shaped Australia’s urban heritage‘, The Conversation, 4 November 2016 updated Looks at the heritage history of the inner suburbs of Australian cities since the 1960s. Until the mid-to-late 20th century, the Australian inner suburbs…
Leslie, Tim, Louis Stowasser, Ben Spraggon & Matthew Liddy ‘From Menzies to Malcolm: the careers of Australia’s prime ministers visualised‘, ABC News, 25 September 2015 Handy graphic version on one screen of the careers of 18 prime ministers, showing periods…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Tim Lester & Marilyn Lake ‘What’s wrong with Anzac?‘ The Age: Breaking Politics, 25 April 2013 (video) Tim Lester interviews Professor Marilyn Lake about aspects of commemoration. Professor Lake suggests the treatment of Anzac has been characterised by commemoration without…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Lester, Tim ‘The fallen‘, Sydney Morning Herald [various dates] (video series) Interviews by Tim Lester with families and friends of five soldiers killed in Afghanistan. While the war is recent the sentiments are timeless – impact on loved ones, sadness but…
Lever, Susan ‘Lawrence’s Australian experiment‘, Inside Story, 22 October 2015 Almost a century on, there is still a nagging feeling that DH Lawrence, in some ways the archetypal ‘Pom passing through’ (he was here for just three months), still ‘got’…
Susan Lever ‘Reaping what was sown‘, Inside Story, 4 May 2017 A review of the book Like Nothing on this Earth: A Literary History of the Wheatbelt by Tony Hughes-d’Aeth. The book examines the clearing of land in Western Australia…
Liddle, Celeste ‘Looking past White Australia and white feminism‘, New Matilda, 9 March 2016 updated Update 17 March 2016: Liz Conor writes in New Matilda (excerpt from forthcoming book). Includes cringe-making cartoons and advertisements depicting Indigenous women. _______________ Arrernte woman…
Celeste Liddle ‘Seeing the con in reconciliation‘, Eureka Street, 28 May 2020 Arrernte feminist writer on the annual disappointment of Reconciliation Week, which began on 27 May. Comments section is strong also. We don’t have ‘land rights’ [says Liddle], just…
Liddy, Matthew, Ben Spraggon, Lucy Fahey, Simon Elvery & Colin Gourlay ‘Australia’s political rollercoaster: 13 years, 66 changes‘, ABC News, 14 September 2015 Useful backgrounder on changes of leadership in all Australian jurisdictions over recent years. One more to add.…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Ian Lilley & Celmara Pocock ‘Australia’s problem with Aboriginal World Heritage‘, The Conversation, 13 December 2018 Of 19 World Heritage sites across the country, including such wonders as the Great Barrier Reef and the Sydney Opera House, only two, Kakadu…
Little, Daniel & Donkin, Chris ‘The numbers reveal the government didn’t play “god” with the Vietnam draft‘, The Conversation, 2 July 2015 Despite the claims of former conscript and former deputy prime minister, Tim Fischer, mathematical analysis suggests that the…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Richard Llewellyn ‘The Australian War Memorial extensions: a critique of the design choice‘, Honest History, 24 June 2019 Richard Llewellyn held the senior position of Registrar at the Australian War Memorial from 1986 to 1995. His paper (almost 8700 words)…
Richard Llewellyn ‘The Australian War Memorial Redevelopment Program: the “Mitchell Option” reassessed‘, Honest History, 22 July 2019 updated [For the context to this paper, go to the Heritage Guardians campaign diary, which includes an earlier paper by Richard Llewellyn.] Update…
Clem Lloyd & Richard Hall, ed. Backroom Briefings: John Curtin’s War, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1997 Based on contemporaneous notes by journalist, Fred Smith, the book gives an insight into Curtin’s regular briefings to journalists and thus into the…
Greg Lockhart ‘Anglicans, ANZAC and the nation‘, Pearls and Irritations, 10 June 2022 There has been a change in the way we understand the ANZAC tradition. Since 1945, the literature on ANZAC has led us to think of its ‘classical’…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Greg Lockhart* ‘Australia and the Vietnam War: Part 1 – Neo-Colonial Race Strategy’, Honest History, 14 December 2022 updated Greg Lockhart is a leading historian of Australia’s Vietnam War (Nation in Arms: the Origins of the People’s Army of Vietnam;…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves
Greg Lockhart* ‘Australia and the Vietnam War: Part 2 – No-win situation’, Honest History, 20 December 2022 Greg Lockhart is a leading historian of Australia’s Vietnam War (Nation in Arms: the Origins of the People’s Army of Vietnam; The Minefield: an…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves
Lockhart, Greg ‘Gallipoli reckoning‘, Sydney Review of Books, 22 April 2016 Long review of The Landing at Anzac by Chris Roberts (2013) and The Ottoman Defence against the Anzac Landing, 25 April 1915 by Mesut Uyar (2015), which are appropriately…
Lockhart, Greg ‘Race fear, dangerous denial‘, Griffith Review: Wicked Problems, Exquisite Dilemmas, 32, May 2011 Detailed historiographical discussion of the lead-up to the commitment of Australian forces to World War I, drawing upon evidence that there was secret imperial planning from…
Greg Lockhart Weaving of Worlds: a Day on Île d’Yeu, Reading Sideways Press, Leiden, Netherlands, 2022 I am visiting France from Australia this European summer with my wife Monique. Dominique Turbé and his wife also named Dominique Turbé, née Deschamps,…
Greg Lockhart ‘What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front?’ (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5), Pearls and Irritations, 24-28 July 2017 updated Update 15 August 2017: Lockhart’s further thoughts,…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Using and abusing history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Loewen, James W. ‘Lies my teacher told me‘, Information Clearing House, 9 July 2016 Undated video interview with Loewen, who is a sociologist critical of the received view of American history. Loewen’s widely read Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything…
Peter Londey ‘Managed memories‘, H-net Book Review (27 May 2005); originally published H-war, January 2005 The book reviewed is Liz Reed, Bigger than Gallipoli: War, History and Memory in Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 2004. The reviewer worked…
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…
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…
P. Loveday, AW Martin & RS Parker, ed. The Emergence of the Australian Party System, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1977 Traces the emergence of political parties, in all States and federally, from before 1890 to 1910. Early party development followed…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Jane Lydon & Lyndall Ryan, ed. Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre, NewSouth, Sydney, 2018; electronic version available The 1838 Myall Creek Massacre is remembered for the brutality of the crime committed by white settlers against innocent Aboriginal men, women and…
Lydon, Jane & Tracy Ireland, ed. Object Lessons: Archaeology and Heritage in Australia, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2005 This book examines how we define ourselves through our concern with the past, and especially the idiosyncratic ways we engage with the…
Lydon, Jane ‘Friday essay: worth a thousand words – how photos shape attitudes to refugees‘, The Conversation, 29 July 2016 Looks at the politicisation of migration over the last two decades and how ‘[p]hotography has mapped a distinctively Australian version…
Lyons, Martin & Penny Russell, ed. Australia’s History: Themes and Debates, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2005 A review (no longer accessible Dec 2014) suggested the editors ‘evidently asked their contributors to adopt a democratic, or rather egalitarian,…
Lyons, Tim ‘The Labour Movement: my part in its downfall‘, Meanjin, Spring 2016 (vol. 75, no. 3, pp. 85-92 in hard copy) Works backwards from the demise of the resources super profits tax in 2010 to make some important points…
Macarthur, Sally, Cat Hope & Dawn Bennett ‘The sound of silence: why aren’t Australia’s female composers being heard?‘ The Conversation, 31 May 2016 Since 1987, 47 composers have been commissioned to write for the nation’s leading chamber music ensemble. and…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
MacInnes, Scott ‘Aussie, Christian or universal values?‘ The Drum (ABC), 25 April 2011 Those values Australians celebrate on Anzac Day – courage, bravery, solidarity and compassion for the fallen – are exactly the same values the Turkish, Japanese, Vietnamese, Iraqi…
MacInnes, Scott ‘Observing Remembrance Day: a personal reflection‘, The Drum (ABC ), 11 November 2011 The author discusses the significance of 11 November. There were 28 reader comments. Remembrance Day has always tended to concentrate more on the suffering and…
Macintyre, Stuart & Sean Scalmer, ed. What If? Australian History As It Might Have Been, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2006 Providing a play on actual historical events versus possible ones, this fascinating volume asks leading Australian historians to wonder…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Macintyre, Stuart, ed. The Historian’s Conscience: Australian Historians on the Ethics of History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2004 The editor posed six questions to the contributors. Summarised: how do historians choose their histories? what balance do they strike between…
Stuart Macintyre, Lenore Layman & Jenny Gregory, ed. A Historian for All Seasons: Essays for Geoffrey Bolton, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2017 Geoffrey Bolton [1931-2015] was the most versatile and widely travelled of his generation of Australian historians. As a…
Macintyre, Stuart A Concise History of Australia, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, Vic., 1999, 2nd edition 2004, 3rd edition 2009 Australia is the last continent to be settled by Europeans, but it also sustains a people and a culture tens…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
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…
Macintyre, Stuart The Reds: The Communist Party of Australia from Origins to Illegality, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1998 Takes the story up to the 1950s but written from the post-Communism perspective of the 1990s by a former member…
Stuart Macintyre with Anna Clark The History Wars, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2003; later editions including e-book Historical survey of a number of controversies affecting Australian historians and their craft. The book itself provoked further controversy, particularly about the political…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Hugh Mackay ‘The state of the nation starts in your street‘, The Conversation, 2 February 2017 The Gandhi Oration at the University of New South Wales, 30 January. Mackay ranges widely from politics to personal happiness, the ‘fair go’ to…
Macken, Julie ‘The long journey to Nauru‘, New Matilda, 12 January 2016 Long article by former MSM (Financial Review) journalist on the history of Australian policy towards asylum seekers over the last 30 years or so. 30 years ago, it…
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…
Robert Macklin Castaway: The Extraordinary Survival story of Narcisse Pelletier, a Young French Cabin Boy Shipwrecked on Cape York in 1858, Hachette, Sydney, 2019 In 1858, fourteen-year-old French cabin boy Narcisse Pelletier was aboard the trader Saint-Paul when it was wrecked off…
Maddison, Sarah & Marian Sawer, ed. The Women’s Movement in Protest, Institutions and the Internet: Australia in Transnational Perspective, Routledge, Abingdon, UK & New York, 2013 Collection of articles on protest, policy, politics, advocacy, Roller Derby, blogging and Slut Walking.…
Susan Magarey ‘Catherine Helen Spence: ‘”The most distinguished woman they had had in Australia”‘, Vida! Australian Women’s History Network, 1 March 2017 Spence (1825-1910) was ‘[a] charismatic public speaker at a time when women were supposed to speak only at…
Clare Makepeace Captives of War: British Prisoners of War in Europe in the Second World War, Cambridge University Press, 2017 This book is of Australian interest, as some 8000 Australians were POWs in Europe during World War II, although they…
Maley, Jacqueline ‘Needless debate masks true meaning of Australia Day‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 January 2014 On Australia Day, we should, by all means, celebrate our good fortune, the hiccup of fate that means we get to live in Australia…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, People like us, Strands of Australian history
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,…
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…
[Manne, Anne, Robyn Davidson & Raimond Gaita] ‘Words and images: Robyn Davidson and Raimond Gaita on film adaptation‘, The Monthly, 21 September 2015 In this La Trobe University Ideas and Society event at the Bendigo Writers Festival 2015, authors Robyn…
Manne, Robert, Robin Prior & Carolyn Holbrook ‘What really happened at Gallipoli?’ La Trobe University Ideas and Society, Melbourne, 23 April 2015 A conversation before an audience regarding, first, events at Gallipoli up until December 1915 (Manne and Prior) then,…
Manne, Robert ‘How we came to be so cruel to asylum seekers‘, The Conversation, 26 October 2016 updated ‘If you had been told 30 years ago that Australia would create the least asylum seeker friendly institutional arrangements in the world,…
Robert Manne ‘It’s time to rethink asylum-seeker policy‘, The Monthly, 28 February 2017 Described as ‘an open letter to the supporters and opponents of the Nauru and Manus Island asylum seekers’, this long article canvasses the history of asylum-seeker policy…
Robert Manne ‘Bad news: Murdoch’s Australian and the shaping of the nation’, Quarterly Essay, 43, September 2011 ‘The Australian sees itself’, the author believes, ‘not as a mere newspaper, but as a player in the game of national politics, calling…
Manne, Robert ‘Sorry business: the road to the apology‘, The Monthly, March 2008 Examines the history leading to the Rudd Government’s apology to the Stolen Generation in 2008, elements of the history of White Australia’s dealings with Indigenous Australians and…
Robert Manne ‘The history wars’, The Monthly, November 2009 ‘Only when the overwhelming majority of Australians no longer flinch from the uncomfortable truths about their nation’s history … will we be able to declare the History Wars over.’
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.…
Manne, Robert ‘The war myth that made us‘, The Age, 25 April 2007 Asks why Anzac Day has become our most important national day. Manne suggests, with John Hirst, that the Gallipoli landing helped Australians overcome a sense of colonial…
Paddy Manning The Successor: the High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2022 As heir apparent to his father’s global media empire, Lachlan Murdoch is one of the world’s most powerful people. Yet despite a life in the spotlight,…
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…
Peter Mares Borderline: Australia’s Treatment of Refugees and Asylum Seekers, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2001 Puts turn-of-the-century attitudes and policies towards asylum seekers in the context of Australians’ ‘deep-seated fears of invasion and the historical anxiety about the empty and defenceless…
David Mark ‘Rudd calls for end to “history wars”’, ABC News, 28 August 2009 Quotes from Prime Ministers Rudd and Howard and Robert Manne. Rudd: [It was time] ‘to go beyond the so-called “black arm [band]” view that refused to…
Marks, Kathy ‘Thomas Keneally: “I hope no one says Australia was born at Gallipoli”‘, Guardian Australia, 18 February 2014 Australia should “apologise to the ghosts” of young soldiers who survived the first world war but had to fight for compensation…
Marks, Russell ‘An impoverished estate‘, The Monthly, 5 July 2016 The sub-heading reads ‘The Australian media prioritised personality over policy during this election campaign’. Honest History has avoided running ‘horse-race’ stories about this election campaign, punting (sorry) instead for the…
Markus, Andrew ‘Australians more alarmed about state of politics than impact of migration and minorities, survey finds‘, The Conversation, 22 November 2016 Links to detailed report of the latest survey. In 2016 just 34% of respondents considered that the immigration…
Markus, Andrew Mapping Social Cohesion: The Scanlon Foundation Surveys National Report 2013, Scanlon Foundation, Australian Multicultural Foundation & Monash University, Caulfield East, Vic., 2013 Most recent of six periodic surveys of attitudes to multiculturalism, immigration and asylum seekers, living standards,…
Markus, Andrew ‘Social cohesion survey puts Abbott’s final months as PM in a new light‘, The Conversation, 29 October 2015 The author runs this annual survey and here summarises its main findings this time around. Links to the full report…
Andrew Markus ‘Migrants from Africa bear brunt of discrimination but remain positive, survey finds‘, The Conversation, 24 August 2016 updated Update 29 November 2017: the findings of the 2017 survey. Comment in Guardian Australia by David Marr. Summarises the findings…
Roger D. Markwick ‘The “sacralisation” of history and state legitimation’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 The furore over the recent remarks of Yassmin Abdel-Magied raises important issues about the possibility of dissent against received – and state-promoted – views of…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Karina Marlow & Luke Pearson ‘8 war heroes you didn’t learn about in school‘, SBS, 21 February 2017 This NITV repost from 22 April 2016 presents, without editorial comment, brief biographies of Pemulwuy, Musquito, Windradyne, Yagan, Jandamarra, Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner,…
David Marr Killing for Country: A Family Story, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2023; available electronically A gripping reckoning with the bloody history of Australia’s frontier wars. David Marr was shocked to discover forebears who served with the brutal Native Police in…
Marsh, Ian ‘What’s wrong with Australia’s political system?‘; ‘Disaffected electorates? Dysfunctional political systems?‘; ‘What’s wrong with Australian politics?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 4, 5, 7 April 2016 updated People fail to recognise ‘that the political world is … a complex interdependent…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Marshall, Colin ‘The New York Public Library lets you download 180,000 images in High Resolution: historic photographs, maps, letters & more‘, Open Culture, 7 January 2016 At a time when far too many online resources are still littered with the…
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history
Marshall, Daniel ‘Does Australia need a Queer History month?‘ The Conversation, 3 March 2016 In the wake of the Safe Schools controversy and just after the NSW Parliament and NSW Police apologise for the treatment of Gay and Lesbian marchers…
Martin, AW with Patsy Hardy Robert Menzies: A Life: Vol. 1: 1894-1943; Vol. 2: 1944-1978, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1993 and 1999; online edition Politically at sea during his first term (1939-41), colossus during his second (1949-66) where he…
Richard J. Martin The Gulf Country: The Story of People and Place in Outback Queensland, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2019; electronic edition available With its great rivers, grassy plains and mangrove-fringed coastline, Queensland’s remote Gulf Country is rich and fertile…
Martinez, Julia T. ‘Questioning “White Australia”: unionism and “coloured” labour, 1911-1937‘, Labour History, 76, pp. 1-19 The “White Australia” policy is associated with the Immigration Restriction Act in 1901 and the exclusion of “coloured” labour from Australia. After 1901, however,…
Mia Martin Hobbs ‘Soldier recognition, trauma, and the Australian War Memorial‘, Australian Policy and History, 26 November 2019 Recent PhD and oral historian looks at arguments for the Memorial extensions against the backdrop of the literature on post-traumatic stress. The…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
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…
Mascall-Dare, Sharon ‘All is not lost: ethical journalism during the Anzac centenary‘, Honest History, 18 June 2015 A journalist and journalism educator looks at the possibilities for ethnographic journalism to replace the formulaic, cut-and-paste methods that have been typical of…
Chris Masters ‘The great history war‘, ABC Four Corners, 10 November 2008 (transcript) Presenter Chris Masters talks to academics, war historians, military tourists and descendants of soldiers. The scenes are Gallipoli and the Western Front. Among the remarks: PROF. JOAN…
Masters, Chris Uncommon Soldier: The Story of the Making of Today’s Diggers, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2012 ‘Moving away from our ongoing fascination with Anzac story, he looks at the rich and illuminating present to write a character…
Masters, Chris The Years That Made Us, ABC Video, 2013 (shown on ABC TV, June-July 2013) In Australian mythology nationhood was forged in the slaughter of Gallipoli in 1915. But in The Years That Made Us Chris Masters introduces a…
Catriona May ‘War and trauma: learning the lessons‘, Pursuit (University of Melbourne), 19 April 2018 An apposite post for the Anzac season, the article examines developments in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in armed forces, from diagnosis of ‘shell-shock’…
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:…
Mayne, Alan, ed. Eureka: Reappraising an Australian Legend, Network Books, Perth, 2006 Collection from a 2004 Eureka sesquicentary symposium with papers from multiple presenters including Clare Wright, Anne Beggs-Sunter, Chris Ryan, Fred Cahir and others.
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
McAuley, Ian ‘Busting the myth that Australia has “big government”‘, The Conversation, 8 May 2015 The reality is that Australia’s public expenditure, as a percentage of GDP, has shown no discernible upward trend for the last 35 years, and that…
McAuley, Ian ‘How the deficit obsession is eroding the budget’s usefulness‘, The Conversation, 21 April 2016 Over many years the budget has morphed from an economic statement explaining how the government allocates resources, to a fiscal statement. The emphasis has…
McAuley, Ian ‘Hung parliament explained: too much party testosterone drives the Opposition‘, New Matilda, 3 July 2016 Historical analysis of primary votes of major parties and other parties/independents since 1946, showing the decline for the major parties and the rise…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
McCalman, Iain The Reef: A Passionate History, Viking, Melbourne, 2013 This is a social, cultural and environmental history. The Great Barrier Reef, argues Iain McCalman, has been created by human minds as well as coral polyps, by imaginations as well…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, The land we live in, The sweat of our brows
McConnel, James & Peter Stanley ‘Fromelles: Australia picks a fresh fight with Britain over a 100-year-old battle‘, The Conversation, 10 February 2016 Riffs off Australian officials’ decision to exclude the families of British soldiers from attending the Fromelles commemoration in…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
Matthew McCormack ‘Historians and Twitter‘, Twitter/History at Northampton blog, 20 November 2017 This is a first for Honest History – turning a Tweet into a post – but it is done gladly because Matthew McCormack up there at the University…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Neil McDonald with Peter Brune Valiant for Truth: The Life of Chester Wilmot, War Correspondent, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 Chester Wilmot (1911–1954) was a renowned Australian war correspondent, broadcaster, journalist and writer. Covering the first triumphant North African battles of Bardia,…
Ian McGibbon ‘William Malone and the entrenched myth of insubordination at Gallipoli‘, Stuff, 22 April 2018 A distinguished New Zealand military historian unpicks a myth that Kiwi officer, William Malone, disobeyed orders from a British superior at Gallipoli, specifically at…
Michael McGirr Bypass: The Story of a Road, Picador, Sydney, 2004 Ostensibly, the story of a cycle trip down the Hume Highway by a former Jesuit. ‘In some ways’, McGirr says, ‘the Hume Highway is one long war memorial’ (p.…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
McGrath, Ann ‘Secrets of nation‘, Inside Story, 15 July 2016 By the 1960s, when I was growing up there, Queensland had become skilled at burying the Aboriginal past, and Queenslanders spoke about its traces in hushed tones. As a child,…
Phillipa McGuinness ‘How to … write a book proposal’, AHA Early Career Researchers Blog, 22 June 2017 What a buzzy little production this blog is and this is a really useful short note on it from the Executive Publisher of…
Tom McIlroy ‘”Shameful”; Ex-directors oppose War Memorial redevelopment’, Australian Financial Review, 13 July 2020 (pdf from our subscription) Quotes former Directors Gower and Kelson and Heritage Guardians’ David Stephens in advance of Public Works Committee. ‘Former bosses of the Australian…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Tom McIlroy ‘Government’s heritage adviser warns against War Memorial redevelopment‘, Australian Financial Review, 4 October 2020 updated (pdf from our subscription) Riffs off submission No. 152 to the Memorial’s EPBC Act consultation (Download Preliminary Documentation Public Comment). The Australian Heritage…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Tom McIlroy ‘Kerry Stokes guaranteed $500m War Memorial plan‘, Australian Financial Review, 7 October 2019 (Pay-wall. Pdf copy made from open access version.) Story based on FOI material provided to Heritage Guardians and Honest History. Seven West chairman and Rich…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
McIlvenny, Leonie The Research Safari Website directed at teachers and students, covering all aspects of web-based research for assignments. Main sections are on defining, locating, selecting, organising, presenting, evaluating and the knowledge compass.
