Don’t forget Best We Forget: important Canberra literary event this Sunday at Muse Kingston

Honest History president and ANU History head of school, Professor Frank Bongiorno, is in conversation with Peter Cochrane, author of the recently published Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, 1914-18. The event is at Muse Kingston at 3 pm on Sunday afternoon, 12 August, and all the details are here. Get in early.

Peter Cochrane has strong credentials as a myth-tester and buster in the Anzac field and his book puts the Great War in a new light.

Before the war, Commonwealth governments were concerned not with enemies in Europe but with perils in the Pacific. Fearful of an ‘awakening Asia’ and worried by opposition to the White Australia policy, they prepared for defence against Japan—only to find themselves fighting for the Empire on the other side of the world. Prime Minister Billy Hughes spoke of this paradox in 1916, urging his countrymen: ‘I bid you go and fight for white Australia in France.’

cochrane web image.jpg

7 August 2018

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