Click here for all items related to: Teaching history
Ian McKay & Jamie Swift The Vimy Trap Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War, Between the Lines Books, Toronto, 2016; e-book available The story of the bloody 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge is, according…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
Jim McKay & Karen Brooks ‘Toys for the boys: white men’s business at the War Memorial‘, Broad Agenda, 18 August 2020 Masculinity: Most cultural institutions in the national capital are facing austerity measures so crippling they can barely conduct their…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
McKay, Jim ‘A critique of the militarisation of Australian history and culture thesis: the case of Anzac battlefield tourism‘, Portal, 10, 1, January 2013 Criticises the authors of What’s Wrong with Anzac? for their ‘top-down’ approach and assumptions that the…
Mark McKenna & Stuart Ward ‘“It was really moving, mate”: The Gallipoli pilgrimage and sentimental nationalism in Australia‘, Australian Historical Studies, 38, 129, 2007, pp. 141-51 Commences with a picture of Australian tourists in Turkey and their reaction to visiting…
McKenna, Mark & Stuart Ward ‘An Anzac myth: the creative memorialisation of Gallipoli‘, The Monthly, December 2015 (temporary pay-wall) Australian-Turkish friendship has become in 2015 a pillar of the Anzac legend. The work of Paul Daley and Cengiz Ozakinci (and,…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
McKenna, Mark & Wayne Hudson, ed. Australian Republicanism: A Reader, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, Vic., 2003 Collection of 114 mostly brief documents dating from 1788 with two-thirds of them since self-government for New South Wales in 1856. Some of the…
Mark McKenna ‘Australia’s haunted house‘, The Monthly, February 2021, pp. 8-11 (possible paywall but here’s a pdf from a subscription/purchased copy) Update 8 February 2021: McKenna on 7 am Podcast with Ruby Johns for Schwartz Media. *** The Brereton Report…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
McKenna, Mark Looking for Blackfellas’ Point: An Australian History of Place, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2002 ‘A history for every Australian who is interested in the story of settler-Australia’s relations with Indigenous people—what happened between us, how…
McKenna, Mark The Captive Republic: A History of Republicanism in Australia 1788-1996, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1996 This first comprehensive history of republican thought and activity in Australia traces debate around an Australian republic from 1788 to…
Mark McKenna ‘Friday essay: King, Queen and country – will Anzac thwart republicanism?‘ The Conversation, 21 April 2017 updated Update 31 July 2017: Benjamin T. Jones in Guardian Australia wonders what is holding Prime Minister Turnbull back from a referendum…
McKenna, Mark ‘Australian history and the Australian “national inheritance”’, Australian Cultural History, 27, 1, 2009, pp. 1-12 Over the last decade, there has been an increasing push from political parties, both conservative and Labor, and sections of the political class—opinion…
Mark McKenna ‘Lest we inflate: Why do Australians lust for heroic war stories?‘ The Monthly, December 2012 The author notes the proliferation of military books in the last decade, including some 150 with ‘Anzac’ or ‘Gallipoli’ in the title, and…
Mark McKenna ‘Patriot act’, Australian, 6 June 2007 (also in the Australian Literary Review) Long (5000 words) article anticipating the author’s chapter in What’s Wrong with Anzac? Contains seminal critique of the Anzac myth as a political tool, wielded by…
Mark McKenna Quarterly Essay 69: Moment of Truth: History and Australia’s Future, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2018; electronic version available Australia is on the brink of momentous change, but only if its citizens and politicians can come to new terms with…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
McKenna, Mark This Country: A Reconciled Republic? UNSW Press, Sydney, 2004 The author considers together what he sees as two key and related issues, reconciliation with Indigenous Australians and the republic. Reconciliation and the republic are not separate issues, they…
Mark McKenna ‘The character business: on the deluge of political biography and memoir‘, The Monthly, February 2017, pp. 36-41 Discusses political biographies, autobiographies and diaries from Crossman on Crossman to David Marr on Kevin Rudd. Addresses interesting question of who…
Michael McKernan & Virginia Trioli ‘Historian Michael McKernan tells the story of the Diggers in France‘, ABC Lateline, 26 April 2008 (transcript) Dr McKernan compares the reverence for Australian exploits at Gallipoli with the relative lack of awareness of what…
McKernan, Michael ‘True meaning of Anzac Day‘, Canberra Times, 7 May 2013 The author writes of a relative, disabled in the Vietnam War. His article warns about overglamourising Anzac Day, risking the loss of its real meaning, and confusing the…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
McKernan, Michael Australian Churches at War: Attitudes and Activities of the Major Churches, 1914-1918, Catholic Theological Faculty & Australian War Memorial, Sydney & Canberra, 1980 Based on the author’s thesis. The author discusses here (2004) the role of the churches,…
McKernan, Michael Drought: The Red Marauder, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2005 ‘”Drought is the Australian story”, McKernan says. Then again, “It would rain for the farmer and hopes would revive, and the drought would be forgotten – until the…
McKernan, Michael The Australian People and the Great War, Thomas Nelson, West Melbourne, Vic., 1980; later editions Fascinating account of Australian society during WWI, with focus on churches, women, young people below conscription age and ethnic groups, such as German…
McKernan, Michael Here is Their Spirit: A History of the Australian War Memorial 1917-1990, University of Queensland Press in association with the Australian War Memorial, St Lucia, Qld, 1991 Describes the transformation of the vision of CEW Bean and John…
McKernan, Michael The Strength of a Nation: Six Years of Australians Fighting for the Nation and Defending the Homefront in WWII, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2006; kindle edition Nearly one million Australians out of a total population of…
McKernan, Michael This War Never Ends: Australian Pows and Families, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 2001 An absorbing examination of what it was like to wait and to worry on the homefront during the years of the loved…
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…
Brian McKinlay, ed. Australian Labor History in Documents: Volume 1 The Trade Union Movement; Volume 2 The Labor Party; Volume 3 The Radical Left, Collins Dove, Melbourne, 1990; first published Drummond 1979 Includes a poem from The Australian Worker, 12…
McKinley, Michael The ANZUS Alliance-as-disastrous diffusion: The political virology of a wartime liaison: Presented to the Panel WA 71 Diffusion-as-Empire: Theory and Comparative Studies in Disastrous Circulations of Power, 54th Annual Convention, The International Studies Association, San Francisco, California, USA,…
McKinney, JP Crucible: a Novel of an Australian in World War I, BWM Books, Canberra, 2012; first published Angus & Robertson 1935; available electronically Insightful, humorous and confronting, “Crucible” is a delicate portrait of the thoughts and emotions of a…
John McLaren, ed. Towards a New Australia: Under a Labor Government, Cheshire for the Victorian Fabian Society, Melbourne, 1972 Beyond its policies and plans for an imminent Labor Government (set out in chapters by Gough Whitlam and future Ministers) the…
McLean, Ian Australian Economic Growth in Historical Perspective: A Survey for the Economic Record, School of Economics Working Paper 2004-01, University of Adelaide, May 2004 Combines traditional interpretations and insights from recent growth analysis. Extensive bibliography. Australia’s (modern) economy was…
Click here for all items related to: The sweat of our brows
McLean, Ian ‘With secrecy and despatch‘, Artlink, April 2016 This is a review of an exhibition (With Secrecy and Despatch, 9 April-12 June) at the Campbelltown Arts Centre on Australian and Canadian contemporary Indigenous art. It also touches on When…
McLean, Ian W Why Australia Prospered: The Shifting Sources of Economic Growth, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2013; electronic versions available Ian McLean argues that Australia’s remarkable prosperity across nearly two centuries was reached and maintained by several shifting factors.…
Click here for all items related to: The sweat of our brows
Mclean-Carr, Carol, et al ‘The navigators‘, ABC Learn Online Website for school students and general readers covering history, captains, naturalists, ships, navigation and other aspects of early exploration.
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
John McLeod* ‘State surveillance in Great War New Zealand’, Honest History , 14 August 2019 John McLeod reviews Jared Davidson’s Dead Letters: Censorship and Subversion in New Zealand 1914-20 Jared Davidson’s Dead Letters reveals the history of postal censorship in…
McLoughlin, Liam ‘Australia Day: barbecues and beer goggles and Oi, Oi, Oi,’ New Matilda, 20 January 2016 Young writer surveys the big day, looking at jingoism, toxic masculinity, a horror movie from 1988, an Ocker video and a parody thereof,…
McMullin, Ross Farewell, Dear People: Biographies of Australia’s Lost Generation, Scribe, Melbourne, 2012 Collective biography of 10 Australians killed in World War I, emphasising the perennial outcome of major wars, the loss of many of the best people of a…
McMullin, Ross ‘Grand days of hope and glory‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 October 2013 The popular myth is that Australia came of age amid the carnage of World War I. But years before Gallipoli, this young nation was internationally admired…
McMullin, Ross The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891-1991, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Vic., 2nd revised edition 1993; first published 1991; later editions Centenary history commissioned by the party and making use of party records. Looks…
Ross McMullin Pompey Elliott at War: In His Own Words, Scribe, Melbourne, 2017; e-book available The wartime letters and diaries of Pompey Elliott, Australia’s most famous fighting general, are exceptionally forthright. They are also remarkably illuminating about his volatile emotions…
McMullin, Ross So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the World’s First National Labour Government, Scribe, Carlton North, Vic., 2004 We were leading the world [the author said in a lecture about his book]. It might be hard to imagine…
McMullin, Ross Will Dyson: Australia’s Radical Genius, Scribe, Carlton North, Vic., 2006; revised edition 2006 Biography of a war cartoonist, war artist and artist There is a review here, another one here (quoted below) and the author talks about his…
Humphrey McQueen ‘26 January – or thereabouts‘, Overland 233, Summer 2018 An earlier version of this piece was posted on the Honest History site on 23 January 2017, by courtesy of the author. Below are some of our introductory remarks…
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Quadrant and the CIA’, Gallipoli to Petrov: Arguing with Australian History, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1984, pp. 180-95 (pdf of out-of-copyright material made available by the author) This piece was originally written in 1977. (You will need…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows, Using and abusing history
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…
Humphrey McQueen ‘Born free: wage-slaves and chattel slaves‘, Honest History, 31 March 2019 To adapt Marx’s linking of cotton and slavery with capitalism to the civilising enterprise of the South Australian Company: “Without chattel slaves, the Angases have no mahogany…
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…
Historian Humphrey McQueen addressed a Eureka commemorative dinner in Sydney, 29 November 2013, giving a lively and wide-ranging review of how the events at Eureka have been interpreted by radical and conservative voices over the past 159 years, including reference…
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…
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Sentimental thoughts of “A moody bloke”‘, Gallipoli to Petrov: Arguing with Australian History, George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1984, pp. 23-34 (pdf of out-of-copyright material made available by the author) This piece was originally written in 1977. (You…
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…
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 ‘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 ‘The “Spanish” influenza pandemic in Australia, 1912-19’, Jill Roe, ed., Social Policy in Australia: some Perspectives 1901-1975, Cassell Australia, Stanmore NSW, 1976, pp. 131-147 (pdf of out-of-copyright material made available by the author) This article was originally delivered…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Learning and improving, People like us
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…
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Time and Bob Menzies’ essence: lifting the cover on Australia 1960′, Honest History, 30 August 2016 When Humphrey McQueen first wrote this article in 2000 he had this to say: ‘Forty years ago this week, Time presented a…
McQueen, Humphrey ‘“A material triumph and an aesthetic calamity”: the work of Australian architect Robin Boyd’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 Humphrey McQueen wrote this article in 2002 on the 50th anniversary of the publication in 1952 of Robin Boyd’s…
McQuire, Amy ‘200 years of trauma through a CCTV lens‘, New Matilda, 3 August 2016 The best piece that we have seen on this issue. Darumbul journalist, Amy McQuire, looks behind the Royal Commission kneejerk reaction. Aboriginal affairs moves at…
Amy McQuire ‘Don’t just change the date of Australia Day … get rid of it all together‘, Buzzfeed, 19 August 2017 Honest History doesn’t claim this is the only – or a representative – piece on the latest outbreak of…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Amy McQuire ‘If your child asks why Australia is celebrating a day of invasion, what will you tell them?‘, Guardian Australia, 26 January 2021 First Nations children are silenced even though the most brutal acts of colonisation were perpetrated and…
McQuire, Amy ‘More Aboriginal MPs shouldn’t let the major parties off the hook‘, New Matilda, 5 July 2016 Darumbul journalist, Amy McQuire, notes the election of Wiradjuri woman, Linda Burney, ALP, as the first Indigenous woman in the House of…
McQuire, Amy ‘The viral rise of Stan Grant: why diplomacy won’t be enough for our people‘, New Matilda, 26 February 2016 The reaction to [Grant’s speech], the thought that maybe Australians are “better than this” … gives strength to many…
Meaney, Neville A History of Australian Defence and Foreign Policy, 1901-23: Vol. 1: The Search for Security in the Pacific, 1901-14: Vol. 2: Australia and World Crisis, 1914-23, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 2nd edition, 2009; Vol. 1 first published 1976…
Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) ‘Statement in commemoration of World War I‘, MAPW, 27 April 2015 The Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) commemorates World War 1, including the Gallipoli landings of 25 April 1915, with a…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Reality of war
Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) War and Militarism Seven papers published since February 2012 on militarising Australian history (Marilyn Lake), war is a health hazard (Jenny Grounds), sending Australians to war (Paul Barratt), promoting security (John Langmore), emotions…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Reality of war
Medicine multiple authors ‘The history of medicine library‘, Royal Australasian College of Physicians Library Links to resources held in the library and elsewhere, including ‘a comprehensive focus on Australian material’. Membership of the library is open to the general public.…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving
Megalogenis, George The Australian Moment: How We Were Made for These Times, Viking, Melbourne, Vic., 2013 [The author] examines how we developed from a closed economy racked by the oil shocks, toughed it out during the sometimes devastating growing pains…
George Megalogenis The Longest Decade, Scribe, Melbourne, 2006; revised and updated edition 2008 Economics and politics under Keating and Howard from 1991 to the mid noughties. Megalogenis describes them as ‘the twin architects of the revolution that has taken Australia…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Megalogenis, George ‘Trivial pursuit: leadership and the end of the reform era‘, Quarterly Essay, 40, November 2010 Laments the lack of political vision or interest in policy reform as the nation enters the period of the ‘hung Parliament’. A number…
Lyndon Megarrity* ‘Book on Queensland’s Gulf Country shows how people have lived and thrived in isolated communities’, Honest History, 20 May 2019 Lyndon Megarrity reviews Richard J. Martin, The Gulf Country: The Story of People and Place in Outback Queensland…
Lyndon Megarrity ‘Geoffrey Bolton and the writing of Australian history‘, Australian Policy and History, 10 December 2018 Question and answer style in the website’s ‘Prominent Profiles’ series. Covers broad overview of Bolton’s career, how Megarrity came to know Bolton and…
Megarrity, Lyndon Research Report 46: Northern Dreams, National Realities: The Life and Times of Dr Rex Patterson, TJ Ryan Foundation, Brisbane, May 2016 Rex Patterson (1927-2016) was Australia’s first minister for portfolios specialising in Northern Australia. After a career in…
Lyndon Megarrity Northern Dreams: The Politics of Northern Development in Australia, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2018 Northern Dreams brings to life the passionate arguments about Northern Australia’s national significance and analyses the political debates that have periodically drawn the public’s…
Lyndon Megarrity ‘The recovery: technology and society‘, Australian Policy and History, 9 April 2020 During the CV-19 pandemic, the use of Information Technology has enabled millions to work from home and gain some relief from social isolation while avoiding potential…
Lyndon Megarrity ‘The Whitlam connection: local government in the Hawke era‘, Government News, 27 May 2019 ‘Hawke and Whitlam were different in many ways, but they were united in their support for local government’s role in the federal system and…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Philippa Mein Smith ‘The “NZ” in Anzac: different remembrance and meaning‘, Journal of First World War Studies, vol. 7, 2016, pp. 1-19 This article examines differences of emphasis in Australia and New Zealand in the rituals of Anzac Day, the…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
Melleuish, Gregory ‘An Australian head of state won’t save us from being a de facto monarchy‘, The Conversation, 27 January 2016 Prime ministers have become quasi-monarchs (despite their elected status) which is a particular worry given the poor quality of…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
John Menadue ‘By accepting funding from weapons suppliers the Australian War Memorial demeans Australia’s war dead‘, Pearls and Irritations, 30 June 2017 John Menadue, former senior public servant and businessman, wrote to Brendan Nelson, Director of the War Memorial, to…
Menadue, John ‘The Dismissal: how John Kerr saved Malcolm Fraser forty years ago‘, Pearls and Irritations, 5 November 2015 John Menadue, close to the events of the Dismissal, recalls some key events and attitudes. Malcolm Fraser’s political life was saved…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Menadue, John ‘Militarisation, the new norm‘, Pearls and Irritations, 27 July 2015 Menadue, distinguished former senior public servant, writes on his blog about the increasing militarisation of Australia, through the creation of the Australian Border Force, military vice-regal appointments, warlike…
John Menadue ‘Militarism has become the norm. We now even have an Army Lieutenant General heading the vaccine roll out‘, Pearls and Irritations, 24 June 2021 updated Concerned that the states were getting the political kudos for handling quarantine ,…
John Menadue ‘Our dangerous ally could drag us into war with China‘, Pearls and Irritations, 3 August 2022 The US is the most aggressive and violent country in the world. It is addicted to a belief in its exceptionalism, grounded…
John Menadue ‘Our democracy is decaying from within‘, Pearls & Irritations, 16 September 2021 Former senior public servant and businessman calls for a summit of community leaders to help chart democratic renewal. With the loss of trust in our political…
John Menadue ‘Our White Man’s Media again on display in London terrorist attack‘, Pearls and Irritations, 27 March 2017 I have often commented that a person from Mars reading or listening to our media would conclude that Australia is an…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
Menadue, John ‘Radicalism and terrorism‘, Pearls and Irritations, 15 October 2015 The author makes an important distinction, noting that radicalism and terrorism are not the same thing. Radical politics and radical religion are surely acceptable and widespread. But what is…
John Menadue ‘Sacrifice is being politicised. Militarism is becoming the norm‘, Pearls and Irritations, 17 November 2018 Passionate post from Australian Elder, former senior public servant and businessman (and among Honest History’s distinguished supporters). Remembrance is morphing into acceptance of…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Menadue, John ‘The Dismissal – forty years on: a smoking gun‘, Pearls and Irritations, 29 October 2015 Menadue was the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet at the time of The Dismissal. Here he comments on the…
John Menadue ‘The terrorism threat here is because our troops are over there‘, Pearls and Irritations, 14 February 2017 Compared to other risks, we have little to fear from terrorism. In the last two decades only three people in Australia…
John Menadue ‘We are in denial about the risks in our relationship with the United States. Part 1 of 2′, Pearls and Irritations, 8 February 2018 updated We are a nation in denial that we are “joined at the hip”…
Mendelssohn, Joanna ‘Breaking the silence: Australia must acknowledge a violent past‘, The Conversation, 7 March 2016 Review of the exhibition, ‘When silence falls‘, at the Art Gallery of NSW till 1 May. From the northern tip of Cape York to…
Joanna Mendelssohn ‘Defying Empire: the legacy of 1967‘, The Conversation, 26 May 2017 Review of National Gallery of Australia exhibition on till 10 September. ‘Curator Tina Baum has woven a narrative and an argument around the legacy of that remarkable…
Pam Menzies Port Kembla: A Memoir, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2019 Port Kembla: A Memoir is the story of a steel town and its movers and shakers like the entrepreneurial Hoskins and Ted Roach, the wharfies’ leader, who were part of…
Walter Metz ‘At the movies: “Canaries”, a review of Denial‘, Origins (Ohio State University), 23 November 2016 Metz teaches cinema history at Southern Illinois University. This post riffs off the election of Trump and the vogue for ‘post-truth’. Metz notes…
Meyrick, Julian ‘Australian plays: how to persuade a nation to question its own soul?‘ The Conversation, 12 May 2015 The fourth in a series of long essays on Australian play-writing. The earlier ones are linked from this article. I could…
Wendy Michaels ‘NSW parliamentary trailblazers: a fit place for women?‘ Vida! Australian Women’s History Network, 9 February 2017 Mentions women in the NSW Parliament over the last century and links to an exhibition in the NSW Parliament. The review is…
Michelle Arrow, Frank Bongiorno & Clare Wright, with Michael McKernan ‘Historians at work’, National Library of Australia podcast, 10 September 2012 (scroll down) Four historians talk about their craft (1h 45m).
Miles, Elaine, Claire Spillman, David Jones & David Walland ‘This summer’s sea temperatures were the hottest on record for Australia: here’s why‘, The Conversation, 5 April 2016 updated Recent update on the Great Barrier Reef 20, 28 April 2016, May,…
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
Geoff Miller ‘White Paper versus White’s paper: some questions about Australian policies‘, Pearls and Irritations, 23 January 2018 Former senior Australian diplomat compares the official government publication with the recent Quarterly Essay by Professor Hugh White. The former is essentially…
Stephen Mills ‘Dick Casey’s Forgotten People‘, Inside Story, 25 February 2018 updated We missed this piece when it first came round but it is worth drawing attention to for its careful study of a notable piece of election year propaganda,…
Adrian Mitchell Peat Island: Dreaming and Desecration, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2018 For just over 100 years an institution for the mentally ill has stood on little Peat Island, in the lower Hawkesbury. It was decommissioned in 2010; quite empty now,…
Mitchell, Natasha, Bruce Scates & Damien Williams ‘Anzac memories‘, ABC Life Matters, 25 April 2013 (audio; no transcript) Natasha Mitchell talks with Monash academics, Bruce Scates and Damien Williams, who describe their work on ‘100 stories‘ and ‘Anzac remembered‘. There…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, The land we live in, Using and abusing history
Jim Molan Danger On Our Doorstep, Harper Collins, Sydney, 2022; electronic version available What are Australia’s options in confronting a rising and belligerent China? For the first time in nearly 80 years, war on our doorstop is not just possible,…
John Molony Captain James Cook: Claiming the Great South Land, Connor Court, Brisbane, 2016 In a unique and compelling matching of Cook’s journal entries with the journals of others on the voyage, including Joseph Banks, Sydney Parkinson and James Matra,…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Learning and improving, The land we live in
Monash University National Centre for Australian Studies ‘100 stories project‘, Anzac Remembered The One Hundred Stories are stories that have not been told before. They highlight the experiences of women as well as men, recover the too often forgotten contribution…
Monteath, Peter & Valerie Munt Red Professor: the Cold War Life of Fred Rose, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2015 Fred Rose’s life takes us through rip-roaring tales from Australia’s northern frontier to enthralling intellectual tussles over kinship systems and political dramas…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
Peter Monteath P.O.W.: Australian Prisoners of War in Hitler’s Reich, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2011 Comprehensive study of a field that has been relatively neglected compared with Australian prisoners of the Japanese in World War II. A review is here and…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Monthly, The ‘Moran Prize finalists: finalists for the 2016 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize‘, The Monthly, 24 October 2016 Something restful for the weekend, and not behind The Monthly‘s fierce pay-wall. (It has some good stuff, though.) There are about 30…
Bruce Moore ‘Anzackery and other Australianisms: Australian National Dictionary second edition’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 The first edition of this dictionary came out in 1988 in one volume. Now there is a two volume second edition. Chief Editor Bruce…
Robyn Moore ‘History textbooks still imply that Australians are white‘, The Conversation, 12 June 2017 Looks at textbooks from the 1950s on and concludes: Australian history textbooks have made considerable progress towards presenting more inclusive and balanced narratives. However, this…
Moore, Tony ‘Larrikin carnival: an Australian style of cultural subversion‘, The Conversation, 23 June 2015 The article is based on an essay in the collection On Happiness, which launched this month. I want to recast happiness as a form of…
Moorehead, Alan Gallipoli, Harper Collins, New York, 2002 and many other editions First published nearly 60 years ago, this classic is still in print. It is recalled by Ann Moyal for Honest History. Moorehead’s daughter (and writer) Caroline reminiscences in…
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…
Shireen Morris ‘The Uluru Statement from the Heart: why I have hope‘, Legal Affairs (University of Melbourne), 19 July 2018 The Uluru Statement created a massive political opportunity that is not going away. The opportunity remains alive and growing –…
David Morrison ‘United Nations International Women’s Day Conference: Address by the Chief of Army Lieutenant General David Morrison, AO at the United Nations International Women’s Day Conference, 8-9 March 2013‘ The speech contains some musing about the impact of the…
Morrison, David ‘Welcome Home Parade for 2nd Cavalry Regiment Task Group and Combined Team – Uruzgan Four and Five: Lieutenant General David Morrison, AO, Chief of Army Darwin, 1 March 2014‘ LTGEN Morrison spoke on the 113th anniversary of the founding…
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…
Doug Morrissey Ned Kelly: Selectors, Squatters and Stock Thieves, Connor Court Publishing, Brisbane, 2018 Doug Morrissey’s acclaimed book Ned Kelly: A Lawless Life (2015) was short listed for the prestigious Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History in 2016. This, his second…
Doug Morrissey Ned Kelly: The Stringybark Creek Police Murders, Connor Court Publishing, Brisbane, 2020 Doug Morrissey presents the definitive account of the Stringybark Creek Police Murders. The ambush murder of three policemen at Stringybark Creek in October 1878 was Ned…
Doug Morrissey* ‘Something new and original on the Irish in South Australia’, Honest History, 27 June 2019 Doug Morrissey reviews Irish South Australia: New Histories and Insights, edited by Susan Arthure, Fidelma Breen, Stephanie James, and Dymphna Lonergan This is…
Doug Morrissey* ‘The heritage marketing of Ned Kelly‘, Honest History, 15 October 2017 updated Ned Kelly, hero or villain, put-upon Irish victim or psychopathic killer? These questions have been around for almost the whole time since Kelly was executed almost…
John Moses* ‘Know your enemy: German war aims and Australian involvement in the Great War’, Honest History, 10 March 2017 The author argues that any discussion about the origins and significance of Anzac commemoration will be baseless if it fails…
John Moses ‘The fallacy of Presentism in Australian history‘, Honest History, 23 August 2016 The paper seeks to illustrate that historiography can be misused for promoting political agendas. It uses examples from Marxism-Leninism, particularly in the then East Germany and…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history
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…
Tristan Moss & Tom Richardson, ed. New Directions in War and History, Big Sky Publishing, Newport, NSW, 2016 (download full text) Papers from a Canberra conference (February 2016) held by the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and…
Moyal, Ann ‘Churchill and Gallipoli: a personal commentary‘, Honest History, 7 June 2016 Australian historian, Ann Moyal, knew Winston Churchill in his later life. Here she reflects on the letters Churchill wrote in 1915-16 to his wife, Clementine, and juxtaposes…
Moyal, Ann ‘Two cultures in Australia: where do we go from here?‘ Council of the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (27 October 2011) A veteran science observer considers the history and prospects of science and the humanities in Australia. The paper…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving
Muldoon, Paul & Adrian Little ‘Indigenous reconciliation is hard, it re-opens wounds to heal them‘, The Conversation, 11 May 2016 First of a series, linking from this article, about the issues surrounding reconciliation (or treaty), starting from the assumption that…
Denis Muller ‘Mixed media: how Australia’s newspapers became locked in a war of left versus right‘, The Conversation, 19 June 2017 updated Historical view of the ownership and attitudes of Australian newspapers since the 19th century, though nowadays it is…
DJ Mulvaney & J. Peter White, ed. Australians to 1788, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 A volume in the set Australians: A Historical Library. Twenty-three authors contribute under the main headings ‘The creation of Aboriginal Australia’, ‘Continuity…
Mulvaney, John & Johan Kamminga Prehistory of Australia, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, revised edition, 1999; first published Thames and Hudson 1969 as The Prehistory of Australia; other editions Mulvaney has been Australia’s most distinguished prehistorian. ‘The obvious starting…
Bruce Munday Those Wild Rabbits: How They Shaped Australia, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2017 Those Wild Rabbits highlights not only the damage done but also Australia’s missed opportunities for real rabbit control. It recognises the bush’s paradoxical love affair with an…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, The land we live in, The sweat of our brows
Doug Munro “‘How illuminating it has been”: Matthews and McKenna, and their biographies of Manning Clark’, Philip Payton, ed., Emigrants & Historians: Essays in Honour of Eric Richards, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2016, pp. 98-131 (pdf made available courtesy of the…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Murphy, DJ TJ Ryan: a Political Biography, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1990; first published 1975 T.J. Ryan was … elected Labor Premier of Queensland against the turbulent background of World War I. His Labor government set the foundations…
Murphy, Gabrielle ‘Reconsidering immigration reform – again‘, The Age, 8 August 2013 Revisits the pioneering lobbying of 1960 which helped end the White Australia policy. The original Control or Colour Bar? pamphlet is here. One of the members of the original…
Murphy, Katharine ‘The politics we deserve‘, Meanjin, 74, 4, Summer 2015 The writer is deputy political editor of Guardian Australia. We are posting this link not much more than four months after the article was written – we had missed…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Murray, Georgina & Jenny Chesters ‘Economic wealth and political power in Australia, 1788-2010‘, Labour History, 103, November 2012 Although Australia is sometimes regarded as an egalitarian society, evidence shows that inequalities in the distribution of wealth are pronounced. We note…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Robert Murray The Split: Australian Labor in the Fifties, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1970; later editions A relatively early account of these events. Very detailed but has been criticised for alleged bias towards the Democratic Labor Party. The author’s much later remarks…
Murray, Tim, Jan Kociumbas, Beverley Kingston, Stuart Macintyre, and Geoffrey Bolton The Oxford History of Australia, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Vic., 1986-96, various editions Includes Volume I Aboriginal Australia (Murray), Volume II Possessions 1770-1860 (Kociumbas), Volume III Glad, Confident…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Museum Victoria Immigration Museum Portal to the resources held by the Museum containing ‘[m]oving stories of people from all over the world who have migrated to Australia’. Educational material, project suggestions and links to other sites.
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…
John Myrtle* ‘”A man of intriguing contradictions”: Edward St John and the South Africa Defence and Aid Fund’, Honest History, 17 May 2019 Edward St John QC, a prominent Sydney barrister and human rights campaigner, was a founding member and…
John Myrtle ‘Observing journalism for 80 years: The Arthur Norman Smith Lecture in Journalism’, Honest History, 18 August 2017 updated A paper in three parts: an introduction to Arthur Norman Smith and the endowed Arthur Norman Smith Lecture in Journalism;…
John Myrtle* ‘Rethinking Australian journalism in the 1960s: The 1966-67 work value case and the Sydney newspaper strike‘, Honest History, 7 April 2020 This is a detailed study of two industrial relations events from more than 50 years ago. Journalists…
John Myrtle* ‘Tough gig: American jazz culture comes to 1928 White Australia’, Honest History, 3 December 2021 John Myrtle reviews Harlem Nights: The Secret History of Australia’s Jazz Age by Deirdre O’Connell Jazz, distinctively American musical style. The historical significance…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
John Myrtle* ‘Vale David Biles: A pioneer of Australian criminology‘, Age, 6 June 2017 (an earlier, edited version appeared in the Canberra Times) ‘David Biles was a pioneer of criminology in Australia. Over many years he contributed to the development of…
John Myrtle* ‘Weathering the Mallee over nearly two centuries’, Honest History, 8 November 2019 John Myrtle reviews Mallee Country: Land, People, History by Richard Broome, Charles Fahey, Andrea Gaynor and Katie Holmes Mallee Country records a project on the ecological…
Nash, Joshua ‘Buggered if I know where I am: the stories behind Australia’s weird and wonderful place names‘, The Conversation, 24 October 2016 Just what it says, in case you always wanted to know about Chinamans Knob, Governors Knob, Iron…
National Archives of Australia Your Story, Our History Gateway to the holdings of the National Archives, covering everything from personal files to photographs, records of government departments to records of individual soldiers.
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
National Commission on the Commemoration of the Anzac Centenary How Australia may Commemorate the Anzac Centenary, Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Canberra, 2011 The Commission was chaired by former Prime Ministers Fraser and Hawke and received 600 submissions. This is the…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
National Film and Sound Archive Film Australia Collection ‘The NFSA is the proud custodian of the Film Australia Collection (FAC), preserving and providing access to the nation’s documentary record – our collective memory.’ (blurb) Among other things, enables searching of…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
National Film and Sound Archive ‘Melbourne Time Capsule: Marvellous Melbourne: Swanston and Collins Streets‘, NFSA website A marvellous two minute point-of-view film from a tram trundling through Melbourne in 1910 (date picked exactly by our HH guru before he saw…
National Gallery multiple authors National Gallery of Australia: Australian Art Comprehensive website introducing the NGA’s collection of Australian art, including notes on new acquisitions, articles on particular features of the collection, an extensive archive of information about past exhibitions, a…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
National Library multiple authors ‘Australian music in Trove: Music Australia‘, National Library of Australia Leads into the Libary’s music holdings.
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
National Museum of Australia The Home Front: Australia during the First World War The exhibition opened on 3 April 2015 and will run till 11 October. The Home Front explores the pride, sorrow, passion, wonder and joy experienced by Australians far…
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Brendan Nelson Of Life and Of Leadership, Connor Court, Brisbane, 2022 From his Roman Catholic, Labor leaning family upbringing in Launceston, to Adelaide and the transformation given him by the Jesuits, Brendan Nelson graduated in medicine. The joys and wounding…
Nelson, Robert ‘We should honour those who refused to go to war‘, Age, 11 November 2015 The author considers who and what is worthy of remembrance, noting the recently published book World War One: a History in 100 Stories. The…
Nethercote, JR, ed. Liberalism and the Australian Federation, Federation Press, Annandale, NSW, 2001 ‘Recounts the story of Australia’s nationhood as the story of Australian Liberalism. This is the first book put together by the Liberal Party of Australia for many…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Neumann, Klaus & Gwenda Tavan, ed. Does History Matter? Making and Debating Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Policy in Australia and New Zealand, ANU E-Press & Australian and New Zealand School of Government, Canberra, 2009; free download format available Multiple authors…
Richard E. Neustadt & Ernest R May Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers, The Free Press, New York & London, 1988; first published 1986 Classic book which should have seen more editions. Described by one writer…
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history
Nevius, James ‘To teach only “American exceptionalism” is to ignore half the country’s story‘, Guardian Australia, 3 August 2015 Ostensibly an American story but relevant to every country, including Australia, where it is a theme Honest History has returned to…
Newton, Douglas ‘“Whose side are you on?”‘ Honest History, 27 June 2015 To cast doubt on the patriotism of those who do not participate in a hate-the-enemy auction has a long and ignoble history. Those who defend civil liberties, those…
Update 8 November 2017: David Faber writes about the Beersheba centenary and the work of Kelvin Crombie (Gallipoli – The Road to Jerusalem), who has tried to put the Gallipoli campaign into a Christian context. Essentially, Crombie argues that the…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Home front, Reality of war
Douglas Newton ‘First World War Centenaries that really matter are looming‘, Pearls and Irritations, 30 November 2017 Centenary moments of huge significance are upon us: the centenary of the so-called “Lansdowne Peace Letter” of 29 November 1917, and the centenary…
Douglas Newton* For Remembrance Day: Helping the Australian War Memorial address its future – but to do so in a rather different way’, Honest History, 10 November 2019 [In 2018, distinguished Australian historian, Douglas Newton, responded to an invitation to…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Newton, Douglas ‘The hard questions we should face on Anzac Day 2016‘, Pearls and Irritations, 20 April 2016 Short, sharp piece by historian of the Great War. He asks: Why were Australians so exposed in this protracted catastrophe? (essentially, because…
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,…
Douglas Newton ‘Merchants of death should not be funding Australian War Memorial‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 November 2018 To fund worthy causes such as a national commemoration, mounted in all our names, is why we have governments and taxation. Meeting…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Douglas Newton Private Ryan and the Lost Peace: A Defiant Soldier and the Struggle against the Great War, Longueville Media, Sydney, 2021 Imagine the Great War ending early, in 1915, or 1916, or even 1917. Imagine round-table negotiations and a…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Reality of war, Ruling ourselves
Newton, Douglas ‘The Centenary of the Great War – and Anzac‘, Pearls and Irritations, 7 May 2016 This overview article links to four others on changing war aims during the Great War and lost opportunities for peace 1914-18. As well…
Douglas Newton ‘The centenary of the Third Battle of Ypres‘, Pearls and Interpretations, 3 August 2017 The carnage at Ypres and Passchendaele is ‘an object lesson in what happens when an Australian government allows our Allies to dominate in the…
Douglas Newton ‘Two Anzac speeches 2015’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 updated Douglas Newton spoke on 22 April 2015 at Petersham Town Hall, Sydney, to a meeting of the Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign, based in Marrickville. The speech covered respect…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Reality of war, Using and abusing history
Douglas Newton ‘Whitlam, Keating, Anzac, and the drums of wars past‘, Pearls and Irritations, 13 May 2021 updated Looks at attitudes of modern Australian prime ministers to our old wars and goes on to summarise the history of the Great…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Nicholas, Frank ‘Charles Darwin’s evolutionary revelation in Australia‘, The Conversation, 12 January 2016 Looks at the contributions of Darwin’s work in Australia (New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia) in 1836 to what ultimately became his famous work On the…
Nicholls, Christine Judith & Dany Breelle ‘Friday essay: The voyage of Nicolas Baudin and “art in the service of science”‘, The Conversation, 7 July 2016 On Baudin’s voyage commencing in 1800 to what is now Australia, during which he dealt…
Nietzsche, Friedrich On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, translated Ian Johnston, Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, BC, Canada, revised edition, 2010; first published 1874 Contains many insights into this subject, among them his warning that ‘there are times…
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history
Christopher Nolan Dunkirk, Syncopy, Warner Brothers and others, UK, US, France, Netherlands, 2017 Set during the Second World War, [the film, with an ensemble cast] portrays the Dunkirk evacuation … Nolan wrote the script, told from three perspectives—the land, sea, and air—to contain…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history
Nolan, Melanie ‘Coral Magnolia Lansbury, 1929-1991‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, online edition, 2015 Coral Lansbury was a distinguished Australian radio scriptwriter, academic and novelist. Her son, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, is Australia’s 29th prime minister. Nolan also presented a seminar on…
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…
Richard Noone ‘Leaping to false idea on Anzacs‘, Daily Telegraph, 27 March 2012 Vox pop, including diverse comments from non-Anglo-Celtic Australians about the importance of Anzac Day. (The Colmar Brunton report suggested, among other things, that the Anzac Day centenary…
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…
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 –…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Click here for all items related to: Teaching history
O’Brien, Patricia ‘The ANZACs in the Pacific – myths in Empire‘, Australian Outlook, 12 June 2015 Notes the 1914 actions by New Zealand in Samoa and Australia in New Guinea and how they developed into post-war colonialism. The end of…
Judith O’Callaghan, Paul Hogben & Robert Freestone, eds Sydney’s Martin Place: A Cultural and Design History, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2016 The history of one of Australia’s most iconic urban precincts, from bustling colonial thoroughfare to imposing address for global…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Learning and improving, People like us, The land we live in
Deirdre O’Connell Harlem Nights: The Secret History of Australia’s Jazz Age, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2021 The 1920s were a time of wonder and flux, when Australians sensed a world growing smaller, turning faster-and, for some, skittering off balance. American…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
O’Lincoln, Tom ‘Can Kokoda challenge Anzac?’ Paper delivered to conference The Pacific War 1941-45, Heritage, Legacies and Culture, Monash University at Caulfield, 6 December 2011 233 Can Kokoda challenge Anzac (pdf provided by author) The author argues that veneration of…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
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…
O’Malley, Vincent ‘What a nation chooses to remember and forget: the war for New Zealand’s history‘, Guardian Australia, 18 October 2016 Interesting article for itself and for comparisons with Australia. The author’s book, The Great War for New Zealand Waikato…
Finbar O’Mallon ‘War memorial risks becoming a “theme park”: former director‘, Canberra Times, 24 June 2019 Interview with former Director Brendon Kelson, referring to his letter to the Prime Minister regarding the proposed Memorial extensions. Mr Kelson offers the Memorial’s…
O’Neill, Sharon & Alan Seymour ‘The one day of the year‘, ABC Stateline NSW, 25 April 2003 (transcript) The revival of the 1960 play occasions a look at changing attitudes towards Anzac. Reporter Sharon O’Neill interviews author Alan Seymour.
O’ Regan, Tom ‘Kenneth Slessor goes to the movies‘, Inside Story, 4 January 2016 Renowned Australian poet and war correspondent, Kenneth Slessor, also liked going to ‘the pictures’ and writing about it in a special way, according to O’Regan in…
Brett Odgers* ‘Still talking to the War Memorial? The review and regeneration of Anzac Parade, Canberra’, Honest History, 1 March 2022 [In the lead up to Anzac Day and as we confront another war in Europe, how we treat our…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Ruling ourselves
OECD In It Together: Why Less Inequality Benefits All … in Australia, OECD, 21 May 2015 This is the Australia-oriented summary takeout from a broader OECD project. The material at the link includes graphs on income inequality trends and a…
Offord, Baden, Erika Kerruish, Rob Garbutt, Adele Wessel & Kirsten Pavlovic Inside Australian Culture: Legacies of Enlightenment Values, Anthem Press, London, 2014 Given Australia’s status as an (unfinished) colonial project of the British Empire, the basic institutions that were installed…
Oliver, Alex ‘Lowy Institute Poll 2015‘, Lowy Institute, 16 June 2015 KEY FINDINGS:This year’s Poll has recorded the lowest feeling of safety among Australians, and the sharpest decline in optimism about the nation’s economic performance in the world, in our…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Home front, Reality of war
Bobbie Oliver* ‘For Remembrance Day: Another gaffe inflicted on the Australian War Memorial with Tony Abbott appointment’, Honest History, 10 November 2019 [Bobbie Oliver comments on the appointment of former prime minister, Tony Abbott, to the Council of the Memorial.…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Bobbie Oliver Hell No! We Won’t Go! Resistance to Conscription in Post War Australia, Interventions, Melbourne, 2022 Using court records and private correspondence as well as newspaper accounts, Hell no! We won’t go! records the stories of many young men who…
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…
Click here for all items related to: War literature
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…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Learning and improving, People like us
Organ, Michael K. ‘Secret service: Governor Macquarie’s Aboriginal War of 1816: Proceedings of the National Conference of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Mittagong, 25-26 October 2014‘, University of Wollongong Research Online Detailed analysis of Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s punitive actions against…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Oswald, Bruce & Waddell, Jim, ed. Justice in Arms: Military Lawyers in the Australian Army’s First Hundred Years, Big Sky, Newport, NSW, 2014 Describes the work of Army legal officers in Australia and in expeditionary operations from the Boer War…
Özakıncı, Cengiz ‘25 April 1985: Arıburnu, “Anzac Cove”, the Mehmets and the Johnnies’, Butun Dunya (Ankara), April 2016 (English translation) This article looks from the Turkish perspective at how Arıburnu became Anzac Cove, as part of a Turkish-Australian deal in…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
Ozakinci, Cengiz ‘One hundred years of error: Ataturk, Birdwood, Harington and Canakkale 1915‘, Butun Dunya (Ankara), September 2015 (translated into English) In this article, Ozakinci busts the myth that Ataturk and British General Birdwood met in Istanbul in October 1918 and…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
Ozakinci, Cengiz ‘The tale of “the Anzacs who took Mustafa Kemal prisoner” in the Australian press’, Butun Dunya (Ankara), December 2015 (English translation: part I; part II) Chauvel, 1919 (AWM ART03340/JP Quinn) This is a translation provided by the author…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
Ozakinci, Cengiz Updates 14 August 2015: (1) we provide a comment on Turkish-supplied information about a 1989 book; (2) note that, for footnote 5 to the second (August) Ozakinci article, you need to go to the notes in the original…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
Charlotte Palmer ‘Is the Australian War Memorial a place of healing?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 23 May 2019 Article by retired Canberra GP medical practitioner, with 25 years’ clinical experience in treating psychological trauma. For those with untreated or unresolved distress,…
Vance Palmer The Legend of the Nineties, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1963; first published 1954; later editions Classic study of the contribution of the culture of the 1890s to the formation of an Australian national identity.
Parker, Linda Shellshocked Prophets: Former Anglican Army Chaplains in Inter-War Britain, Helion (Wolverhampton Military Studies), Solihull, UK, 2015 The Anglican chaplains who served in the Great War were changed by their experience of total war. They returned determined to revitalize…
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…
Bruce Pascoe Dark Emu: Black Seeds, Agriculture or Accident? Magabala Books, Broome WA, 2014 (and later editions) Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the “hunter-gatherer” tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have…
Bruce Pascoe Salt: Selected Stories and Essays, Black Inc, Melbourne, 2019 A collection of stories and essays by the award-winning author of Dark Emu, showcasing his shimmering genius across a lifetime of work. This volume of Bruce Pascoe’s best and most…
Allan Patience ‘Australia’s involvement in an “Anglosphere” is the delusion of a golden age that never existed‘, The Conversation, 24 May 2017 Post-Brexit, some in Britain are turning to a resurrected Commonwealth as the basis of an alternative to Europe.…
Allan Patience ‘Can Australia become a confident, independent country?‘, Pearls and Irritations, 5 August 2022 The article examines the prospects for the Australian-American ‘alliance’ at a time of increasing uncertainty. Given the restricted military capability that Australia possesses (for example,…
Patience, Allan ‘Can we continue to afford Australia’s federal system?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 18 January 2016 The article looks at the issues facing Australia and anticipates the forthcoming White Paper on the reform of federalism. It is now more obvious…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Allan Patience ‘Confecting a new China hysteria‘, Pearls and Irritations, 12 December 2017 Australia’s diplomacy with its Asian neighbours and contenders has always been awkward. In a similar manner to Britain’s awkward partnering with Europe, so Australia is Asia’s awkward…
Allan Patience ‘How conservative or populist is the contemporary Right in Australian politics?’ Pearls and Irritations, 14 February 2017 Examines the relationship between current apparently conservative outbreaks in Australian politics and superficially similar incidences overseas as well as historical parallels.…
Allan Patience ‘It’s time for new politics‘, Pearls and Irritations, 12 June 2017 Looks at the recent success of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn and detects the fall of old politics and the rise of new. Only by implication are…
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…
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…
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…
Ross Peake ‘Move “soon” on Anzac centenary‘, Canberra Times, 17 April 2013 Reports Coalition criticism of delays in Gillard government response to Anzac Centenary Advisory Board report and notes the suggestion that a second Colmar Brunton report was commissioned after…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations, has the following: Allan Patience on the failure of neo-liberalism; Wayne Swan MP on the need to spread prosperity more widely; Andrew Farran on foreign policy implications; John Menadue and Mungo McCallum on general…
Pearson, Noel ‘An address to the Launch: Don Watson “Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM”, Random House Australia 2002 [Sydney, 1 May 2002]‘ Uses the launch of the Keating biography to criticise some aspects of…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
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…
Peel, Mark & Christina Twomey A History of Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK, 2011 The treatment is mostly chronological and the target the general reader and students. A robotic voice gives a summary here, there are some extracts of reviews…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Pegram, Aaron ‘Politicians at war: the experiences of Australian parliamentarians in the First World War‘, Parliament of Australia, 10 April 2015 A lunchtime lecture. The author summarises: 119 Australian MPs saw active service in the First World War: 72 were members…
Aaron Pegram Surviving the Great War: Australian Prisoners of War on the Western Front 1916–18, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & Port Melbourne, 2020; electronic version available Between 1916 and 1918, more than 3,800 men of the Australian Imperial Force were…
William Pember Reeves State Experiments in Australia & New Zealand, Two volumes, Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic., 1969; first published 1902 Detailed study of initiatives before 1900 in the colonies regarding votes for women, federation, preferential voting, land reform, old age…
Pembroke, Michael Arthur Phillip: Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy, Hardie Grant, Melbourne & London, 2013 This is not just a book about wooden ships and big guns, although they certainly feature. It is a story of privation and ambition, of wealthy…
Catriona Pennell & Mark Sheehan ‘Official World War I memorial rituals could create a generation uncritical of the conflict‘, The Conversation, 12 July 2016 A New Zealand-United Kingdom co-written article with some Australian input from Christina Spittel of UNSW Canberra…
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…
Perlez, Jane ‘China pushes back against U.S. influence in the seas of East Asia‘, New York Times, 28 October 2015 (updated) Update 1 November 2015: Honest History linked to this important article two days before the Australian Financial Review reproduced…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Roland Perry Monash and Chauvel: How Australia’s Two Greatest Generals Changed the Course of World History, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2017 The book ‘tells the story of the emergence and dominance of these brilliant Australian soldiers, who commanded the two…
Frances Peters-Little, Ann Curthoys & John Docker, ed. Passionate Histories: Myth, Memory and Indigenous Australia, Aboriginal History Inc. & ANU E-press, Canberra, 2010; downloadable ‘This book examines the emotional engagements of both indigenous and non-indigenous people with indigenous history. The…
Peter Phelps The Bulldog Track: A Grandson’s Story of an Ordinary Man’s War and Survival on the Other Kokoda Trail, Hachette, Sydney, 2018; electronic version available This is the story of Tom Phelps and the “other Kokoda Track”. Seventy-five years…
Phillips, Ben Living Standard Trends in Australia: Report for Anglicare Australia, NATSEM, University of Canberra, September 1915 The report compares the living standards of different household types across the country: how they have changed since 2004 and how they are…
Phillips, Janet ‘Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?‘ Australia. Parliamentary Library Social Policy Section: Background Note (updated 11 February 2013) Looks at differences between asylum seekers and refugees, whether asylum seekers are queue jumpers or illegals, how asylum…
Richard Phillips ‘Australia: Anzac Day and the official silence about anti-war opposition in WWI‘, World Socialist Web Site, 4 May 2017 The article notes the dominance this Anzac season of the received view of Anzac in Australia and, by contrast,…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
Walter Phillips ‘My late pilgrimage to Gallipoli‘, Honest History, 21 March 2017 Honest History is pleased to publish this piece from Walter Phillips, Emeritus Scholar at La Trobe University, Melbourne. It is comparable with the elegaic Anzac commemoration pieces from…
Philpott, William Attrition: Fighting the First World War, Little Brown, London, 2014 The First World War was too big to be grasped by its participants. In the retelling of their war in the competing memories of leaders and commanders, and…
Jon Piccini ‘Amnesty International and conscientious objection in Australia’s Vietnam War‘, JHI Blog, 13 June 2017 This small case study provides insights into how the idea of human rights has been contested over time. Australia’s two Amnesty Sections – not…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
Jon Piccini ‘The forgotten Australian veterans who opposed National Service and the Vietnam War‘, The Conversation, 26 July 2021 Article comes out on the 50th anniversary of announcement by McMahon Government of withdrawal of Australian troops from Vietnam. Author has…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
Stuart Piggin & Robert D. Linder The Fountain of Public Prosperity: Evangelical Christians in Australian History 1740–1914, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018 The official religion brought to Australia with the First Fleet was Evangelical Christianity, the “vital religion” then shaping…
Piggott, Michael & David Stephens ‘Constitution Day: an old Queen and a new nation’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 4, August 2013 Of all the notable days in the Australian calendar Constitution Day, 9 July, is the least known but one…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Piggott, Michael ‘A man of the mind: John Hirst 1942-2016‘, Honest History, 16 February 2016 Honest History committee member and distinguished archivist, Michael Piggott, reviews the work of John Hirst, who died recently. This obituary draws on the tributes of…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history
Michael Piggott* ‘A slim but masterful biographical introduction to John Curtin’, Honest History, 14 October 2022 Michael Piggott reviews John Curtin by David Lee (Australian Biographical Monographs 16) Are you heartily sick of ex-prime ministers yet? Just last year there…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Home front, Ruling ourselves
Piggott, Michael ‘The Battle for Australia: Henry Reynolds’s “Forgotten War”’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 5, September 2013 Michael Piggott reviews the most recent of Henry Reynolds’s series of books on the ‘frontier wars’ between Indigenous Australians and white settlers. The…
Michael Piggott* ‘Broken Years, Black convicts and Bennelong: some inadvertent irritations’, Honest History, 19 November 2024 The online world seems awash at the moment with lists of things annoying baby-boomers, and indeed why they themselves are so annoying. Archivists have…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Governing ourselves, People like us
Michael Piggott ‘“Charles Bean’s legacy”: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016‘, Honest History, 2 August 2016 Update 6 August 2016: Peter Stanley, Honest History professor, Research Professor at UNSW Canberra, and a curator of the Bean exhibition, writes about the exhibition.…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Michael Piggott ‘Indigenous war service: two exhibitions at the National Archives of Australia’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 A review of two exhibitions, Indigenous Australians at War from the Boer War to the Present (touring from the Shrine of Remembrance,…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, People like us, Reality of war
Piggott, Michael ‘Listening to ANZAC Voices‘, Honest History, 24 February 2014 Michael Piggott reviews the ANZAC Voices exhibition which opened at the Australian War Memorial in November 2013. He recognises the difficulties of compressing complex events into a small exhibition…
Michael Piggott* ‘Mouldering away: how long a journey for our National Archives?’, Honest History, 16 June 2021 [See also this post on the campaign to save the Archives. HH] As many Honest History supporters will know, in recent months the…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Michael Piggott* ‘Out of Tune, but still mouldering: the National Archives of Australia’, Honest History, 20 September 2021 This article follows Michael Piggott’s earlier piece, ‘Mouldering away: how long a journey for our National Archives?’, which coincided with a campaign…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Piggott, Michael ‘Sums and parts in a new collection’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 6, October 2013 Michael Piggott reviews Australian History Now, an anthology edited by Anna Clark and Paul Ashton. Read more…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Piggott, Michael: This Japanese internment camp diary is a gentle and innocent work from a dark time
Michael Piggott* ‘This Japanese internment camp diary is a gentle and innocent work from a dark time’, Honest History, 10 April 2022 Michael Piggott reviews Four Years in a Red Coat: The Loveday Internment Camp Diary of Miyakatsu Koike (translated…
Michael Piggott* ‘Waiting for a cultural policy for Christmas’, Honest History, 12 December 2022 updated When Anthony Albanese announced his ministry at the end of May, Tony Burke became Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and separately, Minister for the…
Michael Piggott* ‘We are in debt to those responsible for these two journals’, Honest History, 2 June 2019 Michael Piggott reviews the Australian Journal of Biography and History and the ANU Historical Journal II If the appearance of new journal…
Michael Piggott* ‘What are we to make of Edmund Barton, our first prime minister? An exhibition in Canberra’, Honest History, 4 January 2021 Michael Piggott reviews an exhibition at Parliament House, Canberra: ‘Edmund Barton: Australia’s first Prime Minister’. The exhibition…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Michael Piggott ‘White lies, archival truths and R.J.L. Hawke‘, Inside Story, 17 October 2024 This article contains archivist Piggott’s close analysis of the evidence relating to Hawke’s swim – or not-swim – in a pond at the Australian National University…
Pilger, John ‘Australia’s day for secrets, flags and cowards‘, New Matilda, 23 January 2016 The original Australians are the oldest human presence. To the European invaders, they did not exist because their continent had been declared terra nullius: empty land. To…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, People like us, Strands of Australian history
Ruth Pollard ‘Islamic rewrite of Gallipoli legend’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 2013 Shows how the current Turkish Government is reinterpreting for political purposes the Gallipoli campaign as an Islamist defence against infidels.
Poole, RJ ‘Anzac Speech, 25 April 2014, Remembering and Healing service, Lismore’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 I think it’s appropriate that we honour those Australians who have died in a theatre of conflict – and I think it’s right…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
Powell, Damian X. ‘Remembrance Day: memories and values in Australia since 1918’, Paper (edited text) read to the Royal Historical Society of Victoria on 18 November 2003 (later published as ‘Remembrance Day: memories and values in Australia since 1918’, Victorian…
Powell, Graeme with Stuart Macintyre Land of Opportunity: Australia’s Post-War Reconstruction, National Archives of Australia, Canberra, 2015 This is 336 pages (30 chapters) of guidance to the files of the National Archives of Australia on a crucial decade of Australia’s…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Australia's war history, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Jenna Price ‘The holiest thing our nation has‘, Canberra Times, 23 April 2013 Columnist’s meditation about the Anzac Day Dawn Service. She insists that politicians (who commit soldiers to war) should attend the Service and goes on what the majority…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
Robin Prior Gallipoli: The End of the Myth, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2009; first published Yale University Press, 2009 Argues that the Dardanelles campaign was unwinnable, on land or at sea.
Prior, Robin ‘The first world war and Australia – oh, what a loopy debate‘, Guardian Australia, 10 January 2014 Political considerations have swamped evidence-based consideration of the beginnings and course of World War I. Looking at the debate on various aspects…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Productivity Commission Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2016 This comprehensive report card measures where things have improved (or not) against 52 indicators across a range of areas including governance, leadership and culture, early childhood, education, health, home and safe and…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
Pryor, Sally ‘Nelson defends modernising memorial‘, Canberra Times, 6 April 2013 Australian War Memorial Director, Brendan Nelson, defended recent changes at the Memorial, noting that ‘keeping the younger generation engaged with history was key’. He described the Memorial’s overall mission…
Alice Pung ‘Living with racism in Australia‘, New York Times, 7 December 2016 Summarises her life since birth in Melbourne in 1981. Australia’s fling with multiculturalism was temporary. In less than 15 years [after 1981], politicians began advocating assimilation for…
Anisa Puri & Alistair Thomson, ed. Australian Lives: an Intimate History, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2017; e-book available Australian Lives: An Intimate History illuminates Australian life across the 20th and into the 21st century: how Australian people have been shaped by…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, People like us, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Michael Pusey Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation Building State Changes its Mind, Cambridge University Press, New York & Melbourne, 1991 Traces in the attitudes and policy preferences of Commonwealth bureaucrats ‘the end of the Australian Settlement’ detected by Paul…
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
John Quiggin ‘Forget the generation gap – the gulf between rich and poor tells the real story of our times‘, Guardian Australia, 26 August 2019 Commentary on a Grattan Institute study of the generation gap and ensuring a ‘fair go’…
Radio New Zealand National ‘Easter over Anzac‘, The Panel, 26 August 2015 Brief (five minute) chat between panellists Ali Jones, Damon Salesa and Joe Mora about the relative merits of Easter, Waitangi Day and Anzac Day as occasions for commemoration…
Radojević, Mira & Ljubodrag Dimić Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918: a Short History, Srpska knjizevna zadruga (Serbian Literary Cooperative), Belgrade, 2nd edition, 2014 Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918 is a book of facts based on well-known sources and documents. Affirming…
Greg Raffin Mutiny on the Western Front: 1918, Big Sky Publishing, Newport NSW, 2018 On 21 September 1918, with retreating German forces on their last legs, the 1st Battalion of the AIF was ordered to return to the front just as they…
Ramsay, Juliet ‘Lake Burley Griffin: losing an inspired vision‘, Australian Garden History, 25, 4, 2014 To protect Lake Burley Griffin and its lakeshore parklands, the Australian Garden History Society needs to take on advocacy and conservancy by initiating a group…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Alan Ramsey ‘What you get for having a shot at Keating‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 November 2008 Text of the then former Prime Minister’s response to the remark of the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, that Keating was wrong to…
Rasmussen, Sune Engel ‘All that remains: our questionable legacy in Afghanistan‘, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Good Weekend’, 4 July 2015 Article by a Kabul-based Danish journalist, which notes the growing strength of the Taliban since Australia left Oruzgan province. On the…
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…
DW Rawson Labor in Vain? A Survey of the Australian Labor Party, Longmans, Melbourne, 1966 A snapshot of the ALP pre-Whitlam, arguing, among other things, for reduced links with trade unions.
Rawsthorne, Sally ‘Why does the world think Australia is racist?‘ The Guardian Australia, 25 October 2013 Canvasses evidence in Australia and internationally about alleged Australian attitudes, with links to sources and comment from over 800 people. Contrasts the acceptance of…
Greg Raymond ‘Rhetoric on South China Sea sets dangerous tone‘, New Mandala, 16 October 2015 (updated) The author warns about over-hyping Chinese activities in the South China Sea and about downplaying what can be done by regional bodies, such as…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
John L. Read Dear Grandpa, Why? Reflections from Kokoda to Hiroshima, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2018 Edward Tompson Mobsby, father of twin baby girls, volunteered for war service and was shot down by the Japanese in New Guinea in 1942. John…
Liz Reed & Lee Arnold ‘Naracoorte, where half a million years of biodiversity and climate history are trapped in caves‘, The Conversation, 6 June 2017 About the Naracoorte Caves in South Australia, one of the world’s best fossil sites, where…
Rees, Anne ‘How women historians smashed the glass ceiling‘, The Conversation, 19 October 2016 Since the 1970s, the [history] profession has become conspicuous for the number of women in its ranks and the widespread acceptance of feminist scholarship. Compared to…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history
Peter Rees Bearing Witness: the Remarkable Life of CEW Bean, Australia’s Greatest War Correspondent, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2015 A full biography of the man known as CEW Bean – war correspondent and official historian of World War…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Reality of war, Using and abusing history
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…
Reid, David ‘Reconciliation, please, but don’t mention the war‘, Honest History, 6 May 2015 Canberran David Reid recalls a family history incident and reflects on how we remember some of our wars but not others. The magical but as yet…
Reid, Elizabeth ‘Maintaining the rage: address to Vintage Reds, Canberra, 16 June 2015‘, Vintage Reds Elizabeth Reid was the first women’s adviser to an Australian prime minister, appointed by Gough Whitlam in 1973. There is more about her here and…
Reid, Richard ‘“That famous army of generous men”: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day‘, Honest History, 11 November 2016 An extended article about six men who fought in the Great War and the reflections their stories provoked in the…
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,…
‘Review note: Eleanor’s Secret is an easy read but draws on specialist knowledge’, Honest History, 27 May 2018 Gentle Reader* reviews another wartime novel by Caroline Beecham I described Caroline Beecham’s Maggie’s Kitchen (2016) as ‘technically fiction’ but with plenty…
‘Review note: The Soldier’s Curse: Book One, The Monsarrat Series, by Meg and Tom Keneally’, Honest History, 13 June 2016 Gentle Reader reviews a Keneally family enterprise published by Vintage Random House. Tom Keneally is not only prolific but also…
‘Review note: Vietnam – the war that made us what?’ Honest History, 26 April 2016 SBS showed a three-part series on the Vietnam War, Vietnam: The War that Made Australia (now on video), which had an unusually narrow focus and…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, People like us
Henry Reynolds ‘A hundred years of mateship (2)‘, Pearls and Irritations, 30 July 2018 Follows an earlier piece under the same title and riffs off an ill-judged poster from the Australian Embassy in Washington. The poster was intended to illustrate…
Henry Reynolds ‘A hundred years of mateship?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 27 February 2018 updated A passionate piece from veteran historian Henry Reynolds. I was astonished! An SBS news report about the Turnbull visit to Washington declared that the two countries…
Henry Reynolds ‘Australia’s perpetual “war footing”‘, Pearls and Irritations, 7 May 2018 Riffs off a belligerent interview in 2013 by then Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston. [Johnston] clearly took it for granted that there was a need for Australian military…
Henry Reynolds ‘Brendan Nelson and the War Memorial – what about the frontier wars?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 10 April 2018 Historian of invader-Indigenous relations in Australia considers the proposed extension to the Australian War Memorial and the Memorial’s inadequate recognition…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Henry Reynolds Forgotten War, New South, Sydney, 2013 The book (winner of the Victorian Premier’s award for non-fiction) chronicles in relentless detail the frontier war between settlers and Indigenous Australians, which saw upwards of 30 000 Aborigines and at least…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, People like us, Using and abusing history
Henry Reynolds ‘Frontier conflict and the War Memorial: an enduring controversy‘, Meanjin (blog), 20 November 2018 Discusses War Memorial resistance to commemoration of the Frontier Wars, casualty figures, the nature of the conflict, Mabo, and terra nullius. It [frontier conflict]…
Henry Reynolds ‘Has the cavalcade of commemoration finally halted?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 16 November 2018 Leading historian says historians of the future will wonder where our obsession with war – made flesh in the Anzac centenary – came from and…
Henry Reynolds ‘Memories and massacres‘, Pearls and Irritations, 10 July 2017 For over 30 years, Henry Reynolds has been writing about massacres of Indigenous Australians. The culmination of his research was the well-received book Forgotten War in 2013. This brief…
Henry Reynolds ‘The fighting retreat of the Anglo-Australians‘, Pearls and Irritations, 16 May 2018 Anglo-Australian atavism is at the root of the recent moves for an upgraded Captain Cook Memorial and related stuff, the defence of Australia Day, and the…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Henry Reynolds ‘The terrible effects and disastrous consequences of war. But we keep doing it’, Pearls & Irritations, 3 September 2021 Many of the world’s 190 or so nation states have been involved in conflict. But few small- or medium-sized…
Henry Reynolds Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement, NewSouth, Sydney, 2021 If we are to take seriously the need for telling the truth about our history, we must start at first principles. What if the sovereignty of the First…
Henry Reynolds Unnecessary Wars, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 Update 21 October 2017: Henry Reynolds on unnecessary wars (Brisbane Peace Lecture 2017, as broadcast on ABC RN) ‘Australian governments find it easy to go to war. Their leaders seem to be able…
Reynolds, Jonathan T., ed. 30-Second Twentieth Century: the 50 Most Significant Ideas and Events, each Explained in Half a Minute, Pier 9, Sydney, 2015 Twentieth Century presents a unique approach to modern history, condensing 100 years of innovation and art,…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history
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…
Riches, Leah & James Bennett ‘We can’t see the war for the memorials: balancing education and commemoration‘, The Conversation, 25 July 2016 This article raises issues similar to those that have concerned Honest History over the last three years; some…
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…
Janine Rizzetti ‘Contesting Australian History: a Festschrift for Marilyn Lake‘, The Resident Judge of Port Phillip, 13 December 2016 A report of this recent event held at the University of Melbourne in honour of Professor Marilyn Lake. The author mentions…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Rizzetti, Janine ‘Graeme Davison on visions of the future‘, The Resident Judge of Port Phillip, 31 July 2016 Nice piece from this excellent blog. It riffs off an exhibition in Melbourne (about to close) and an article by Graeme Davison…
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…
Roberts, Rhoda ‘There is no Aboriginal disadvantage. Our culture is our advantage, and all Australians can share it‘, Guardian Australia, 7 October 2016 Article written to accompany Homeground cultural festival in Sydney. We have over 700 languages and dialects and…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Home front, Ruling ourselves
John Robertson J.H. Scullin: A Political Biography, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, WA, 1974 Life and times of Australia’s 1929-31 Prime Minister. Focuses mainly on manoeuvrings within government and party and on macro-economic issues. Social unrest is given much…
Joshua Robertson ‘$5bn used to safeguard Murray-Darling from drought largely in vain, says study‘, Guardian Australia, 2 March 2017 Reports on the political aspects of water planning in Australia. The [ANU] report, Water Reform and Planning in the Murray-Darling Basin,…
Joshua Robertson ‘Australian convict pirates in Japan: evidence of 1830 voyage unearthed‘, Guardian Australia, 28 May 2017 An amateur historian [Nick Russell] has unearthed compelling evidence that the first Australian maritime foray into Japanese waters was by convict pirates on…
Robertson, Paul L. Resource Based or Resource Cursed? A Brief (and Selective) History of the Australian Economy since 1901, Australian Innovation Research Centre, University of Tasmania, AIRC Working Paper Series WP/0108. November 2008 (Pdf accessible from ecite.utas.edu.au) Discusses Australia’s historical…
Click here for all items related to: The sweat of our brows
Robertson, Tim ‘Foreign fighter with the “Anzac spirit”‘, Eureka Street, 12 July 2015 Brief article on Reece Harding, killed fighting with Kurdish Peshmerga forces against Islamic State. Harding was technically in breach of Australian law, though Robertson describes the factors…
Robin, Libby & Tom Griffiths ‘Environmental history in Australasia‘, Environment and History, 10, 2004, pp. 439-74 Critical analysis of much writing in the field in both Australia and New Zealand.
Richard Robison ‘Why the Coalition, conservatives and big business are terrified by Emma Alberici‘, Independent Australia, 2 March 2018 update A further contribution to the debate on ABC economics correspondent Emma Alberici’s analysis of Australia’s corporate tax system. (Our post…
Robson, LL The First A.I.F: A Study of Its Recruitment 1914-1918, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1970; paperback edition 1982 Tells the story of the early recruiting drives, the failure of the voluntary system, the conscription referendums and the division…
Sam Roggeveen The Echidna Strategy: Australia’s Search for Power and Peace, La Trobe University Press, Melbourne, 2023 The Echidna Strategy overturns the conventional wisdom about Australia’s security. Australia will need to defend itself without American help, but this doesn’t need…
Rollison, Kay ‘Book review: Ideas for Australian Cities, by Hugh Stretton‘, Australian Independent Media Network, 11 August 2015 Marks the death last month at 91 of Australian public intellectual, Hugh Stretton, author of the pioneering The Political Sciences (1969), Ideas…
Rollo, Stuart ‘In the most unlikely of places, anti-semitic tropes find new life‘, New Matilda, 11 August 2015 The author notes slogans ‘Victims of the Rothschilds’ on signs at the Light Horse Interchange, a war memorial road exchange at Eastern…
Stuart Rollo ‘Collateral murder in a militarised society‘, Overland, 22 June 2020 Subtle analysis of how the links between the uniformed military, particularly the SAS, arms manufacturers and exporters, and the commemoration industry are gradually making Australia more militarised. These…
Rolls, Eric Australia: A Biography: The Beginnings from the Cosmos to the Genesis of Gondwana, and its Rivers, Forests, Flora, Fauna, and Fecundity, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 2000; later editions The sub-title says it all. The story…
Rolls, Eric Citizens: Flowers and the Wide Sea: Continuing the Epic Story of China’s Centuries-Old Relationship with Australia, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1998 Sequel to Sojourners, dealing with how the Chinese pursued their aim after 1888 ‘to…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Rolls, Eric A Million Wild Acres: 200 years of man and an Australian forest, Nelson, Melbourne, 1981; 3oth anniversary edition, Hale & Iremonger, 2011 Describes the interactions between humans and their environment in the Pilliga scrub country of north-western New…
Rolls, Eric Sojourners: The Epic Story of China’s Centuries-old Relationship with Australia: Flowers and the Wide Sea, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1992 First volume in a detailed study of the relationship between the Chinese and Australia, taking…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Rolls, Eric Visions of Australia: Impressions of the Landscape, 1642-1910, Lothian, South Melbourne, Vic., 2002. braille edition, 2005 This book remakes the conception of Australia. Writers such as Henry Lawson saw Australia through the eyes of settlers trying to build…
Ronaldson, Senator Michael ‘Ministerial statement on the centenary of Anzac and Anzac Day 2015‘, Minister’s Web Site, 13 May 2015 Statement tabled in the Senate, along with ministerial remarks. This is the third such statement and it reports on the…
Rose, Deborah Bird & Richard Davis, ed. Dislocating the Frontier: Essaying the Mystique of the Outback, ANU E Press, Canberra, 2006 (free formats and print on demand) The frontier is one of the most pervasive concepts underlying the production of…
Rose, James ‘A family at war‘, Age, 14 April 2014 Raises issues about whether the final say in commemorating a dead service person rests with the state (represented in this case by the Australian War Memorial), supported by service organisations…
Rose, James ‘From Tampa to now: how reporting on asylum seekers has been a triumph of spin over substance‘, The Conversation, 14 October 2016 Considers three media management tactics deployed in 2001 and refined since: closing down news channels; depriving…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
James Rose ‘Here’s looking at us #1 – the Australian War Memorial‘, Crikey, 13 August 2013 Blogger reviews the Memorial and asks whether we should see the dead commemorated there ‘as the War Memorial encourages us, as young men and women…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
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…
Sue Rosen Scorched Earth: Australia’s Secret Plan for Total War under Japanese Invasion in World War II, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2017 In 1942 the threat of Japanese invasion hung over Australia. The men were away overseas, fighting on other…
Irving Rosenwater Sir Donald Bradman: A Biography, Batsford, London, 1978 One of many biographies and ephemera on Bradman, once described by an Australian Prime Minister as ‘the greatest living Australian’. From a historian’s point of view, the most interesting aspect…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Fiona Ross ‘Humane and intimate, how the Red Cross helped families trace the fates of WW2 soldiers‘, The Conversation, 11 May 2017 The University of Melbourne Archives now holds the series ‘Missing, Wounded and Prisoner of War Enquiry Cards’, which…
Ross, Liz Revolution is For Us: The Left and Gay Liberation in Australia, Interventions, Brunswick, Vic., 2013 It was the Left which championed revolution, which had a theory and practice of revolution – Marxism. But when it comes to Gay…
Lloyd Ross Curtin: A Biography, Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic., 1977 Biography by a former Curtin associate. Took many years to write, drew upon dozens of interviews, but lacks spark. Still, a useful reference for labour history over forty years, as…
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…
Rowse, Tim Australian Liberalism and National Character, Kibble Books, Melbourne, 1978 Exploration of the development of liberalism as Australia’s dominant ideology, from the early 2oth century to the 1970s. Among other things, quotes (p. 177) CEW Bean in 1943 on…
Felicity Ruby ‘Silent partners: US bases in Australia‘, Australian Foreign Affairs, Issue 8, February 2020, pp. 29-54 [T]here is very little public understanding or discussion of these bases, or their uses, or the way in which they have constrained Australian…
Rudd, Kevin Anzac Day National Ceremony Address to the National War Memorial Canberra, 25 April 2008 So what would this brave company of men and women – these hundred thousand voices – have to say to us today? What would…
Rudd, Kevin Prime Minister speech at the ANZAC Day national ceremony, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, on the commemoration of the centenary of ANZAC, 25 April 2010 The Prime Minister announced the formation of the commission to consider how to commemorate…
Rudd, Kevin Address at the apology to the Forgotten Australians and former child migrants, Great Hall, Parliament House, 16 November 2009 The then Prime Minister apologised on behalf of the Australian people. ‘To apologise for the pain that has been…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Rudd, Kevin Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples, House of Representatives, Parliament House, Canberra, 13 February 2008 I move: That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on their past…
Kevin Rudd ‘Launch of first volume of Tom Keneally’s Australians: Origins to Eureka, National Library, Canberra, 27 August 2009′ ‘[It was time] [t]o recognise there are competing strands in any nation’s history – of inclusion and exclusion; of hope and…
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…
Rundle, Guy ‘The one day of pure form‘, Overland, 211, Winter 2013, pp. 61-64 The author argues that Anzac Day has previously been noted for ‘trumpeting of a white imperialism, for its militarism, for its idolisation of masculinity. Some of…
Rundle, Guy ‘Anzac Day and why we need to question “myths” of war‘, Crikey, 24 April 2012 Anzac-based nationalism from the Labor Government is related to the commitment to the Afghanistan war and specifically to Labor’s need to show its…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
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…
Peter Rushbrook ‘Lest We Forget: the Kapooka tragedy 1945‘, History of Education Review, vol. 37, no. 1, 2008, pp. 48-55 (pdf made available by author) This article explores an incident that raises questions relating to the making and unmaking of…
Elaine Russell, ed. Australians: The Guide and Index, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 A guide to Australians: A Historical Library, twelve volumes produced by Australia’s historians to mark the bicentenary of white settlement. The other volumes were…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Sophie Russell & Eileen Baldry ‘Three charts on: Australia’s booming prison population‘, The Conversation, 14 June 2017 Ten years of ABS statistics on remand versus sentenced prisoner numbers (remand numbers going up more), Indigenous imprisonment rates (going up), women in…
Ryan, Lyndall Tasmanian Aborigines: A History since 1803, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2013 Tasmanian Aborigines were driven off their land so white settlers could produce fine wool for the English textile mills. By the time Truganini died in…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
Ryan, Simon The Cartographic Eye: How Explorers Saw Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996 Tries to get behind the literature of the early contacts between explorers and the original inhabitants of Australia. This book is about the mythologies of land…
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
Salvation Army Out of Reach: National Economic and Social Impact Survey 2016, Salvation Army Australia (Southern Territory and Eastern Territory), Melbourne and Sydney, 2016 The survey of 1600 Salvation Army clients found: Respondents affected by family violence were most affected…
Sangha, Laura ‘What is history for? Or: doing history/thinking historically‘, The Many-headed Monster, 16 June 2015 Blog piece based on a lecture to a second year university class. Researching, says the author, ‘I was struck by the fact that the…
Sarra, Chris ‘We Indigenous people are stronger than we believe, and smarter than we know‘, Guardian Australia, 10 July 2016 Address after Dr Sarra received NAIDOC 2016 Person of the Year award. In the course of it, he supports negotiation…
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…
Sawer, Marian, Norman Abjorensen & Phil Larkin Australia: The State of Democracy, Federation Press, Annandale, NSW, 2009 [T]he Democratic Audit of Australia, a major democracy assessment project, has been applying an internationally tested set of indicators to Australian political institutions…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
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…
Vince Scappatura The US Lobby and Australian Defence Policy, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2019 Australian society and its leaders generally take for granted the importance and value of this nation’s relationship with the United States. The US is commonly thought…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
Scarlett, Philippa Indigenous Histories Website ‘[s]upporting Australian Indigenous history, art and culture’. Includes posts on Indigenous service men in both major wars from the Leane, Fell, Rigney, Punch, Stubbings and many other families. The site contains contact details for obtaining…
Bruce Scates & Melanie Oppenheimer The Last Battle: Soldier Settlement in Australia, 1916-1939, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2016 When Australian soldiers returned from the First World War they were offered the chance to settle on “land fit for heroes”. Promotional…
Scates, Bruce & Rebecca Wheatley ‘The search for “The Water Diviner”‘, Monash University, 23 April 2015 Short documentary tracing the story of Thomas Murray of Gippsland, Victoria, who travelled to Gallipoli after the Great War in search of his son,…
Scates, Bruce, Rebecca Wheatley & Laura James World War One: A History in 100 Stories, Penguin, Melbourne, 2015 A long-awaited product of a complex project to tell the stories of many people affected by the Great War. There is also…
Scates, Bruce ‘Horrors of Anzac aftermath laid bare‘, The Age, 7 November 2013 Digitising a sample of World War I repatriation files is set to change the way the Great War is remembered. We will see no more important initiative…
Scates, Bruce Return to Gallipoli: Walking the Battlefields of the Great War, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and Melbourne, 2006; later editions, including e-book One of a number of publications by this author seeking to reconstruct the reality of war by…
Schreuder, Derek & Stuart Ward, ed. Australia’s Empire: Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 2010; first published 2008 The volume examines the meaning and importance of empire in Australia across a…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Julianne Schultz & Jane Camens, ed. Griffith Review 59: Commonwealth Now, January 2018 At the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in April athletes from countries that were once a part of the British Empire will battle for gold –…
Julianne Schultz & Jerath Head, ed. Griffith Review 56: Millennials Strike Back, April 2017 Millennials, those born in the final decades of the twentieth century, have had bad press for a long time. Now they are fighting back as they…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, People like us, Strands of Australian history, The sweat of our brows
Julianne Schultz & Patrick Allington, ed. State of Hope: Griffith Review 55, January 2017 As the industrial model that shaped twentieth-century South Australia is replaced by an uncertain future, now more than ever the state needs to draw on the…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history, The sweat of our brows
Julianne Schultz & Sandra Phillips, ed. Griffith Review 60: First Things First, April 2018 After more than two hundred years of largely unresolved disputes, Australia needs to hear the voices of Australia’s First Nations – and act on them. First…
Schultz, Julianne, Anne Tiernan, et al. ‘Fixing the system‘, Griffith Review, 51, January 2016, available online to subscribers Collection of nearly thirty essays on how to foster ‘a society that really works’. Authors include the editors, Carmen Lawrence, Chris Wallace,…
Schultz, Julianne, ed. ‘Our sporting life’, Griffith Review, 53, August 2016, available online to subscribers Collection of essays on something which, we are told, ‘lies at the heart of what it means to be Australian’. At a time when sport…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us, Strands of Australian history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
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…
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…
Schwartzkopf, Louise ‘Theatre as a healing stage for returned soldiers‘, The Age, 25 January 2014 Afghanistan veterans act in a new play that relives some of their experiences and also has therapeutic benefits. The Long Way Home, a play by…
Scott, Rosie & Tom Keneally, ed. A Country Too Far: Writings on Asylum Seekers, Viking, Melbourne, 2013 Short stories, book extracts, poems and essays on aspects of Australia’s current attitudes to asylum seekers, in some contributions set against the historical…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
Anne Scrimgeour On Red Earth Walking: The Pilbara Aboriginal Strike, Western Australia 1946–1949, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2020 The book is reviewed for Honest History by Rolf Gerritsen. Other reviews: Kathy Gollan in Newtown Review of Books; Jan Richardson in…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Rick Searle Charles Ulm: The Untold Story of One of Australia’s Greatest Aviation Pioneers, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2018 Charles Ulm and Charles Kingsford Smith were two of the most important pioneers of Australian aviation. Together they succeeded in a…
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…
Serle, Geoffrey ‘Godzone: (6) Austerica unlimited?’, Meanjin Quarterly, 26, 3, September 1967, pp. 237-50 Serle Austerica Unlimited (full text) This was a landmark article, skewering a culture in transition from postwar to postmodern but still encumbered by baggage from previous…
Serle, Geoffrey ‘The digger tradition and Australian nationalism‘, Meanjin Quarterly, 24, 2, June 1965, pp. 149-58 Describes Inglis’s ‘Anzac tradition’ article as ‘the first serious modern discussion of Anzac and the digger legend’ (149) and goes on that ‘most Australians…
Serle, Geoffrey From Deserts the Prophets Come: The Creative Spirit in Australia 1788-1972, Heinemann, Mebourne, 1973; online version available; new edition 2013 From Deserts the Prophets Come is a short history of literature, art, music, theatre, architecture, science and learning…
Serle, Geoffrey John Monash: A Biography, Melbourne University Press in association with Monash University, Carlton, Vic., 1982; later editions 2002, 2013 Engineer, business entrepreneur and World War I general, described by some as Australia’s greatest soldier but subject of anti-semitism.…
Sewell, Stephen ‘Friday essay: the arts and our still-born national identity‘, The Conversation, 18 November 2016 Wide-ranging essay from NIDA academic and commentator. Compares cuts to arts funding with spend on Anzac commemoration. But at the same time government spends heavily…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
Dennis Shanahan ‘Migrants “revived nation’s story“‘, The Australian, 26 April 2012 Then Prime Minister Gillard, interviewed at Gallipoli, repeats the thoughts in her speech there that Gallipoli ‘marks the time when a fledgling nation got a real sense of itself’.…
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, People like us, Strands of Australian history
Sharpe, Matthew ‘Friday Essay: The Battle of the Somme and the death of martial glory‘, The Conversation, 1 July 2016 Commemorating the death today 100 years ago of over 19 000 British soldiers in a stupid venture. The generals learnt…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Expressing ourselves, Reality of war
Ian W. Shaw Murder at Dusk: How US Soldier and Smiling Psychopath Eddie Leonski Terrorised Wartime Melbourne, Hachette, Sydney, 2018 May 1942: Melbourne was torn between fearing Japanese invasion and revelling in the carnival atmosphere brought by the influx of…
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…
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…
Mark J. Sheehan, ed. Advocates and Persuaders, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2019; electronic version available The authors of Advocates and Persuaders aim to demystify the political practice of lobbying. They believe that lobbying has a significant role to play in a healthy…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Sheil, Christopher & Frank Stilwell ‘Land of the “fair go” no more: wealth in Australia is becoming more unequal‘, The Conversation, 9 August 2016 Yet another piece to add to our collection under the thumbnail, ‘Inequality’. Reports and analyses continue…
Sherratt, Tim, Tom Griffiths & Libby Robin, ed. A Change in the Weather: Climate and Culture in Australia, NMA Press, Canberra, 2005 Collection of essays showing how climate and weather ‘can change lives, particularly in Australia, a continent of extreme,…
Sherratt, Tim Federation and Meteorology, University of Melbourne. Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre & Bureau of Meteorology (2001) Describes the weather around 1 January 1901, many aspects of meteorology around the time of Federation and in the decades since…
Tim Sherratt Historic Hansard: Commonwealth of Australia parliamentary debates presented in an easy-to-read format for historians and other lovers of political speech This is a searchable database of Commonwealth Hansard, Reps and Senate, from 1901 to so far, 1980. You…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Sherratt, Tim ‘Investigating the Hansard black hole‘, Tim Sherratt: Research Notebook, 29 May, 10 July 2016 Not about the Budget black hole this time but about deficiencies in the ParlInfo search engine which countless people have used for research in…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Tim Sherratt Turning the inside out: Keynote presented at the Australian Society of Archivists Annual Conference, Parramatta, 2016 A detailed examination, using a case study, of ‘the workings of legislation, archival practice and technology’. In this talk, I want to…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Sherratt, Tim Unremembering the forgotten: Keynote address, Digital Humanities 2015, University of Western Sydney, 3 July 2015 The article looks at some aspects of the history of science in Australia, including how we have been visited by scientists from overseas.…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Sherrell, Henry & Peter Mares ‘How many migrants come to Australia each year?‘ Inside Story, 14 October 2016 Analyses questions of definition around our migrant intake, particularly over the difference between permanent and temporary migrants. There are other complications as…
John Shield* ‘How to teach and commemorate Anzac: a view from Darwin High School’, Honest History, 6 May 2017 Part 1: Teaching I went teaching in 1988 and in every school there were always class sets of two texts in…
John Shield* ‘The soldier settlers of Ubobo, south-west of Gladstone, have left only memories’, Honest History, 21 July 2019 On 13 August 1929 the Ubobo Branch of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) held its annual…
Marian Simms A Liberal Nation: The Liberal Party & Australian Politics, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1982 Traces the party’s development from its formation during World War II out of the wreckage of earlier parties of capital, its development as a…
Margaret Simons ‘What responsibilities do journalists have on social media?‘ ABC Religion and Ethics, 30 August 2021 Thoughtful piece from a senior journalist and academic. Takes a balanced view of the pros and cons of journalists working on social media…
Simpson, Catherine ‘From ruthless foe to national friend: Turkey, Gallipoli and Australian nationalism‘, Media International Australia, 137, 1, November 2010, pp. 58-66 As the centenary of the Gallipoli landings draws closer, we will no doubt be inundated with more media…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history, War literature
Slezak, Michael ‘Water management flawed owing to vastly underestimated drought risk, study finds‘, Guardian Australia, 11 May 2016 updated Drought and flood risk in New South Wales is vastly underestimated, with weather in the past 100 years being unusually stable…
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
Sluga, Glenda ‘Historians’ war’, Honest History, 30 March 2014 256 Sluga Historians War Christopher Clark, expatriate Australian historian based at Cambridge, has aroused great interest in Europe with his new book, The Sleepwalkers, tracing how the nations of Europe moved…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Using and abusing history
Smaal, Yorick Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015 Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939-45 explores the queer dynamics of war across the Australia and forward bases…
Aaron Smith ‘Calls grow for Australia’s frontier wars to be remembered on Anzac Day‘, Guardian Australia, 25 April 2023 updated Update 26 April 2023: Anzac Day and the Frontier Wars discussed in other articles: ‘Should Frontier War heroes like Windradyne…
Smith, Evan ‘“Between the bomb and the ballot box”: the history of the far-right in Australia‘, Guardian Australia, 16 August 2016 updated The return of One Nation (on steroids) provokes this useful run-down of Australian fringe groups over the last…
Smith, Evan ‘Australia and the fascist idea of Greater Britain‘, Imperial & Global Forum, 9 November 2015 Guest blog by an Australian scholar. Shows how important to Oswald Mosley’s 1930s British Union of Fascists (BUF) was to the maintenance of…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
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…
Evan Smith ‘Some highlights from the CIA’s recent document dump online‘, Hatful of History, 21 January 2017 Adelaide-based academic and blogger, Evan Smith, has trawled through this trove and made an initial listing of what is there, including 1949 reports…
Smith, Peter ‘Stop the boats. Infuriate the ABC‘, Quadrant Online, 13 January 2014 There is some legitimate room for debate about the extent and character of controlled immigration. People and politicians can have different views. But there should be no…
Ross Smith & Peter Monteath Flight to Fame: Victory in the 1919 Great Air Race, England to Australia, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2019 In March 1919, Australia’s prime minister announced a prize of £10,000 for the first successful flight from Great…
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…
Smith, Tony ‘“I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier”: a presentation to the National Folklore Conference, Canberra, Easter 2016‘, Australian Folklore Network, April 2016 Starts from the broad context of the Anzac centenary, looks at the range of…
Tony Smith ‘Review note: Don Brian: The Convict Voice: Songs of Transportation to Norfolk Island and NSW’, Honest History, 13 May 2019 updated © 2019 Tony Smith Transportation to the eastern states ceased around 1850 but continued later in Western…
Smith, Tony ‘The Peace Angel’, Honest History, 29 May 2015 The song (lyrics below by Tony Smith) is sung here by Gene Smith. Maggie Thorp (Margaret Sturge Watts) was a Quaker and a life-long agitator and worker for progressive causes.…
Zoe Smith ‘“The Great Australian Silence”: Sexual violence in Australian history‘, History Matters (University of Sheffield), 5 February 2020 From the first establishment of European settlements in Australia, forced sexual relations perpetrated by white settlers have remained relatively unspoken about…
John Smyth ‘Speaking back to educational policy: why social inclusion will not work for disadvantaged Australian schools‘, Critical Studies in Education, 51, 2, 2010, pp. 113-28 The Labor government in Australia has recently embarked on an extremely ambitious program of…
Snell, Ted ‘Long before Europeans, traders came here from the north and art tells the story‘, The Conversation, 24 November 2016 Indigenous oral tradition and bark and rock paintings have recorded the early visits of Macassan trepangers to northern Australia.…
Don Snyder ‘Poland poised to put “bad” historians in prison‘, The Forward (New York), 2 September 2016 updated Poland’s parliament is considering a law which would make it a criminal offence to implicate Poland, or the Polish people, in the…
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history
Timothy Snyder ‘Poland vs history‘, New York Review of Books, 3 May 2016 updated In its exhibitions, the Museum of the Second World War [in Gdańsk, Poland] promised to tell the story of the 1930s and 1940s in an entirely…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Home front
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…
Click here for all items related to: Teaching history
Tim Soutphommasane ‘Why being an Australian citizen doesn’t mean others will believe you truly belong‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 February 2019 The ideal of White Australia was seminal and for all the success of Australian multiculturalism, we remain conditioned by…
Seumas Spark ‘Ken Inglis and the Dunera: a seventy-year history‘, Inside Story, 12 December 2016 Discusses the work of Inglis and the American historian, Jay Winter, on the Dunera boys, mostly Jewish internees from Britain, who made such a contribution…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, People like us
Sparrow, Jeff ‘If you oppose Reclaim Australia, remember fascism wasn’t always a freak show‘, Guardian Australia, 22 July 2015 Riffs off a minor ‘scandal’ over film of Queen Elizabeth as a seven-year-old essaying a Nazi salute (links to other articles…
Jeff Sparrow ‘Internment is so hot right now, but it’s nothing new in Australia‘, Guardian Australia, 10 June 2017 Pauline Hanson and others have discussed the possibility of interning perceived suspicious persons. Sparrow recalls how internment was carried out in…
Sparrow, Jeff ‘The real problem is not the lamb ad but the militarisation of Australian nationalism‘, Guardian Australia, 12 January 2016 Examines a Meat and Livestock Australia advertisement showing paramilitary forces ensuring expatriate Australians are home to eat lamb on…
Sparrow, Jeff ‘Not entirely innocent‘, Sydney Review of Books, 17 April 2015 updated This is a lengthy review article of Inside Australia’s Anti-Terrorism Laws and Trials by Andrew Lynch, Nicola McGarrity and George Williams, recently published by NewSouth. The blurb for…
Sparrow, Jeff ‘If black lives really matter in Australia, it’s time we owned up to our history’, Guardian Australia, 7 August 2015 Weaves together Adam Goodes, the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign in the United States, the treatment of Pacific Islander…
Sparrow, Jeff ‘The greyhound ban and the working man: what exactly does “working class culture” mean?‘ Guardian Australia, 21 July 2016 Explores the idea that the proposed ban on greyhound racing in New South Wales will particularly affect something called…
Spittel, Christina* ‘Australia in the Great War‘, reCollections, vol. 10, no. 2, October 2015 This review of the refurbished World War I galleries at the Australian War Memorial was published in the online journal of the National Museum of Australia.…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Home front, Reality of war
Spurling, Tom & John Mark Webb ‘The Great War brought us tragedy but it also birthed Australian science‘, The Conversation, 13 August 2013 Shows how the war enabled Australia to embrace science and technology innovation in a national way. Traces…
Peter Stanley, ed. Charles Bean: Man, Myth, Legacy, UNSW Press, Canberra, 2017 Proceedings of a 2016 conference at UNSW Canberra. Australia’s official war correspondent during WWI, Charles Bean was also Australia’s first official war historian and the driving force behind…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Expressing ourselves
Peter Stanley, ed. Jeff Grey: A Life in History, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, UNSW Canberra, Canberra, 2018 Memorial volume for UNSW Canberra’s late Professor of History. Authors are Frank Bongiorno, John Connor, Peter Dennis, Eleanor Hancock, Peter Stanley,…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Teaching history
Peter Stanley, ed. Victory on Gallipoli and Other What-ifs of Australian History, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2018 With a twist of fate – and of historical fact – Gallipoli was a military success, Australia had a female prime minister…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Stanley, Peter, et al ‘Speak across the century with the soldiers who fought at Gallipoli’s Battle of Lone Pine‘, News.com.au, 6 August 2015 This blog is over but worth a read. Honest History’s president Peter Stanley, who participated as the…
Stanley, Peter, et al. ‘From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery’, Honest History, April 2016 Honest History as a coalition has been going for three years. We have been publishing newsletters since May 2013 and…
Stanley, Peter ‘Anzac’s Long Shadow highlights a national obsession’ Honest History President, Professor Peter Stanley, reviews James Brown’s book (published 11 February 2014) and finds parallels with the attitudes of Honest History to the way in which Australia is approaching…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Reality of 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…
Peter Stanley ‘Dawn, Emily Bay, Norfolk Island, Anzac Day‘, Honest History, 27 April 2015 Honest History’s president finds a country-town sort of Anzac Day commemoration on the island of the descendants of the Bounty. The author concludes ‘that Anzac Day…
Peter Stanley ‘Anzac Day reflects changing face of the nation‘, The Australian, 24 April 2023 (pdf from our subscription – excluding comments) Historian and Heritage Guardian Peter Stanley ranges widely over the significance of Anzac Day, referring to early Anzac…
Stanley, Peter ‘AWM sixtieth anniversary: the Memorial and its people, 11 November 2001‘, Australian War Memorial Today, Peter Stanley is Associate Director of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales Canberra, as well…
Peter Stanley Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny and Murder and the Australian Imperial Force, Murdoch/Pier 9, Sydney 2010 Australia’s long-standing love affair with the Diggers has blinded us to the dark side of the Anzac legend. Bad Characters is a…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Reality of war, Using and abusing history
Stanley, Peter Black Saturday at Steels Creek, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic., 2013 In-depth study of the impact, at the time and after, of the 2009 fires on a small community near Melbourne. Interesting for comparisons with the author’s previous work in…
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…
Peter Stanley ‘Commemoration without conscience: the War Memorial must remain sacred‘, Canberra Times, 22 November 2018 Article by military historian (and Past-President of Honest History) arguing that, if the Memorial is indeed a sacred place, that status is incompatible with…
Stanley, Peter Digger Smith and Australia’s Great War, Murdoch/Pier 9, Sydney, 2011 Explores the history of forty Smiths (and Schmidts), taking Smith as ‘Everyman’ and thus exploring Australia’s experience of World War I, at the front and at home. Not…
Peter Stanley* ‘Forty questions about The Digger of Kokoda’, Honest History, 8 August 2022 updated Update 1 September 2022: Peter Stanley on Pearls and Irritations website. Update 15 August 2022: Nicholas Stuart in the Canberra Times (paywall); see also articles…
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…
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.…
Stanley, Peter ‘Gallipoli – 98 years on’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 4, August 2013 Professor Stanley answers these questions: How important is Gallipoli to Australians? Is the Gallipoli story just a national myth? Is Gallipoli’s importance based on tenuous history?…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Reality of war, Using and abusing history
Peter Stanley In the Shadow of Gallipoli reviewed, Canberra Times, 20 April 2013 Robert Bollard, In the Shadow of Gallipoli: The Hidden History of Australia in World War I, New South, 224 pp. $32.95 My erstwhile institution, the National Museum…
Stanley, Peter Invading Australia: Japan and the Battle for Australia, 1942, Viking Penguin, Melbourne, 2008 The author makes the important distinction between the emotional fears of Australians in 1942 that they were under threat of Japanese invasion and the historical,…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
What happens next? Honest History, 8 November 2013 After a lot of preparatory work, we in Honest History have launched our website. Our ‘starting line-up’ is something over 500 unique references in the Resources section, which translates into about 1000…
Click here for all items related to: Events
Stanley, Peter Lost Boys of Anzac, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014 Australians remember the dead of 25 April 1915 on Anzac Day every year. But do we know the name of a single soldier who died that day? What do we really…
Stanley, Peter Men of Mont St Quentin: Between Victory and Death, Scribe, Melbourne, 2009 Micro-study of some participants in one of the final battles of the Great War and of what happened to them after the war. The author describes…
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…
[Stanley, Peter] ‘Peter Stanley on history‘, NSW Writers’ Centre (2014) Transcript of brief interview in which Stanley answers questions: what inspired you to become an historian? what are the most challenging aspects of writing history? how do you choose your…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Stanley, Peter Quinn’s Post, Anzac, Gallipoli, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2005; also available as e-book ‘Delving into the history of Quinn’s as a key part of the Anzac line, this book illuminates what it was like to live,…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Peter Stanley ‘Reading the Act: what is the Australian War Memorial for?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 19 June 2019 Argues that the Australian War Memorial Act 1980 sets out the responsibilities of the Memorial and that providing a ‘therapeutic milieu’ for…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Peter Stanley ‘The Australian War Memorial goes AWOL‘, Pearls and Irritations, 1 September 2022 Post from military historian and former Principal Historian, Australian War Memorial. The Memorial has plugged an inaccurate book, The Digger of Kokoda, and refuses to debate…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Peter Stanley The Crying Years: Australia’s Great War, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2017 Peter Stanley cleverly weaves his narrative around striking images [from the National Library’s collection]—many never seen before—to create a visual history that immerses the reader in…
Stanley, Peter ‘Three Great War histories review: was the slaughtering really worth it?‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 12 November 2016 Honest History’s president reviews Victory at Villers-Bretonneux, by Peter FitzSimons, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923,…
Peter Stanley ‘Time to tell the truth at the Australian War Memorial‘, Canberra Times, 30 July 2022 (pdf from our subscription) Op ed from Research Professor at UNSW Canberra, long-time Principal Historian at the Memorial, and Heritage Guardian. The article…
Peter Stanley ‘Uneasy peace‘, Inside Story, 15 December 2019 Review of a new collection of essays, The Great War: Aftermath and Commemoration, edited by Carolyn Holbrook and Keir Reeves, and published by UNSW Press. The book was launched last month.…
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…
Peter Stanley ‘Why does Gallipoli mean so much?‘ ABC News, 25 April 2008 (written 2006) Historian Peter Stanley tries to answer this question. ‘Nations’, he says, ‘create the history they need’. After Anzac was neglected for many years, an assertive…
Stanley, Peter ‘Headphones, genocide and Fanta: reflections on the Çanakkale Gallipoli conference’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 This is an extended report of a major international conference held at Çanakkale, Turkey, in May 2015, with participants from many countries. The…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Getting on with the world, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Peter Stanley* ‘“We have seized their country by the right of might”: David Marr’s Killing for Country’, Honest History, 8 October 2023 Peter Stanley reviews Killing for Country: A Family Story, by David Marr Brothers Reginald and D’arcy Uhr, the…
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…
Starr, Michelle ‘Best Aussie inventions of all time‘, CNet Australia, 24 January 2014 Illustrated with text. Some of the inventions are the refrigerator, the (military) tank, the medical applications of penicillin, the Ford ute, the surf ski and the splayd.…
Stayner, Guy ‘State Library makes public up to 70,000 never-seen photos of Melbourne and country Victoria‘, ABC News, 18 November 2015 The SLV has begun digitising rolls of film taken of streets, houses and other buildings in Melbourne and rural…
Naomi Stead ‘Australian War Memorial‘, The Saturday Paper, 8-15 May 2021; (pdf from our subscription) A thoughtful and comprehensive evisceration of the War Memorial project from the Professor of Architecture at Monash University. There is an edited version in the…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Steele, Colin ‘How The Sex Lives of Australians upset a PM and the PM’s Literary Awards‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 June 2016 updated Update 23 June 2016: Patrick Allington in The Conversation discusses the issues. The author of this article…
Steffen, Will Quantifying the Effect of Climate Change on Extreme Heat in Australia, Climate Council of Australia, Sydney, 2015 Key findings: climate change is making Australia hotter; climate change has significantly worsened recent extreme heat events in Australia; the case…
Marion K. Stell & Ruth Thompson (Kim Anderson, ed.) Australians 1988: Chronology, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Willoughby, NSW, 1989 A chronology of the bicentennial year. The final volume in Australians: A Historical Library. Almost every day is covered with…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Alan Stephens ‘Acts of remembrance or expressions of nationalism?‘ The Drum (ABC), 25 April 2013 Article (attracting 185 comments by readers) by an historian of the RAAF, arguing that [a]t the start, Australia needed Anzac Day. We were a small,…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Alan Stephens ‘Another bright shining lie: the ADF and Afghanistan‘, Pearls & Irritations, 19 August 2021 This essay is concerned with the military-strategic dimension of our latest national bright shining lie; namely, the marketing by the Australian Defence Force’s hierarchy…
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…
David Stephens[1] Peter Stanley[2] Noel Turnbull[3] ‘An Action Plan for Australian Frontier Wars recognition and commemoration (continued)’, Honest History, 3 April 2023 updated This article covers ACTIONS 3, 4 and 5 in a proposed Action Plan. Our earlier article covered…
Update 1 December 2023: An updated, shorter version of the Action Plan is now available on the Defending Country website. The earlier version is retained below for the record. HH. *** David Stephens[1] Peter Stanley[2] Noel Turnbull[3] ‘Voice, Treaty, Truth:…
David Stephens ‘“Johnnies and Mehmets”: Kemal Ataturk’s “quote” is an Anzac confidence trick‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 2017 updated Edited version of David Stephens and Burcin Cakir’s chapter 7 of The Honest History Book. The words attributed to Ataturk,…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘ “Age shall not weary them”: questioning a Kokoda claim’, Honest History, 3 November 2017 This week’s 75th anniversary of Kokoda has seen repeated claims about the average age of Australian soldiers in the Kokoda campaign. For example,…
David Stephens* ‘”Alice in Wonderland’: dissembling and dithering in Senate Estimates’, Honest History, 16 June 2023 updated Update 9 July 2023: See below under ‘And there’s this …’ for our follow-up on one of the War Memorial’s claims. *** Senate…
David Stephens* ‘”Eve of Destruction” at the War Memorial; why are we trashing “our most sacred place”?, Honest History, 17 October 2021 updated Some time in the next couple of weeks (while Parliament is sitting, so most of us will…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Stephens, David ‘“The Australian War Memorial is happy to let your opinion stand as it is”: the Memorial’s response to recent posts on the Honest History website‘, Honest History, 22 February 2016 Commentary on recent response from the Memorial to…
Stephens, David ‘”The Next War”: two speeches on Australia 2015’, Honest History, 23 May 2015 The first speech, ‘Anzac and the militarisation of Australian society‘, was given at Politics in the Pub, Glebe, on 9 April 2015. It discussed Anzac…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, People like us, Ruling ourselves
David Stephens ‘“There will be blood”: ministerial remarks on the responsibility of children‘, Pearls and Irritations, 22 August 2015 Traces the fascination of authority figures with the concept of blood sacrifice. The blood sacrifice of children was evident in ancient…
Stephens, David ‘“Visitation” numbers at the Australian War Memorial since 1991: is this joint really jumpin’?’ Honest History, 2 February 2016 updated Update 7 February 2017: One year on: analysis of visitor statistics in the Memorial’s Annual Report for 2015-16. (The…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘2024 Budget Rabbit-Hole Report: $8m more for the Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 17 May 2024 (This post also appears on our sister website, defendingcountry.au. Earlier related material can be found linked from the Honest History home page.)…
David Stephens ‘Abbott wrong fit for War Memorial Council, says campaigner opposing AWM expansion‘, The Riot Act, 7 August 2019 updated Comment on the kite flown about possible appointment of Tony Abbott to the War Memorial Council. (Update 1 October…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Stephens, David ‘A century since we stole quietly away‘, Honest History, 23 December 2015 updated Marks the centenary of the evacuation of ANZAC troops from Gallipoli and describes the commemorative ceremony at the Australian War Memorial. Anzac remains, according to…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Using and abusing history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Reality of war, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘Afghanistan, Matt Anderson, the Australian War Memorial $498m megabuild, Brendan Nelson, the Brereton Report, Nine Newspapers, the Prime Minister, Ben Roberts-Smith, Seven Media, Kerry Stokes, and lots of lawyers’, Honest History, 7 June 2021 Some important Federal Court…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens ‘Afghanistan infinitum or walking away? The possible cost of shared values’, Honest History, 18 May 2017 updated Update 30 May 2017: Defence Minister Payne announces 30 more troops to be sent to Afghanistan, in a training capacity. Comments.…
Heritage Guardians campaign diary follows the story from early 2019 of the campaign against the Memorial project *** David Stephens* ‘Afghanistan not underdone at Australian War Memorial (thanks to Boeing): a flaw in argument for extensions’, Honest History, 4 May…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘A free kick from the ABC and an opportunity missed at Senate Estimates: when does the use of a name become a naming right?’ Honest History, 11 April 2019 updated Senate Estimates this week were something of a…
David Stephens* ‘After the Voice: Kim Beazley’s opportunity to give Truth-telling a big boost at the War Memorial’, Honest History, 19 October 2023 updated Update 23 October 2023: a version of this piece appeared on Pearls and Irritations. *** Michelle…
David Stephens ‘A grandiose commemorative project for Canberra raises lots of questions‘, Pearls and Irritations, 2 November 2018 Asks some pointed questions about the $498 million War Memorial extensions. Among the questions: Does the implication that the Memorial is ‘sacred’…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens ‘Allusions in Beanland: two exhibitions at the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 21 March 2017 updated This is a combined review of For Country, for Nation, about Indigenous service in defence of Australia, and A Home on a…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, People like us, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘A narcissist always searching for a new niche? Brendan Nelson’s autobiography’, Honest History, 19 February 2023: Part I: From Med School to the War Memorial via the Menin Gate’ Part II of this review *** David Stephens reviews…
David Stephens* ‘A narcissist always searching for a new niche? Brendan Nelson’s autobiography’, Honest History, 21 February 2023: Part II: ‘From the Big Build via the Frontier Wars to Boeing – but a lot left out’ Part I of this…
David Stephens* ‘And another thing: yet more on Ben Roberts-Smith’, Honest History, 6 June 2023 updated 18 August 2023: Stokes/Seven resisting respondents’ access to emails. ‘As part of its application for a third-party costs order, Nine is seeking to show…
Stephens, David ‘“And the children went”: Hands on History at the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 4 August 2015 A description of a ‘Hands on History’ session for school children on holidays, leading in to an assessment of how the…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘An historical agenda for the Albanese Government’, Honest History, 7 June 2022 updated History is not just a matter for historians, museums and school teachers. How we deal with our past shapes the present and future of all…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Ruling ourselves, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Home front, Reality of war
David Stephens* ‘Another skirmish of attrition in Senate Estimates’, Honest History, 23 February 2023 Honest History watched this live on 15 February for the War Memorial’s appearance. We glanced at the video (from 20.07). Nothing leapt out from either medium.…
Stephens, David ‘Anzac and Anzackery: speech to Kogarah Historical Society, 14 May 2015‘, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Honest History’s secretary speaks on the contrast between an Anzac ideal and the bloated caricature that is ‘Anzackery’. There are many resources…
David Stephens ‘Anzac and Anzackery: have Australians normalised war?’ Daily Review, 30 April 2017 Might we wade through the emotional sludge of Anzackery – the over-the-top, jingoistic bastardisation of the Anzac legend – to address some important questions about ‘our…
David Stephens* ‘Anzac Day and history as what we choose to remember‘, Pearls and Irritations, 24 April 2020 updated The Covid-19 pandemic has been compared with the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-19. That many of us knew nothing about that…
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…
David Stephens ‘Anzac is not just the One Day of the Year: the myth that just keeps on giving’, Honest History, 16 June 2017 While we have been promoting The Honest History Book – which is doing very well, thank…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Getting on with the world, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
David Stephens ‘Anzackery: parochial puffery a century on‘, Honest History, 25 August 2015 This speech, including Powerpoint slides, was prepared for a professional development session for Museums of New South Wales. The session was cancelled but the speech has been…
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…
David Stephens* ‘Architects and doctors come down hard on War Memorial heritage arguments’, Honest History, 18 December 2019 updated Spinners know how to make the best of a bad story. Australian War Memorial spokespersons, in spruiking the case for the…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Architects dig in against Australian War Memorial extensions; mixed messages from the Memorial; odd perspective from the ABC’, Honest History, 12 April 2019 updated Philip Leeson, ACT Chapter President of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA), told ABC…
David Stephens* ‘Armenian Genocide: President Biden recognises what Armenians knew more than a century ago’, Honest History, 3 May 2021 updated Update 2 October 2023: Vicken Babkenian and Judith Crispin write in Pearls and Irritations about Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘As the War Memorial destruction goes on, and Boeing’s man takes control, FOI throws dim light on the process’, Honest History, 5 May 2022 updated The destruction of the Australian War Memorial is unstoppable. And Brendan Nelson, the…
David Stephens* ‘Attempted Tudging of school history curriculum is but the most recent in a long line’, Honest History, 11 October 2021 updated Update 27 July 2022: Academic Stewart Riddle surveys the history of the history wars, including most recent…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Stephens, David ‘Memories and messages at the Australian War Memorial‘, The Drum (ABC), 29 April 2011 Thoughts provoked by a visit to the Australian War Memorial on Anzac Day, stressing particularly the effects of the normalisation of militarism. Notes also…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Reality of war, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘Australian War Memorial $498m project: consultation on two fronts’, Honest History, 12 March 2021 There are currently two ways in which people can have their say about the War Memorial development project. The Canberra Times story gives an…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Australian War Memorial $550 million redevelopment: Memorial provides some important clarifications and corrections’, Honest History, 17 March 2023 updated Update 5 June 2023: War Memorial answer to Question on Notice from Senator Shoebridge confirms that wrong information was…
David Stephens* ‘Australian War Memorial needs to own Australian Frontier Wars‘, Pearls and Irritations, 7 August 2022 Proper recognition and commemoration of the Australian Frontier Wars at the Australian War Memorial would be a practical expression of the Spirit of…
David Stephens ‘Australian War Memorial’s $498 million funding boost would be better spent on veterans‘, The Strategist, 2 May 2019 Response to arguments of Director, Australian War Memorial, as published in The Strategist recently. There are holes in Dr Nelson’s…
Stephens, David ‘Why is Australia spending so much more on the Great War centenary than any other country?‘ Pearls and Irritations, 20 June 2015 Honest History’s David Stephens writes for John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations. The article compares Australia’s…
David Stephens* ‘A wasting asset? War Memorial visitor numbers have been declining – and vainglorious vandalism could make them worse’, Honest History, 23 July 2021 updated Five years ago, Honest History asked the Australian War Memorial if it kept a…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Stephens, David ‘Bill Shorten’s Royal Commission proposal: Labor and the banks go way, way back‘, Pearls and Irritations, 9 April 2016 and updated Update of some earlier material on the Honest History site about the history of Labor’s relations with…
Stephens, David ‘Commemorating the survivors’, Honest History, 24 February 2014 This is an Appendix to Michael Piggott’s review of the Australian War Memorial’s exhibition ANZAC Voices. It contains some confronting images. See also Kerry Neale’s paper. The photograph above is…
Stephens, David ‘Constructing emotions: Australia leads world in WWI commemoration spend‘, Independent Australia, 19 May 2015 (This is an updated version of the piece here, dated 12 May.) The recently (re-)announced $100 million for a hi-tech museum in France is…
David Stephens ‘Cooking the (visitors) books: the Australian War Memorial struggles with statistics – again’, Honest History, 7 February 2017 The article looks at the statistics in the Memorial’s Annual Report 2015-16 for real (flesh-and-blood) visitors to the Memorial and…
David Stephens ‘Dam Busters and “Anzackery” at the War Memorial‘, Pearls and Irritations, 6 July 2023 updated The old phrase ‘once more with feeling’ could apply to much of what the Australian War Memorial does. Or perhaps not 80 years…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Day Break by Amy McQuire and Matt Chun: a children’s book focusses sharply on 26 January’, Honest History, 31 January 2021 Much of the debate about Australia Day/Invasion Day 26 January has been between grown-ups. This book, Day…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘Everyman as soldier: how men in suits in drawing rooms conned the people – and their families – into fighting on’, Honest History, 28 May 2021 David Stephens reviews Douglas Newton’s Private Ryan and the Lost Peace: A…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Reality of war, Ruling ourselves
David Stephens* ‘February was a good history month: recent reads across the Wide Brown Land’, Honest History, 10 March 2021 HH confesses to slippage in keeping up with reading matter. We blame February holidays. Here are some short notes on…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
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…
David Stephens* ‘For Remembrance Day: parsing “the Australian War Memorial”’, Honest History, 7 November 2021 updated Update 11 November 2021: Reprinted on Pearls & Irritations as ‘Australian War Memorial expansion is a disgrace beyond words’. *** Recently at Senate Estimates,…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘For Remembrance Day: The Anzac thoughts of Tony Abbott, new member of the War Memorial Council – and “war historian”‘, Honest History, 11 November 2019 As Tony Abbott, former prime minister, defeated member for Warringah, has been appointed…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Four history reads for a wet weekend, including Henry Reynolds on Australia Day and wrapping ourselves in the flag’, Honest History, 6 February 2021 Forty millimetres of rain overnight at HH HQ in Canberra, and there may be…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Stephens, David ‘Freedom and the Australian War Memorial: is Honest History not a force for good?‘, Honest History, 1 September 2015 Honest History’s secretary and editor traces the often fraught relationship between Honest History and the Australian War Memorial, which…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* From the Honest History vault: 80 years since the Darwin bombing but context remains all-important’, Honest History, 18 February 2022 updated Tomorrow is 80 years since the first bombing of Darwin during World War II. Our commemoration cohort,…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘From the Honest History vault: Awkward humility: the speeches of the Hon. Brendan Nelson AO‘, Honest History, 15 August 2019 A long piece in two parts on the oral oeuvre of the soon to be former Director of…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘From the Honest History vault: Dr Chau Chak Wing, ASIO person of interest and Australian War Memorial Fellow and donor’, Honest History, 15 February 2022 In Senate Estimates yesterday, Senator Kitching (ALP, Vic) mentioned Dr Chau Chak Wing,…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
David Stephens* ‘From the Honest History vault: Lest We Forget Dr Chau Chak Wing, the War Memorial’s Chinese-Australian connection’, Honest History, 27 November 2019 Update 3 February 2021: Dr Chau Chak Wing wins defamation case against ABC and Nine Newspapers,…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
David Stephens* ‘Frontier Wars: fig leaf and credibility gap at the Australian War Memorial, Honest History, 10 July 2023 updated Update 19 July 2023: Peter Stanley in Pearls and Irritations (‘The Native Mounted Police: extermination on the Australian frontier’) asks…
Stephens, David: Frontier Wars retreat at the Australian War Memorial: September 2022-September 2023
David Stephens* ‘Frontier Wars retreat at the Australian War Memorial: September 2022-September 2023’, Honest History, 27 September 2023 updated Friday this week, 29 September, is the first anniversary of a remark by the then Chair of the Australian War Memorial…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Getting the story straight: Senate Estimates hears from War Memorial on Afghanistan, extensions, and other matters’, Honest History, 6 April 2021 updated The Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade spent just 28 minutes on the evening…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Heritage values threatened, misleading documentation presented, gaming of the approvals process: the War Memorial’s (first) EPBC Act Referral on its $498m expansion program’, Honest History, 5 December 2019 updated As foreshadowed, the Heritage Guardians group has provided a…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens ‘Hidden in plain sight: Aboriginal massacre map should be no surprise‘, Pearls and Irritations, 7 July 2017 updated Follow-up to Professor Lyndall Ryan’s map, unveiled at the Australian Historical Association conference, of settler massacres of Indigenous Australians. The…
David Stephens* ‘History is never settled and is always vulnerable to political manipulation: recent Russian and Polish examples’, Honest History, 10 September 2019 Honest History has always had an aversion to complaints that someone is ‘rewriting history’. John Howard occasionally…
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial: what chance is there that the new bigger, Memorial will let these stories be told?’, Honest History, 26 July 2021 updated Update 25 September 2021: Two months on and…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
Stephens, David ‘Hugh White on Australians and war’, Honest History, 5 February 2014, updated Hugh White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University and a former senior public servant in the Department of Defence. Here he considers…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
Stephens, David ‘Is this the most sycophantic speech by an Australian prime minister? Julia Gillard’s address to the United States Congress, March 2011’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 This article analyses a recent claim by former Australian diplomat, Richard Butler,…
David Stephens* ‘Is this “substantial”? War Memorial finds another two square metres for the Frontier Wars (and four other Pre-1914 conflicts)’, Honest History, 5 May 2023 For some time now, Australian War Memorial Council Chair, Kim Beazley, has been making…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens ‘It’s a cultural thing – isn’t it?‘ Inside Story, 5 September 2018 A parliamentary inquiry seems to be carefully avoiding the real challenge for Australia’s national museums, archives and libraries … [The inquiry by the Joint Committee on…
David Stephens* ‘It’s not just about the submarines and the furore with the French: AUKUS, AUSMIN, and lessons from history’, Honest History, 1 October 2021 updated Sometimes slang cuts through and helps us understand. Earlier this week, we had a…
David Stephens ‘Keepers of the flame: why do the people who control our war memorials look so different from the rest of us and why does this matter?’ Honest History, 7 June 2016 This article analyses the composition of the…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Home front, Reality of war, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘Kim Beazley, Chair of War Memorial Council, makes welcome progress towards proper recognition of Frontier Wars – but now needs to drag others along, too’, Honest History, 7 February 2023 updated Update 22 June 2023: Earlier this month,…
David Stephens* Köken Ergun’s Şehitler (Heroes) is a well observed Dardanelles doco that deserves wide distribution’, Honest History, 18 April 2019 updated Update 24 April 2019: Turkish nationals are to be excluded from Australian ceremonies at Gallipoli, 2019. Security reasons cited.…
David Stephens* ‘Lest We Forget#1: Five years since Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s perceptive remark’, Honest History, 10 April 2022 updated Lest We Forget has come to mean ‘Remember’, or even ‘Remember, or else!’, in relation to the commemoration of men and women…
David Stephens* ‘Lest We Forget#3: Five years since The Honest History Book put Anzac in its proper place in Australian history’, Honest History, 18 April 2022 Five years ago this month, NewSouth Books published The Honest History Book, edited by…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history
David Stephens* ‘Lest We Forget#4: Will today’s children have to go to war – and do we commemorate past wars in a way that makes them think they’ll have to?’ Honest History, 21 April 2022 The poet Osbert Sitwell (1892-1969) …
David Stephens* ‘Lest We Forget#6: Brendan Nelson is to be Chair of the War Memorial Council – but who will really run the place?’ Honest History, 23 April 2022 updated Update 27 April 2022: 2ST radio (Shoalhaven and Southern Highlands)…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Lest We Forget#8: Has the Australia that the Great War Diggers fought for been captured by spivs and oligarchs?’ Honest History, 25 April 2022 We began this Lest We Forget series by referring to Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s 2017 use…
David Stephens* ‘Lest We Forget? This primer for forgetting has some stuff worth remembering’, Honest History, 11 December 2019 David Stephens reviews A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past, by Lewis Hyde A book about forgetting (and remembering) should…
David Stephens* ‘Lest We Forget what it was like: Bobbie Oliver’s book, Hell No! We Won’t Go! Resistance to Conscription in Post War Australia’, Honest History, 27 April 2022 David Stephens reviews Bobbie Oliver’s book, Hell No! We Won’t Go!…
David Stephens* ‘Lest We Forget Yassmin Abdel-Magied: a two-year retrospective’, Honest History, 24 April 2019 updated Update 7 May 2019: ABC presenter Sami Shah on being Yassmin-ed. Update 26 April 2019: also on Independent Australia website. *** Two years ago,…
David Stephens* ‘Look out, Minister! War Memorial drops heavy hints about needing more money for its big build’, Honest History, 8 December 2022 When a project runs over the original cost estimate, the proponent has to tell the parliamentary Public…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
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…
David Stephens* ‘Making the best of the Ben Roberts-Smith fiasco‘, Pearls and Irritations, 2 August 2023 updated There may be an upside to the Ben Roberts-Smith case. Not for the family of Ali Jan or the people of Afghanistan. Not…
Stephens, David ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s post-Anzac pitch to the Australian Defence Force‘, Pearls and Irritations, 2 March 2016 Looks at a recent speech from the prime minister and a later doorstop (just prior to the release of the Defence White Paper)…
David Stephens* ‘Mark Dapin: politely pushing back against Australia’s Vietnam mythology’, Honest History, 7 May 2019 updated David Stephens reviews Mark Dapin’s Australia’s Vietnam: Myth vs History The Honest History enterprise has devoted a lot of time and effort to…
Stephens, David ‘Australian War Memorial offers opportunity for primary school children to connect with 62 000 Great War dead’, Honest History, 31 March 2014 The article describes the Australian War Memorial’s Roll of Honour Soundscape project in which primary school…
Have your say with the National Capital Authority on the Memorial’s ‘early works’ application. You don’t need to live in Canberra. Arguments here. *** David Stephens ‘Memorial Rorts: how the Australian War Memorial expansion was rammed through despite public opposition‘,…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens ‘Minister Pyne and the curriculum – again’, Honest History, January 2014 (and updated) The preliminary report of the Donnelly-Wiltshire review was released in June 2014. Donnelly interviewed. Gary Foley and Elizabeth Muldoon question the treatment of Indigenous history…
Stephens, David ‘Monash interpretive centre (Immersion II of II): Public Works Committee dips toe in water‘, Honest History, 4 August 2015 The article considers further the proposal to build the Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre at Villers-Bretonneux, France, at a…
Stephens, David ‘Money, Monash and motive: the Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux (Immersion I of II)‘, Honest History, 7 July 2015 An analysis of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs submission to the Public Works Committee hearing on the Monash centre…
David Stephens* More ‘lunge-parry-thrust** in Senate Estimates on War Memorial matters’, Honest History, 7 December 2022 updated Update 3 May 2023: FOI claim on War Memorial delivers heavily redacted version of Memorial’s briefing notes for this Estimates hearing (Ref No. 2022-23-08). Very little…
David Stephens* ‘More on the War Memorial’s carelessness about naming rights’, Honest History, 23 April 2019 A couple of weeks ago, Honest History posted some analysis about ‘naming rights’ at the Australian War Memorial. The piece was triggered by War…
David Stephens* ‘Movement at the Memorial: remarks from Chair Kim Beazley hold promise of change – but more needed’, Honest History, 10 April 2023 updated (pdfs from our Canberra Times subscription: page 1 article, page 2 article, editorial) Update 15…
David Stephens* ‘Narrow focus but not sharp: Public Works Committee report on $498m War Memorial project’, Honest History, 15 March 2021 updated The parliamentary Public Works Committee was never going to take a broad view of the $498m, seven year,…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘National Capital Authority brush-off continues with “one size fits all” Statement of Reasons for Memorial decision’, Honest History, 7 July 2021 updated *** Update 14 July 2021: Citizens dissatisfied by the NCA brush-off described below may wish to…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘National Capital Authority consultation report on War Memorial Main Works: latest (but maybe not last) phase in a sorry saga’, Honest History, 25 November 2021 updated Summary: The War Memorial redevelopment project is unstoppable. We tried! *** The…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* New (and newish) books received: Australian architecture; beyond COVID; communists; Evatt on the Court; the history of history’, Honest History, 4 March 2022 updated Honest History has not read all of these books but they all address important…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
David Stephens* ‘New War Memorial Director’s children’s war books give some hints to his thinking’, Honest History, 31 March 2020 updated The new Director of the Australian War Memorial, Matthew Anderson PSM, commences duty on 14 April. He comes to…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘Nine embarrassing minutes: the Australian War Memorial at Senate Estimates’, Honest History, 5 November 2023 updated When the government changed it looked, just for a moment, as if some of our less accountable institutions, like the Australian War…
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…
David Stephens* ‘Paul Daley and Don Watson address the place of place in the Australian story – as well as death and the Australian character’, Honest History, 7 June 2019 Sunday papers contain long reads and thoughtful essays, some of…
David Stephens* ‘Paul Daley’s novel Jesustown is as complex and troubling as our Australian history’, Honest History, 3 July 2022 David Stephens reviews Jesustown: A Novel, by Paul Daley Important novels are grounded in an appreciation of human nature and…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, People like us, Ruling ourselves, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘Pearls and Irritations nails it again and again: recent food for thought (but it’s not like the Main Stream Media)’, Honest History, 19 May 2023 updated Update later this day: Speaking of … there’s a nice piece in…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
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…
David Stephens* ‘Publicity for SBS documentary, The Australian Wars, provokes response from War Memorial but public input is needed’, Honest History, 23 September 2022 updated Update 5 October 2022: NITV panel discussion including Rachel Perkins: Land Wars. ‘It’s a story…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Stephens, David ‘Public Works Committee’s paddle in Monash museum‘, Honest History, 19 August 2015 Our third article on the Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre proposed for Villers-Bretonneux in France. It briefly analyses the Public Works Committee report, tabled in the…
David Stephens* ‘Pulling the plug on the Governor-General’s $18 million pet project: are other boondoggles* safe?’, Honest History, 8 September 2022 The government has scrapped a grant of $18 million for a leadership program promoted by Governor-General David Hurley. The…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Radio, reminiscences, a radical, the Limestone Plains, and a new play by a distinguished journo: a roundup’, Honest History, 31 March 2021 In between helping the Heritage Guardians resist the entirely unnecessary and inappropriate $498m legacy project at…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
David Stephens* ‘Reaction to Public Works Committee report on War Memorial’s big build: rare dissent emphasises the problems with this project’, Honest History, 24 February 2021 Update 15 March 2021: Analysis of the PWC report, plus some odd business in…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
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…
David Stephens* ‘Reflections on Afghanistan: hell no, never, ever go? And the gunrunners win anyway’, Honest History, 19 August 2021 updated Update 1 April 2022: Memorial response to Senate Estimates Question from Senator Steele-John (Question No. 179). Pdf. Carefully worded.…
Stephens, David ‘Alternative Anzac: Remembering and Healing in Lismore models a peaceful world’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 (updated 27 June 2014) If you live in Canberra and have never been further north on the New South Wales coast than…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
David Stephens* ‘Remembrance Day mysteries at the War Memorial: answers to Senate Questions on Notice’, Honest History, 11 November 2023 updated Accountability via Senate Estimates Committees is a slow process. The difficult or embarrassing questions often get ‘taken on notice’,…
David Stephens* ‘Review note: An exhibition on averting war and keeping the peace: new at the War Memorial’, Honest History, 23 October 2019 updated The Courage for Peace, a new exhibition at the Australian War Memorial, is a modest attempt…
David Stephens* ‘Review note: Ted Egan’s The Anzacs: 100 Years On in Story and Song‘, Honest History, 18 September 2020 Update: Mr Egan offers free copies of the book to worthy causes. Contact. *** Ted Egan is what was once…
David Stephens* ‘Rule Britannia and “Dig! Dig! Dig!”: Illumination and Excavation at the War Memorial’, Honest History, 3 June 2022 Whichever of the two Matts, Keogh (sworn in this week as Minister for Veterans’ Affairs), or Thistlethwaite (Assistant Minister) takes…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Same old, same old – and lots of brass: still no historians on the Australian War Memorial Council’, Honest History, 5 February 2021 Minister Chester has announced the filling of two vacancies on the Council of the Australian…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Seventy-five per cent of Australians in national poll believe War Memorial project $500 million would be better spent on health, education, and veterans’ support services; just 13 per cent prefer spending on the Memorial’, Honest History, 5 July…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Shots across the bows: some Anzac weekend reading and listening’, Honest History, 23 April 2021 updated Just a very quick jog around the field, unfortunately. Wearing their Heritage Guardians hats, the Honest History elves have been busy finalising…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed
David Stephens ‘Should we softpedal on Gallipoli?’ Honest History, 4 February 2014 Andrew Nikolic is the Liberal member for Bass, Tasmania, and a former Brigadier. He commented on his website on remarks by our President, Professor Peter Stanley, about the…
Stephens, David ‘Singing country: the musical legacy of David Morrison, Australian of the Year – and a straw in the wind at the Australian War Memorial?’, Honest History, 2 February 2016 The article looks at the story behind the song…
David Stephens* ‘Startling events at the Australian War Memorial‘, Pearls and Irritations, 12 October 2022 For those who came in late, a rundown of cost blowout and secrecy surrounding it, changes on the War Memorial Council involving Stokes, Abbott and…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Strengthening the RSL link is not the most pressing need for the unrepresentative and anachronistic War Memorial Council’, Honest History, 30 June 2019 updated During the recent election campaign, New South Wales President of the RSL, James Brown,…
Stephens, David ‘Tangled up in red, white and blue’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 5, September 2013 We choose our own history, which bits of the past we wish to burnish and which we prefer to leave alone.We are doing war…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘Thales-War Memorial link remembered as a new Audit Office report is released – and a timely JCPAA report on integrity’, Honest History, 27 June 2024 Update 28 June 2024: Defence refers another Thales contract to the National Anti-Corruption…
Stephens, David ‘The children suffer‘, Honest History, 11 August 2014 A version (including links) of an article that appears on John Menadue’s blog, Pearls and Irritations. An earlier piece on the same subject appeared in Honest History’s first newsletter. There…
Stephens, David: The great War Memorial tree massacre: the price we will pay for the Edifice Complex
Have your say with the National Capital Authority on the Memorial’s ‘early works’ application. You don’t need to live in Canberra. Arguments here. *** David Stephens* ‘The great War Memorial tree massacre: the price we will pay for the Edifice…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Stephens, David: The growing cost of the War Memorial’s vanity build: a tale of four letters: Part I
David Stephens* ‘The growing cost of the War Memorial’s vanity build: a tale of four letters: Part I’, Honest History, 26 September 2022 updated First in a series: Part II; Part III. Later developments, as disclosed in October Budget. ***…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘The growing cost of the War Memorial’s vanity build: a tale of four letters: Part II’, Honest History, 28 September 2022 updated In Part I, we looked at two letters, one from Honest History/Heritage Guardians to the Treasurer…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘The growing cost of the War Memorial’s vanity build: Part III: hot stuff, heavy hints, loose ends, and a bunch of dates’, Honest History, 4 October 2022 updated Part I of this series looked at correspondence between Honest…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘The War Memorial is again running away from the Frontier Wars‘, Pearls and Irritations, 5 December 2022 updated Note: the P&I post linked here is an updated version of our earlier post. *** The Australian War Memorial has…
David Stephens* ‘Thoughts of the people against the War Memorial’s grandiose extensions project’, Honest History, 8 April 2019 On 23 March, the Canberra Times carried a story about an open letter from 83 distinguished Australians opposing the plan to spend…
Stephens, David ‘Less twaddling by the lake: three art exhibitions in Canberra‘, Honest History, 16 September 2015 A review of Reality in flames at the Australian War Memorial, Heroes and villians: William Strutt’s Australia at the National Library of Australia…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Strands of Australian history
David Stephens* ‘Three important markers on the way to a New Australia – maybe’, Honest History, 11 August 2023 All of the many voices on and around the Voice need to be listened to, some with more respect than others,…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
David Stephens* ‘Townsville Veterans’ Wellness Centre and Afghanistan War Memorial Gardens, Brisbane: avoiding bigger issues?’, Honest History, 20 October 2021 updated Two press releases this week from Federal Veterans’ Affairs Minister, Andrew Gee, tell of two openings in Queensland. They…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Two absorbing evenings: the National Capital Authority’s information sessions on the Australian War Memorial’s $498m redevelopment project’, Honest History, 23 August 2021 updated After the farce of the ‘early works’ consultation on the War Memorial project, the National…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Two uncles, two great-uncles, two wars: a family Anzac story’, Honest History, 25 April 2023 For most families who are directly affected by war, commemoration is not speeches by politicians, not parades and wreaths and children waving flags;…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, Home front, Reality of war
David Stephens ‘Uluru Statement shows the way on Australian Frontier Wars‘, Pearls and Irritations, 18 August 2022 ‘We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country’ (Uluru Statement) Empowerment grows not just…
David Stephens* ‘Walking backwards for Christmas**: Estimates Committee transcript shows the War Memorial’s Frontier Wars retreat’, Honest History, 28 November 2022 updated Update 3 May 2023: FOI claim on War Memorial delivers heavily redacted version of Memorial’s briefing notes for…
David Stephens* ‘War Memorial’s “Final Preliminary Documentation” leaves many unanswered questions on $498m project: over to you, DAWE’, Honest History, 9 October 2020 updated As foreshadowed in our posts of 30 September and 2 October, the Australian War Memorial has…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘War Memorial fails to come clean on Capital Management Plan for its $548m big build: digest this, Minister!’, Honest History, 13 October 2022 updated Note: this post should be read in conjunction with our series on the $50m…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘War Memorial Heritage Management Plan: a loose end still hanging’, Honest History, 4 February 2022 updated Update 5 May 2022: Our FOI claims on the Department and the Memorial still leave a loose end The Australian Heritage Council…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘War Memorial misses opportunity to clarify confusion about Frontier Wars’, Honest History, 3 November 2022 updated Update 28 November 2022: Analysis of the Estimates transcript confirms the Memorial’s backsliding from the position of 29 September. The Memorial has…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘War Memorial news: backing Chairman Stokes; reaching out to military history buffs; jumping the gun on closing Anzac Hall; possibly getting Tony Abbott as Council Chair’, Honest History, 8 March 2021 updated The Australian War Memorial benefits not…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘War Memorial releases material under FOI relating to $498m expansion program: did a billionaire’s personal guarantee clinch the deal?’ Honest History, 4 October 2019 updated Update 5 November 2019: Dr Nelson’s final bow at Estimates gives more information…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘War Memorial stirrings: Works Approval application for a car park; an Annual Report that giveth and taketh away; an exhibition about peace-keeping’, Honest History, 18 October 2019 updated This week has seen a number of developments at the…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘War Memorial visitor figures not keeping pace with population increase’, Honest History, 10 August 2020 updated In 2016 and again in 2017, Honest History took a long view of Australian War Memorial visitor statistics going back to 1990-91.…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Stephens, David ‘We go to Rio: questioning received war history’, Teaching History (History Teachers’ Association of New South Wales), 50, 3, September 2016, pp. 4-6 Pdf accessible here made available by courtesy of HTANSW, which holds copyright. Anzac may be…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘What’s the Idea? Still searching for the soul of the nation’, Honest History, 23 August 2022 I don’t propose to do a review of Julianne Schultz’s, The Idea of Australia: A Search for the Soul of a Nation,…
David Stephens* ‘What a difference seven months makes: value of War Memorial equity in October Budget $50m less than in March’, Honest History, 28 October 2022 updated Update 3 May 2023: FOI claim on War Memorial delivers heavily redacted version of Memorial’s…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘What happens if the War Memorial Council goes in 13 different directions?’, Honest History, 20 July 2023 updated Honest History recently received an unsigned letter from the Hon. Kim Beazley AC, Chair of the Council of the Australian…
Stephens, David: When a motley crew of Canberra stirrers protected the War Memorial from competition
Stephens, David ‘When a motley crew of Canberra stirrers protected the War Memorial from competition‘, Honest History, 11 November 2016 Tells the story of the Lake War Memorials Forum, a group which fought for two years to prevent the building…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens ‘Who’s Schlesinger now? Something that may have happened in the Nixon era could be relevant today‘, Pearls and Irritations, 5 October 2017 updated Update 19 November 2017: More on this issue in a post from the BBC (with…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history
David Stephens* ‘Why on Earth did Labor reappoint Tony Abbott to the Council of the Australian War Memorial?’ Honest History, 27 September 2022 updated Update 19 October 2022: Could the answer to the above question lie in the suggestion that…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
David Stephens* ‘Why would you destroy something that 96 per cent of your visitors liked? War Memorial Annual Report 2020-21’, Honest History, 12 November 2021 Annual reports of Australian government departments and agencies are normally tabled in the Parliament before…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Stephens, David ‘Will the new Anzac centenary minister be too busy to bother?‘ Honest History, 1 December 2015 Update 4 December 2015: the Minister has responded on Twitter. The article looks at the ministerial workload implications of the machinery of…
David Stephens ‘Afghanistan: The Australian Story shows war is about much more than “love and friendship”’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 A review of Chris Masters’ double DVD for the Australian War Memorial. (Trailer; ABC story.) The DVDs contain footage…
David Stephens* ‘“We have once again been played for mugs by a deeply flawed process”: analysis of the National Capital Authority consultation report on the $498m Australian War Memorial redevelopment project “early works” application’, Honest History, 28 June 2021 …
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Stephens, Tony ‘The view beyond the battlefield‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 August 2005 Arguing that ‘Australia’s national identity must be defined by more than its wartime history’ the author asks: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if Australians looking to recommend the…
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…
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.…
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.…
Stilwell, Frank & Kirrily Jordan Who Gets What? Analysing Economic Inequality in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, Vic., 2007 Ranges widely over Australian history with an emphasis on the years since 1960. Why have the incomes of corporate executives…
Stockings, Craig & John Connor, ed. Before the Anzac Dawn: A Military History of Australia before 1915, NewSouth, Sydney, 2013 This book provides a comprehensive and compelling account of Australian military history before any soldier set foot on Gallipoli. It…
Stockings, Craig, ed. Anzac’s Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History, NewSouth, Sydney, 2012 Myth busting by military historians and other authors on a wide range of topics, including denials that our military history begins at Gallipoli, that our…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Stockings, Craig, ed. Zombie Myths of Australian Military History: The Ten Myths that Will Not Die, NewSouth, Sydney, 2010 Over the years many books on Australian military history have given rise to a host of …‘zombie’ myths – myths that…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Stockings, Craig Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of Anzac, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009 The author suggests this battle, in North Africa against the Italians in January 1941, has been relatively neglected by Australians when it…
Stone, Caitlin & Jim Berryman ‘The Robert Menzies Collection: A Living Library‘, e-Scholarship Research Centre, University of Melbourne, 2013 Comprehensive collection of resources associated with Menzies, classified A-Z under the headings of books, colleagues, friends and family, interests, events, organisations,…
St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne Anzac Day, 25 April 2017: Truly, we will remember them (pdf supplied by Rev. John H. Smith). The order of service is headed, ‘An Ecumenical Service of Lament, Repentance and Hope for the Centenary of the…
Strangio, Paul & Nick Dyrenfurth, ed. Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two-Party System, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2009; electronic version available Collection of articles examining ‘Fusion’, the coming together in 1909 of the anti-Labor parties in Australia, setting…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Paul Strangio ‘Who were Australia’s best prime ministers? We asked the experts‘, The Conversation, 2 August 2021 Survey of 60 or so academic experts, 2020 and 2010. Sets out criteria (longevity, achievements, management of party, relations with electorate) and ranks…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Leigh Straw After the War: Returned Soldiers and the Mental and Physical Scars of World War I, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 2017 Of the 330,000 Australian men who enlisted and served in World War I, close to 60,000…
Christopher Daniel Sullivan The case for an Australian folk music tradition, PhD thesis, Southern Cross University, 2020 (available on open access, including music files) Using new and more comprehensive sources this thesis re-interprets the evidence for an Australian folk music…
Summers, Anne Damned Whores and God’s Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic., 1975; later editions 1994, 2002 According to the author’s website, the book was in November 2003 voted one of the top ten books of…
Click here for all items related to: People like us
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…
Anne Summers The Misogyny Factor, New South, Sydney, 2013 Provoked by attitudes towards Australia’s first female Prime Minister, the book raises questions about Australian attitudes to women’s participation in economic and political life. ‘Having our first woman Prime Minister’, the…
Summers, Julie Fashion on the Ration: Style in the Second World War, Profile Books, London, 2015 From the young woman who avoided the dreaded ‘forces bloomers’ by making knickers from military-issue silk maps, to Vogue’s indomitable editor Audrey Withers, who…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Home front, People like us
Dave Swain ‘Food for thought: the rise of Australia’s mighty Brahman‘, The Conversation, 8 January 2017 Historical view of the cattle industry of Northern Australia. Despite the successes of the Brahman breed, the challenge facing the north Australian industry remains…
Sweetman, Terry ‘Opinion: Great War orgy of remembrance high in cost, low on inclusion for Australians‘, Sunday Mail (Brisbane), 24 July 2016 Veteran columnist is provoked by Fromelles-Pozieres commemoration into questioning the whole commemoration extravaganza. He uses Honest History estimates…
Sue Taffe A White Hot Flame: Mary Montgomerie Bennett – Author, Educator, Activist for Indigenous Justice, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2018 Mary Montgomerie Bennett (1881–1961) is an important but under-recognised figure in Australian history. A member of a successful squatting…
Marija Taflaga ‘The end of the era of mass politics?‘, Inside Story, 26 February 2018 Historical look at the trajectory of the major parties in Australia. Healthy or not, our parties are here to stay. The combination of the preferential…
Monica Tan ‘I’m dizzily in love with Australia. Patriotism shouldn’t be reserved for the right‘, Guardian Australia, 1 February 2017 Reflection following a trip around Australia. Attracted more than 500 comments pro and con. Patriotism has become a touchy subject…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Strands of Australian history, The land we live in
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…
Tan, Monica ‘Pond’s Nicholas Allbrook on Australia’s national anthem: “It’s ignorant and isolationist”‘, Guardian Australia, 26 May 2016 Views of a 28-year-old rock singer with a range of comments beneath. Nicholas Allbrook, in his latest release ‘replaces the nation-fortifying intentions…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
Richard Tanter ‘Fifty years on, Pine Gap should reform to better serve Australia‘, The Conversation, 9 December 2016 In the last 50 years, Pine Gap’s growth has burst its original security compound. There are now 33 separate antenna systems at…
Richard Tanter ‘Pine Gap history – dogged by censorship and dereliction of duty‘, Pearls and Irritations, 14 November 2019 Melbourne University academic and peace activist, Richard Tanter, looks at a release of heavily redacted official papers relating to Pine Gap.…
Colin Tatz ‘Australians may well love their sport, but why don’t we delight in success elsewhere?‘ The Conversation, 6 September 2017 The Australian nation and nationalism, we often proclaim, began at Gallipoli. This is a nonsense, as that sets aside the…
Tatz, Simon ‘The nationalism wedge‘, Independent Australia, 3 February 2014 Argues that the Abbott Government is linking nationalism with a conservative political agenda. Quotes Benedict Anderson about nations as ‘imagined communities‘. ‘The Abbott Government’, the author claims, ‘is busy trying…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Getting on with the world, People like us
Tavan, Gwenda ‘The beginning of the end of the White Australia policy‘, Inside Story, 1 July 2016 Detailed administrative history of the steps taken by the Coalition Government. They did not take matters all the way, however. It was clear…
Tavan, Gwenda ‘Ideas for Australia: bipartisanship on immigration does little to counter racism, suspicion and division‘, The Conversation, 20 April 2016 Immigration seems unlikely to be a big issue at the impending election, a matter which the author deprecates. [T]he…
Tavan, Gwenda ‘Remembering the “old” Department of Immigration’s nation-building traditions‘, The Conversation, 14 July 2015 As the old Immigration department merges with the Customs service to form a fully-fledged border protection operation, this article (and two associated ones linked to…
Tavan, Gwenda The Long, Slow Death of White Australia, Scribe, Carlton North, Vic., 2005 The history of the racist immigration policy that was Australia’s guiding light for the majority of the 20th century is examined in this work. Beginning with…
Taylor, Alan ‘Syria’s children‘, The Atlantic, 27 August 2015 Contains 35 photographs of the effects of the war in Syria on children. It must be a question for countries contemplating involvement whether this will make things on the ground better…
Brendan Taylor The Four Flashpoints: How Asia Goes to War, La Trobe University Press/Black Inc., Melbourne, 2018 In this revelatory analysis, geopolitical expert Brendan Taylor examines the four Asian flashpoints most likely to erupt in sudden and violent conflict: the…
Elizabeth Taylor & Andrew Butt ‘Three charts on: Australia’s declining taste for beef and growing appetite for chicken‘, The Conversation, 9 June 2017 Just what it says on the tin. ‘Australians were once world champion beef-eaters but now you’re much…
Rebe Taylor Into the Heart of Tasmania: A Search for Human Antiquity, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2017 In 1908 English gentleman, Ernest Westlake, packed a tent, a bicycle and forty tins of food and sailed to Tasmania. On mountains, beaches…
Taylor, Tony ‘Curriculum: a matter of history … and politics‘, Monash University: News and Events, 5 October 2012 Analyses a recent speech by former prime minister Howard, referring also to the response to it from the curriculum authority. (The author…
Taylor, Tony ‘History in politics: neoconservative progressivism, knowledgeable ignorance and the origins of the next history war‘, History Australia, 10, 2, August 2013, pp. 227-40 This article outlines the relationship between neoconservative politics in Australia and history education. It categorises…
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…
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…
Mark Tedeschi Murder at Myall Creek: The Trial that Defined a Nation, Simon & Schuster, Sydney 2016 In 1838, eleven convicts and former convicts were put on trial for the brutal murder of 28 Aboriginal men, women and children at…
te Riele, Kitty ‘Raising educational attainment: how young people’s experiences speak back to the Compact with young Australians‘, Critical Studies in Education, 52, 1, 2011, pp. 93-107 In the context of international consensus that the knowledge economy requires more highly…
Terzis, Gillian ‘Death trends: hashtag activism and the rise of online grief‘, Kill Your Darlings, July 2015 Our constant connection to the news and to the opinions of others means that grief can easily become a viral phenomenon … I…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Learning and improving
Thakur, Ramesh ‘The nuclear refuseniks: how the recent nuclear vote put Australia, Japan, and South Korea on the wrong side of history, geography, and humanity‘, Policy Forum, 4 November 2016 updated Update 16 November 2016: more on this subject in…
Dunera News, No. 95, October 2015 This long-standing publication tracks the progress of a group of men and boys of even longer standing, those who came to Australia in 1940 on the vessel HMT Dunera. They had been rounded up…
The Wire ‘Australian War Memorial set to provide greater recognition of the Frontier Wars‘, The Wire, 20 January 2023 updated Update 24 February 2023: Important article by Bronwyn Carlson and Terri Farrelly in The Conversation: ‘Friday essay: “killed by Natives”.…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
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…
Thomas, Nelly ‘Understanding Pauline‘, New Matilda, 9 October 2016 ‘I come from Hanson country’, says the author, ‘working class, socially conservative, racist, homophobic, xenophobic Australia’. The article looks at Hansonism in class terms. The first thing to know about Hanson…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, The sweat of our brows
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…
Thomson, Alistair Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, Vic., new edition, 2013; first published Oxford University Press, 1994 In this new edition, Alistair Thomson explores how the Anzac legend has transformed over the past quarter century,…
Thomson, Alistair ‘Anzac stories: using personal testimony in war history‘, War & Society, 25, 2, October 2006, pp. 1-21 Discusses the value of personal testimony, suggesting that some authors select testimony that supports their theme, whether this is pathos, ‘cock-up’ …
Inside Story, The Conversation and the New York Review of Books. All part of the mainstream media, but regularly carrying well-written, substantial think pieces, riffing off current events, but always with current relevance. Inside Story has a piece by Norman…
Throsby, Margaret & Richard Cashman ‘Richard Cashman on the history of sport in Australia‘, ABC Classic FM, 14 February 2013 Audio and accompanying biodata of talk with Australia’s leading sports historian
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Tidwell, Alan ‘Leaders weigh up a challenging year of transitions in the Australia-US relationship‘, The Conversation, 20 January 2016 updated US-based Australian analyst looks at prospects as Prime Minister Turnbull and President Obama meet. Includes a link to the prime…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Rodney Tiffen ‘How changing times made Australia’s political leaders more disposable‘, The Conversation, 16 February 2017 Looks at factors behind the relatively rapid denefenestration of Australian political leaders, state and federal, since – well, since Menzies, the only one who…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
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,…
Tognolini, John A History Man’s Past & Other People’s Stories: A Shared Memoir. Part One: Other People’s Wars, The author, Wellington, NSW, 2015; Brothers, Part One: Gallipoli 1915, The author, Wellington, NSW, 2015 The first book draws upon the author’s interviews…
Brian Toohey Secret: The Making of Australia’s Security State, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2019 Elected governments pose the greatest threat to Australians’ security. Political leaders increasingly promote secrecy, ignorance and fear to introduce new laws that undermine individual liberties and…
Tooze, Adam The Deluge: the Great War and the Remaking of Global Order 1916-1931, Allen Lane, London, 2014; electronic version available; US edition has different title Adam Tooze’s panoramic new book tells a radical, new story of the struggle for…
Lilly Torosyan ‘Book review: Dark Pasts: Changing the State’s Story in Turkey and Japan‘, Armenian Weekly, 15 January 2020 The book is by Jennifer M. Dixon, who seeks to solve the mystery of why and how some states come to…
Click here for all items related to: Using and abusing history
Torre, Dan ‘From ads to Oscar winners: a century of Australian animation‘, The Conversation, 26 June 2015 2015 is one hundred years since Harry Julius began ‘Cartoons of the Moment’, animations accompanying feature films shown in Australia and New Zealand.…
Daniela Torsh & Max Humphreys ‘On Sydney Harbour with the prime minister of South Vietnam, 1967‘, Honest History, 19 September 2017 This extended interview transcript is provided as a primary source for readers interested in the history of protest in…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, Using and abusing history
Ian Townsend Line of Fire, Harper Collins, Sydney, 2017 The little known and intriguing WWII story of an eleven-year-old Australian schoolboy who was shot by the Japanese in Rabaul in 1942 as a suspected spy – a compelling story of…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Blair Trewin ‘Australia’s climate in 2016 – a year of two halves as El Niño unwound‘, The Conversation, 5 January 2017 Places climate records of the year just past into their historical context: overall temperatures the fourth highest on record;…
Click here for all items related to: The land we live in
Triggs, Gillian, et al War and Peace: the ANZAC Spirit and Human Rights, Australian Human Rights Commission, Sydney 2015 Papers from a conference held by the Commission in May 2014. There is an introduction from Professor Triggs and papers from…
Triolo, Rosalie Our Schools and the War: Victoria’s Education Department and the Great War, 1914-18, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, Vic., 2012 The Great War profoundly touched the lives of Australian teachers, school children and local communities, and with lasting…
Geoffrey Troughton & Philip Fountain, ed. Pursuing Peace in Godzone: Christianity and the Peace Tradition in New Zealand, Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2018 This is a book about how New Zealanders have been inspired by visions for peace. Focusing on…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Ruling ourselves
Geoffrey Troughton, ed. Saints and Stirrers: Christianity, Conflict and Peacemaking in New Zealand, 1814-1945, Victoria University Press, Wellington, 2017 New Zealanders, while generally peaceable and tolerant people, have seldom shied away from war. Even in the current era, Anzac Day…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Home front
Truesdale, Roxanne ‘Aw! What rot!‘ Australian War Memorial Blog, 10 May 2013 Working on material rejected for The Anzac Book, the author found a piece by a New Zealand soldier reflecting on the issue of cowardice under fire. She comments:…
Tseen Khoo ‘What Anzac Day meant for Asian Australians‘, Eureka Street, 7 May 2018 Anzac Day ‘can signal and embrace former war-time foes [notably Turks] as contemporary allies’ but it can also be a day ‘that mobilises the easily ignited…
Tsiolkas, Christos ‘Why Australia hates asylum seekers‘, The Monthly, September 2013 The article examines what the author describes as ‘a 15-year campaign that has bred fear, misconceptions and fury about asylum seekers’.
Tuck, John & Anthony Forsyth ‘”Maybe I shouldn’t have tweeted that!” social media misuse in the workplace‘, Corrs Thinking Insights, 1 May 2015 Employers should take away three lessons from this [Scott McIntyre] incident. First, you must have a clear…
Tuckfield, Hugh ‘Australia’s troubling asylum seeker policy‘, The Diplomat, 18 February 2014 Considers the asylum seeker issue in the context of international refugee flows and international laws and conventions for the treatment of refugees. Australia is a nation fixated on…
Turna, Burak The Hidden Victory of Anzacs: Gallipoli, Robotto Publishing, London, 2016; available electronically A self-published book. The Battle of Gallipoli was not a disaster for Anzacs, it was an absolute victory. But for jaw dropping reasons, this victory has…
Turnbull, Malcolm ‘Reinventing the news model in the digital era‘, Mumbrella, 2 March 2014 Launching a new weekly newspaper, The Saturday Paper, Turnbull describes changes in the nature of mass media consequent on the development of the internet. There is…
Noel Turnbull ‘Anzac Day at Port Melbourne‘, Noel Turnbull Blog, 25 April 2017 Noel Turnbull, a Vietnam veteran and former media and communications executive, spoke at the Anzac Day service at Port Melbourne. Most of those young men didn’t enlist…
Noel Turnbull ‘How were Indigenous warriors who did wear “the uniform” treated?‘, Pearls and Irritations, 25 June 2023 Riffs off the outburst of RSL National President, MAJ GEN Greg Melick, that only those Indigenous soldiers who wore the King’s or…
Noel Turnbull ‘The commemoration industry and the militarization of Australian history: a speech given to the Middle Park Men’s Group‘, 24 November 2021’, Noel Turnbull, 27 November 2021 [W]hat concerns me is the way Australia has developed a commemoration industry…
Ross Turner ‘John Maynard says Frontier Wars deserve Canberra memorial‘, NITV Living Black, 2 August 2022 Extensive interview by Karla Grant of Professor John Maynard of the University of Newcastle, a Worimi man from the Port Stephens region of New…
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…
Twomey, Christina ‘The national service scheme: citizenship and the tradition of compulsory military service in 1960s Australia‘, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 58, 1, March 2012, pp. 67–81 Between 1964 and 1972, the National Service Act 1964 required Australian…
Christina Twomey The Battle Within: POWs in Postwar Australia, NewSouth, Sydney, 2018 This landmark and compelling book follows the stories of 15,000 Australian prisoners of war from the moment they were released by the Japanese at the end of World…
Christina Twomey writes in the December 2013 issue of History Australia arguing that changing ideas about trauma and victimhood, emerging from the 1980s, played an important and insufficiently recognised role in the reinvigoration of Anzac for contemporary times. The recasting…
Elizabeth Tynan Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016 How could a democracy such as Australia host another country’s nuclear program in the midst of the Cold War? In this meticulously researched and shocking work, journalist and academic Elizabeth…
[Peter Underwood] Anzac Day speech by the Honourable Peter Underwood AC, Governor of Tasmania, The Cenotaph, Hobart, Thursday, 25th April 2013 ‘Australia needs to drop the sentimental myths that ANZAC Day has attracted.’ We should tell our children what war…
University of Melbourne Archives The business collections include the records of wholesalers and retailers, factories and foundries, solicitors and architects, along with the records of some of Australia’s largest mining companies… [M]ore than one hundred trade unions are now represented…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving, People like us, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
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…
Uyar, Mesut ‘Who called for a ceasefire? Gallipoli 1915‘, Wartime (Australian War Memorial) 73, Summer 2016, pp. 54-59 (pdf supplied by author) The author argues that the ceasefire of 24 May was needed, tricky to negotiate and raised issues of…
Valentine, James ‘Gallipoli: the story we all grew up with‘, Age, 26 April 2015 (Story has different titles in other Fairfax outlets.) We are highlighting this one because of its remarkable resonance with the ideas that have been put forward…
Wray Vamplew, ed. Australians: Historical Statistics, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 One of the volumes of Australians: A Historical Library. Multiple authors do the numbers on ‘People and land’, ‘Wealth and progress’, and ‘Society, politics and religion’.…
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
van Otterloo, Jozua ‘Australia’s volcanic history is a lot more recent than you think‘, The Conversation, 25 May 2016 The most recent volcanic activity in Australia was around 5000 years ago. More than 400 volcanoes have been identified in south-eastern…
Ingeborg van Teeseling ‘When white Australians fought against the Maori for control of their land‘, The Big Smoke, 14 June 2020 Australian colonists signed on in the 186os to help the New Zealand Pakeha (whites) deal with the Maori inhabitants…
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.
Vatsikopoulos, Helen ‘Australian Women War Reporters review: how female journalists made it to battle‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 December 2015 Reviews Jeannine Baker’s Australian Women War Reporters: Boer War to Vietnam. Australian women journalists might have been granted equal pay…
Vaughan, Jill, Katie Jepson & Rosey Billington ‘Togs or swimmers? Why Australians use different words to describe the same things‘, The Conversation, 5 January 2016 Uses maps to show the different words used by Australians to describe common items. It’s…
Veitch, Michael & Carol Raabus ‘Peter Cundall remembers the Forgotten War‘ 936 ABC Hobart, 22 April 2013 (audio and story) Memories of service in Australian Army in the Korean War: horror, boredom, terror, comradeship.
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Venturini, VG (George) ‘The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Government experiment (Parts 1-5)‘, Australian Independent Media Network, 2-6 June 2016 First of a planned multi-part series by this veteran commentator. The other parts will link from Part 1. With…
Venturini, VG (George) ‘Towards an Australian republic: parts 1-10’, Australian Independent Media Network, 2-11 February 2016 A series of essays from a veteran Australian commentator. The titles of all ten essays and links to them are set out below: Towards…
Verghis, Sharon ‘Tom Roberts masterpieces on show at the National Gallery, Canberra‘, The Australian, 21 November 2015 Detailed background article on the exhibition which opens at the NGA on 4 December, gathering works from many state galleries. On show will…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Victoria, Brian ‘War remembrance in Japan’s Buddhist cemeteries, Part I: Kannon hears the cries of war‘, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 13, Issue 31, No. 3, August 3, 2015; ‘Part II: Transforming war criminals into Martyrs: “true words” on Mt.…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history
Vidal, Katie, Cathie Arkell & Joan Williamson Wives of War (2009) (videos and transcripts) Wives from Afghanistan-Iraq, Vietnam and World War II talk about the impact of war service on them, their families and their husbands.
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…
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series ________________________________ Viet Thanh Nguyen Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2016 This is the final post in our series…
Katharine Viner ‘How technology disrupted the truth‘, The Guardian, 12 July 2016 updated More than 1500 comments on this article by Guardian editor-in-chief about how ‘[s]ocial media has swallowed the news – threatening the funding of public-interest reporting and ushering…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, Learning and improving, People like us, Using and abusing history
Vladiv-Glover, Slobodanka (Millicent), ed. ‘Writings from the Balkan Theatre of War by Miles Franklin (Extracted from the Archives of the Mitchell Library)’, Transcultural Studies: A Series in Interdisciplinary Research, Special Issue: The Serbs and Miles Franklin in World War I…
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,…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
Wadham, Ben ‘Yumi and Ben: the militarisation of Australia and the democratisation of hate‘, The Conversation, 6 March 2012 Analyses the sexist and racist reaction to the insulting remarks made by a television personality about a Victoria Cross winner. The…
Waghorne, James & Stuart Macintyre Liberty: A History of Civil Liberties in Australia, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2011; electronic version available Civil liberties are central to the freedoms that Australians value. They affirm the rights of all to protection from arbitrary…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Wahlquist, Calla ‘It took one massacre: how Australia embraced gun control after Port Arthur‘, Guardian Australia, 15 March 2016 Twenty years on from the Port Arthur massacre (35 dead, 23 wounded), the article traces how Prime Minister announced a package…
Calla Wahlquist ‘Map of massacres of Indigenous people reveals untold history of Australia, painted in blood‘, Guardian Australia, 5 July 2017 updated Reports a paper by Professor Lyndall Ryan (University of Newcastle) at the Australian Historical Association conference in Newcastle.…
Adam Wakeling A House of Commons for a Den of Thieves: Australia’s Journey from Penal Colony to Democracy, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2020 In 1788, Great Britain founded a colony in Australia to swallow up its criminals. And swallow them…
Adam Wakeling Stern Justice: The Forgotten Story of Australia, Japan and the Pacific War Crimes Trials, Penguin Viking, Melbourne, 2018; e-book available While the Nuremberg trials at the end of the Second World War are infamous, as are the atrocities…
Walker, Andrew ‘Shift away from “publish or perish” puts the public back into publication‘, The Conversation, 4 December 2015 Article riffing off suggestions that governments will make research publication less important – and public engagement more important – in calculations…
Walker, David Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise and Fall of Asia 1850-1939, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1999 From the late nineteenth century the Asianisation of Australia has sparked anxious comment. The great catchcries of the day…
Donald Mackenzie Wallace ‘The Web of Empire (1902): highlights reel of a royal visit to Brisbane’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 Members of the Royal Family have visited Australia regularly since Prince Alfred was here in 1867. (He was shot…
Mike Waller ‘The real problem with our banks – “it’s leverage, stupid”‘, Pearls and Irritations, 10 April 2018 Former Australian Public Service senior official and BHP economist writes about banking issues. We are more than a decade on from the…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Reality of war
Walsh, Michael JK & Andrekos Varnava, ed. Australia and the Great War: Identity, Memory and Mythology, MUP Academic, Carlton, 2016 Australia and the Great War explores both the immediate and long-term consequences of the war on this complex relationship, looking in…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Using and abusing history
[Note: this post was originally published in January 2016] Nick Walsh Kokoda Track, The author, 2nd edition, Melbourne 2012 This little book (70 pages, a dozen photographs, two clear maps) was written by a veteran who died recently aged 100…
[Note: this post was originally published in January 2016. Ministerial press release to mark 75th anniversary of Kokoda campaign.] Nick Walsh Kokoda Track, The author, 2nd edition, Melbourne 2012 This little book (70 pages, a dozen photographs, two clear maps) was…
Walter, James ‘A liberal leading the Liberals: can Turnbull manage the ultra-conservatives?‘ The Conversation, 24 February 2016 Comments on the government decision to inquire into Safe Schools, an education program supporting gender-diverse children. Conservatives have claimed the program leads to…
Ward, Colin, et al ‘CSIROPedia‘, CSIRO For over 80 years, CSIRO has been helping Australia and the world through science. We work with our partners on a vast array of research into space, energy, health, climate change, manufacturing, materials, minerals,…
Click here for all items related to: Learning and improving
Ward, Russel The Australian Legend, Oxford University Press, Melbourne & New York, 1958; many later editions Origin of a particular myth of bronzed Australian bushmen, rural labourers of the 19th century, claimed by Ward and others to epitomise Australia, or…
Ward, Stuart ‘Brexit wounds‘, The Monthly, June 2016 updated On the eve of the vote in Britain, the author looks at the history of Australian attitudes towards British attitudes and actions towards Europe. ‘Whatever the fallout’, the author concludes, ‘it…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world
Sue Wareham ‘Abbott – a natural fit for a war memorial sliding from commemoration to propaganda‘, Pearls and Irritations, 11 October 2019 From Heritage Guardians member, Sue Wareham, and follows earlier items in HG’s campaign against the $498m extensions to…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Sue Wareham ‘Australian War Memorial must better educate kids on seriousness of war‘, Canberra Times, 15 July 2023 updated; pdf from our subscription Update 24 July 2023: Richard Llewellyn, ex War Memorial staff, writes in Pearls and Irritations: So often…
Sue Wareham ‘Healthcare not warfare‘, Pearls and Irritations, 6 April 2020 updated Update 11 May 2020: Sue Wareham on the need to prioritise health care over defence spending. Update 23 April 2020: Allan Behm in Guardian Australia argues for a…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves
Sue Wareham* ‘Let’s not allow the Australian War Memorial to become something much uglier‘, Canberra Times, 27 February 2021 (pdf from our subscription) Also on op ed page of hard copy of the Times. Letters to the paper followed. Slightly edited…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Sue Wareham ‘Prioritising health‘, Pearls and Irritations, 11 May 2020 Global military spending continues to rise. Critical health goals could be achieved for a fraction of what we spend on wars. Focussing funding on health rather than military spending, globally…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Learning and improving, Ruling ourselves
Sue Wareham* ‘This government needs to stop militarising our biggest challenges‘, Canberra Times, 7 September 2020 (pdf from our subscription) Criticises the focus on using the Australian Defence Force to deal with domestic emergencies, including the current pandemic. The risk…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves, The land we live in
Sue Wareham ‘Transparency lacking in Australian defence policy‘, Independent Australia, 19 October 2021 updated Update 28 October 2021: see also this from Marcus Reubenstein reprinted in Pearls & Irritations. Update 30 November 2021: Mike Scrafton in Pearls & Irritations analyses…
Sue Wareham ‘“No Australian who has ever fallen in our uniform has ever died in vain, ever”: the PM and the AWM‘, Pearls & Irritations, 31 August 2021 Weaves together the claims of the Prime Minister that Australian soldiers never…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
John Warhurst* ‘Case studies on the role of pressure groups, lobbyists and public relations people in our democracy’, Honest History, 20 May 2019 John Warhurst reviews Mark J. Sheehan, ed., Advocates and Persuaders Advocates and persuaders, also known as peak…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Warhurst, John ‘Religion in 21st century Australian national politics’, Australia. Senate: Papers on Parliament, 46, December 2006 The religious factor generally means a number of things in politics. One is the political activity of the organised face of religion, the…
Warhurst, John ‘The republic idea: thinking big for the summit‘, Online Opinion, 18 April 2008 Surveys arguments pro and con the republic on the eve of a future-gazing summit.
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
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…
‘But wait there’s more’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 Jack Waterford has written trenchantly in the Canberra Times about the growth in the Gallipoli souvenir industry, everything from shavings of the Lone Pine to ‘the Legend of Gallipoli…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Centenary Watch, In the media, Using and abusing history
Jack Waterford ‘Let’s re-imagine Anzac Day and phase out ADF and RSL’s ownership‘, Pearls and Irritations, 21 July 2021 Our War Memorial commemorates all Australians, professional or civilian, who have died on active service, and makes no distinctions between them.…
Waterford, Jack ‘Nelson flying wrong flags‘, Canberra Times, 26 April 2013 Columnist critical of new Australian War Memorial Director for allegedly ill-judged changes at the Memorial also makes some general points about commemoration and the role of Anzac. The last…
Jack Waterford ‘Our glorious tradition of being not very good at fighting wars‘, Canberra Times, 26 January 2024; pdf from our subscription; also in Pearls and Irritations (no paywall). Update 29 January 2024: two articles taking a wide view of Australia…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, People like us, Ruling ourselves
Waterhouse, Richard Private Pleasures, Public Leisure: A History of Australian Popular Culture since 1788, Longman Australia, South Melbourne, Vic., 1995 How do we define culture? And how do we specify popular culture? Private Pleasures, Public Leisure, the first general history…
Waterhouse, Richard The Vision Splendid: A Social and Cultural History of Rural Australia, Curtin University Books, Fremantle, WA, 2005 Describes how ‘the Bush’, where most Australians do not live, has played an important part in shaping national identity. This is…
Don Watson Caledonia Australis: Scottish Highlanders on the Frontier of Australia, Vintage, Milsons Point, NSW, 1997; first published 1984; later edition 2009 About the clash in Gippsland between immigrant Celts and Indigenous Australians. Shows how Scots dispossessed by the Highland…
Watson, Don Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM, Knopf, Milson’s Point, NSW, 2002; later editions A view of 13 years of Australian history from the perspective of a prime ministerial speech writer. It contains a…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Watson, Don ‘Lest we go over the top‘, The Monthly, February 2014 ‘The experience of war very much depends’, the author says, ‘on where one happens to be standing at the time.’ Front line soldiers, generals, writers and politicians all…
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…
Click here for all items related to: People like us, Strands of Australian history, The land we live in, The sweat of our brows
Joey Watson & Ian Coombe ‘Four Australian military legends that are more myth than fact‘, ABC News, 14 December 2019 Features the current ABC RN series, ‘Myths of war‘, presented by Mark Dapin, author of, most recently, Australia’s Vietnam: Myths…
Watters, Chris ‘Anzac, Vimy Ridge, Monash and the education of children’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 5, September 2013 Towards the end of the 20th century there was an increase in claims that battles fought in World War I defined national…
Waugh, Maxwell N. Soldier Boys: the Militarisation of Australian and New Zealand Schools for World War I, Melbourne Books, Melbourne, 2014 A form of compulsory cadet training was the norm in Australasian schools from 1910, unlike any other part of…
Webb, Carolyn ‘Maverick female war doctors battled exclusion’, The Age, 15 March 2014 The article Maverick female war doctors battled exclusion-1 (text here) describes the work during World War I of Dr Vera Scantlebury (later Scantlebury-Brown), originally of Melbourne, in…
Beth Webster ‘Budget deficit hoo-ha is about 0.5% of GDP‘, The Conversation, 20 December 2016 A useful corrective to the mainstream media-political class herd mentality that gives too much profile to deficit and surplus and not enough to what should…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows, Using and abusing history
James Weirick* ‘Submission to the National Capital Authority: Australian War Memorial Redevelopment – Main Works Packages’, Honest History, 26 September 2021 This was one of 587 submissions to the NCA on the Australian War Memorial Main Works. The Authority expects…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Patrick Weller Malcolm Fraser PM: A Study in Prime Ministerial Power in Australia, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic., 1989 A political scientist’s perspective on Fraser’s period as PM (1975-83), trying to explain ‘the multiple roles that prime ministers must play’ and the…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Sumartojo, Shanti & Ben Wellings, ed. Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration: Mobilizing the Past in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Peter Lang, Oxford, 2014 Sixteen contributors discuss aspects of how Great War commemoration has developed in a range of…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Using and abusing history
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…
Wellings, Ben ‘Only the conscription referendums made Australia’s Great War experience different‘, The Conversation, 10 November 2015 ‘Relegating the global and transnational dimensions and reiterating familiar – if erroneous – national narratives’, the author argues, ‘creates distortions in the image…
Ben Wellings ‘The politics of Great War commemoration‘ (18 May 2012), Australian National University video (no transcript) Wellings (formerly ANU, now Monash University) chairs a discussion with three European academics on issues of comparative commemoration, including the politics attending commemoration…
Alexander Wells ‘Whatever happened to the arts of peace?‘ Overland, 8 February 2019 In the mass media and cultural institutions, we have just marked the 100-year anniversary of Armistice by continuing to fixate on warfare – at the expense of…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Strands of Australian history
Gary Werskey ‘The Anzac Christmas card‘, Honest History, 22 May 2017 Tells the story of the Anzac Christmas card of 1915, produced under the direction of Lady Birdwood, wife of General Birdwood, and illustrated by the Australian artist AH Fullwood,…
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…
Wesley, Michael Restless Continent: Wealth, Rivalry, and Asia’s New Geopolitics, BlackInc, Melbourne, 2015; available electronically The world has never seen economic development as rapid or significant as Asia’s during recent decades. Home to three-fifths of humanity, this restless continent will…
Brad West & Ayhan Aktar ‘How a more divided Turkey could change the way we think about Gallipoli‘, The Conversation, 21 April 2017 Discusses how the classical Turkish (essentially Kemalist) narrative of Gallipoli is being replaced under Erdogan by a more…
Brad West* ‘What is the danger of corporate sponsorship of the Australian War Memorial? For one thing, it can undermine military professionalism’, Honest History, 22 April 2022 The potential renewal of the sponsorship deal between the international arms manufacturer Lockheed…
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…
Michael West ‘Australia’s march towards corporatocracy‘, The Conversation, 20 February 2017 Looks at government reliance on external consultants, compared with the Australian public service. Such is the pervasive influence of corporations and consultants over government and the de-skilling of the…
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…
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…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Centenary Watch, Using and abusing history
Wheelahan, Leesa ‘Do educational pathways contribute to equity in tertiary education in Australia?‘ Critical Studies in Education, 50, 3, 2009, pp. 261-75 A key assumption of equity policies in Australia, as in many countries, is that pathways from lower-status, vocationally…
Have your say with the National Capital Authority on the Memorial’s ‘early works’ application. You don’t need to live in Canberra. Arguments here. *** Tone Wheeler ‘Tone on Tuesday: The democratic spatial narrative of the Australian War Memorial‘, Architecture and Design, 30…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Bernard Whimpress* ‘Creeping Anzacism: a paper delivered to the 15th State History Conference, Adelaide, 28 May 2006‘ Bernard Whimpress is an Adelaide-based historian best known as a sports writer. However, he has also written books and articles on city heritage,…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Expressing ourselves, Using and abusing history
Robyn J. Whitaker ‘How the Bible helped shape Australian culture‘, The Conversation, 15 May 2018 Discusses Meredith Lake’s new book, The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History. Time and time again, Lake traces the multiplicity of biblical interpretations and applications to…
White, Hugh ‘Principle of self-reliance more important now than it has ever been‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 November 2015 The article looks at the implications of the government announcement that the Defence White Paper will not now be released until…
White, Hugh ‘Primal fears, primal ambitions’, Arena Magazine, 76, April-May 2005, pp. 32-36 The article is based on a lecture at RMIT University in November 2004. ‘In Australia today’, the author says, ‘security has acquired a prominence in public policy…
White, Hugh ‘Lest we forget: the purpose of war is not war itself‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 October 2013 Admiration for the work of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan has been accompanied by a lack of discussion at to why they…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Getting on with the world
White, Hugh, Michael Wesley, Graeme Cheeseman, Rowan Cahill, Bruce Haigh, Paul Monk & John Birminghan ‘A time for war: correspondence‘, Quarterly Essay, 21, March 2006, pp. 70-98 Six authors provide comment on Birmingham and Birmingham responds. Hugh White suggests that…
White, Richard Inventing Australia: Images and Identity, 1688-1980, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 1981 Pioneering work in Australian cultural history, roughly chronological but also thematic. “To be Australian”: what can that mean? Inventing Australia sets out to find the…
White, Richard with Sarah-Jane Ballard, Ingrid Bown, Meredith Lake, Patricia Leehy and Lila Oldmeadow On Holidays: A History of Getting Away in Australia, Pluto Press, North Melbourne, Vic., 2005 Describes chronologically from 1768 ‘the Australian experience of going on holidays…
Peter Whiteford ‘Good times, bad times‘, Inside Story, 5 July 2018 Looks at recent evidence of growing inequality in Australia, mostly driven by gains among the highest earners. There is little doubt that inequality is worse now than it was…
Whiteford, Peter ‘Income and wealth inequality: how is Australia faring?‘ The Conversation, 5 March 2014 Australians like to think of themselves as egalitarian, and for much of our history we believed our income and wealth was spread around evenly. For…
Peter Whiteford ‘Income inequality ticks down as the rich see their incomes fall: ABS‘, Guardian Australia, 13 September 2017 Summarises the latest survey of Household Income and Wealth from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The richest 20% of the population…
Whiteford, Peter ‘Is welfare sustainable?‘ Inside Story, 22 November 2015 Looks at recent government statements about social services expenditure then moves on to detailed historical consideration of the issue. Most of the graphs go back to 1995 and cover, for…
Whiteford, Peter ‘Poverty in a time of prosperity‘, Inside Story, 15 September 2013 Over the past forty years the economic fortunes of Australian households have fallen into two fairly distinct periods. In the “disappointing decades” of the 1970s and 1980s,…
Whitlam Institute multiple authors Whitlam Institute within the University of Western Sydney Website with collection of resources on the Labor Prime Minister and his era, including a permanent exhibition A Changing Australia: The Time of Gough Whitlam, Whitlam Prime Ministerial…
Sally Whyte ‘War Memorial should ditch weapons manufacturers: Anti war organisation‘, Canberra Times, 21 May 2018 updated Interview with Sue Wareham of Medical Association for Prevention of War (and one of Honest History’s distinguished supporters). Wareham discusses MAPW’s submission to…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history
Wilde, William H, Joy Hooton & Barry Andrews, ed. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2nd edition, 1994 The book (833 pp.) ‘offers a comprehensive record of Australian writing from European settlement to the early 1990s…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Wilkie, Benjamin ‘This continent of smoke‘, Meanjin, 3 November 2015 The article looks back from an impending El Nino episode to the historic effects of fire on Victoria’s Western District. In some parts–and it’s a story replicated across the country–the…
Douglas Wilkie Duchene/Hargraves, Historia Incognita, Melbourne, 2016 This self-published book has the long sub-title or explanatory tag of ‘Alexandre Julien Duchene, Edward Hammond Hargraves and the discovery of gold in Australia, three or four days from Sydney’. This book looks…
Wilkie, Douglas ‘Ten thousand fathoms deep: Charles Joseph La Trobe’s decision to postpone gold exploitation until after Separation from New South Wales in 1851‘, La Trobeana, 14, 1, March 2015, pp. 6-14 The beginning of the Victorian gold rushes and…
Wilkie, Douglas ‘Exodus and panic: Melbourne’s reaction to the Bathurst gold discoveries of May 1851‘, Victorian Historical Journal, 85, 2, December 2014, pp. 189-218 Sober consideration of the evidence confirms what was known at the time – that reactions to…
Wilkie, Douglas ‘The convict ship “Hashemy” at Port Phillip: a case study in historical error‘, Victorian Historical Journal, 85, 1, June 2014, pp. 31-53 Received history is that the convict ship Hashemy was turned away from Melbourne in 1849 and…
Ernst Willheim ‘The saga of Bernard Collaery and Witness K continues‘, Pearls and Irritations, 28 August 2019 updated Extensive notes for a speech given to the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Canberra, 27 August. [The speech] is about Australian commercial…
Williams, Clive ‘Terror threat real, and no time to cut budgets‘, Canberra Times, 4 February 2014 National security issues, viewed from a particular perspective.
Elliot Williams ‘Australian War Memorial tells volunteers they can lose role if they speak publicly about redevelopment‘, Canberra Times, 28 July 2020 (pdf of our subscriber copy) Update 1 September 2020: Paddy Gourley writes in CT Public Sector Informant (paywall…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Williams, George ‘Australia needs a treaty and constitutional recognition for Indigenous people’, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 August 2016 Indigenous journalist, Stan Grant, claims in the video with this piece that Australia is the only Commonwealth country that lacks a treaty…
Williams, John F. German Anzacs and the First World War, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2003 Tells the story of German descent Australians who fought for Australia against Germany. A review is here.
Williams, John F Anzacs, the Media and the Great War, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1999 The author examines the Anzac legend as a media-based phenomenon by looking at how readers of Australian, British and French newspapers were…
Ian Willis ‘Local history: a view from the bottom‘, History Workshop, 5 December 2016 Camden, NSW, historian writes about the practice of local history. Scholars occasionally need to take a look downwards from the heights of the academy to see…
Wilson, AN The Book of the People: How to Read the Bible, Atlantic Books, London, 2015 A. N. Wilson has been thinking about the Bible, and reading it, since he read theology for a year at university. Martin Luther King…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves, People like us, Using and abusing history
Winter, Brendan Film.org.au: The Best in Australian Film Private website, perhaps slightly out-of-date, but offering list of and information about Australian films since 1900, a history and notes on actors and directors. Described as ‘a website to inspire people about…
Click here for all items related to: Expressing ourselves
Geoffrey Winter* ‘AFL Aficionados!! Not many people know this’, Honest History, 15 June 2017 Jock McHale (Wikipedia) In 120 years of VFL-AFL premiership competition (1897-2016), 25 coaches have led their clubs to just one premiership each. Another 25 coaches have…
Tim Winton ‘About the boys: Tim Winton on how toxic masculinity is shackling men to misogyny‘ [with some related stuff], Guardian Australia, 9 April 2018 updated An extract from the novelist’s speech about his new book The Shepherd’s Hut. (The…
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.…
Wishart, Alison ‘“As fit as fiddles” and “as weak as kittens”: the importance of food, water and diet to the Anzac campaign at Gallipoli‘, First World War Studies, August 2016 The reasons for the allied defeat at Gallipoli in 1915…
Wolf, Charlie & Athol Bittley ‘AFL club songs ranked by ambition and boastfulness‘, Thermocow, 27 May 2016 Now that we’ve got your attention … This article on a comedy blog is just a bit of fun but go beyond the…
Woods, Martin Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War, National Library of Australia Publishing, Canberra, 2016 A selection of maps from the National Library’s collection along with detailed explanatory text. The war produced more maps than any…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Home front, Reality of war, Using and abusing history
Woodward, Dennis, Andrew Parkin & John Summers, ed. Government, Politics, Power and Policy in Australia, Pearson Education Australia, Melbourne, 9th edition 2009 University level textbook with multiple authors including the editors. Wide range of subjects relevant to politics.
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Woollacott, Angela, ed. History for the Australian Curriculum; 9, 10, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, Vic., 2012 Multiple authors produce curriculum materials and exercises within the broad parameters of the Australian Curriculum: history for Years 9 and 10. The Curriculum…
Woolombi Waters, Marcus ‘Whether you’re listening or not, Australia is a nation of white privilege‘, The Conversation, 17 November 2015 The author is a Kamilaroi man who has recently returned from travelling overseas for work. This article received more than…
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…
Claire EF Wright* ‘Australian resilience in 1929-32 has relevance to post-Pandemic Australia, as Joan Beaumont’s strong synthesis shows’, Honest History, 5 September 2022 Claire EF Wright reviews Joan Beaumont’s Australia’s Great Depression: How a Nation Shattered by the Great War…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, People like us, Ruling ourselves, The sweat of our brows
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…
Wright, Clare The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2013 Tells the stories of the thousands of women on the Ballarat goldfields, the crucial role they played in the Eureka rebellion and the links between what they did and…
Clare Wright ‘How Australia became a nation, and women won the vote‘, The Conversation, 6 June 2017 Article to mark the 120th anniversary of the Australasian Federal Convention in Adelaide (Queensland absent). Among the outcomes of the Convention was votes…
Wright, Clare ‘The other Australia Day: November 11 throughout history‘, The Conversation, 11 November 2013 11 November is Remembrance Day but it is many other days as well. Illustrates the many-strandedness of Australian history.
Click here for all items related to: Strands of Australian history
Wright, Clare ‘Who will be Australia’s future folk heroes?‘ The Conversation, 19 May 2016 Riffs off the capture of five Australian citizens attempting to leave the country without passports, allegedly to fight in Syria. Compares Ned Kelly with Man Haron…
Clare Wright You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World: Democracy Trilogy, Book Two, Text, Melbourne, 2018 For the ten years from 1902, when Australia’s suffrage campaigners won the vote for white women, the…
David Wroe ‘The secret Iraq dossier: inside Australia’s flawed war’, The Age, 25 February 2017 updated Long article, with illustrations and video, on Australia’s Iraq involvement, the key point being that the motivation – why we fought – was to…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Ruling ourselves
Yanikdag, Yucel ‘The battle of Gallipoli: the politics of remembering and forgetting in Turkey‘, Comillas Journal of International Relations [Madrid], 2, 2015, pp. 99-115 Differences in the competing versions of public memory for the Battle of Gallipoli have become more…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history, Getting on with the world, Using and abusing history
Andrew Yip ‘Friday essay: video games, military culture and new narratives of war‘, The Conversation, 10 March 2017 Argues that ‘the relationship of video games to history, politics and modern military cultures is no mere child’s play … [I]n video…
Click here for all items related to: Anzac analysed, Australia's war history, Teaching history, Using and abusing history
York, Barry ‘When the impossible becomes inevitable: my memory of the struggle against apartheid‘, Museum of Australian Democracy Blog, 18 May 2016 Reminiscence of anti-apartheid activist now associated with the apartheid exhibition at MOADOPH, Canberra. Touches on his contacts with…
Young, Linda ‘Subversive jewellery: challenges to conservative power from the Victorian goldfields‘, reCollections, 7, 1, 2012, pp. 1-13 This [beatifully illustrated] paper analyses a small group of pieces of gold jewellery in order to explore the digger challenge to the…
Gary Younge ‘Why every single statue should come down‘, The Guardian (UK), 1 June 2021 updated (associated podcast; also in hard copy of The Guardian Weekly, 11 June 2021) ‘Statues of historical figures are lazy, ugly and distort history’, says…
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves, Strands of Australian history, Using and abusing history
Ouyang Yu Billy Sing, Transit Lounge, Melbourne, 2017 William “Billy” Sing was born in 1886 to an English mother and Chinese father. He and his two sisters were brought up in Clermont and Proserpine, in rural Queensland. He was one of…
Click here for all items related to: Aftermath, Expressing ourselves, People like us, Reality of war
Ziino, Bart A Distant Grief: Australians, War Graves and the Great War, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, WA, 2008 The book ‘examines the role of war graves and cemeteries in private grief and mourning’. Given that the graves of…
Ziino, Bart ‘Mourning and commemoration in Australia: the case of Sir W. T. Bridges and the Unknown Australian Soldier’, History Australia, 4, 2, December 2007, pp. 40.1-40.17 The article discusses the significance of the return to Australia of the only…
Ziino, Bart ‘A kind of round trip: Australian soldiers and the tourist analogy 1914-1918’, War & Society, 25, 2, October 2006, pp. 39-52 Examines the argument that going to war was like being a tourist. Has extensive notes and references…
Ziino, Bart ‘Who owns Gallipoli? Australia’s Gallipoli anxieties 1915-2005’, Journal of Australian Studies, 88, 2006, pp. 1-12 Since the Australian departure from Gallipoli in December 1915, there has been an ambivalent relationship with the Turkish authorities regarding care of ground…
Zines, Leslie The High Court and the Constitution, The Federation Press, Annandale, NSW, 5th edition, 2008; first published Butterworths 1980 Tracks the Court’s interpretation of the Constitution during an important period.
Click here for all items related to: Ruling ourselves
Öztürk, Özgür ‘Gallipoli campaign: a symbolic battleground‘, Geliboluyuanlamak (Understanding Gallipoli), 24 June 2016 This is an essay from a Turkish MA student on the blog of Dr Tuncay Yilmazer, a Turkish specialist in the Ottoman Empire and the Great War.…
Robert Ørsted-Jensen Webpage of resources related to his book Frontier History Revisited Brings together a collection of resources related to the author’s 2011 book, Frontier History Revisited: Colonial Queensland and the History War. There are extracts from the book, as well…