New book looks back at the Anzac centenary: much-needed critical reflection on Great War commemoration

Update 16 December 2019: Review by Peter Stanley in Inside Story.

Launching on Remembrance Day in Clunes, Victoria, is a new book from UNSW Press, The Great War: Aftermath and Commemoration, edited by Carolyn Holbrook and Keir Reeves. From the blurb:

The legacy of war is complex. From the late twentieth century as we moved closer to the centenary of the start of the First World War, Australia was swept by an ‘Anzac revival’ and a feverish sense of commemoration. In this book, leading historians reflect on the commemorative splurge, which involved large amounts of public spending, and also re-examine what happened in the immediate aftermath of the war itself …

Provocative and engaging essays from a diverse group of leading historians discuss the profound ways in which the Great War not only affected our political system and informed decades of national security policy but shaped — and continues to shape — our sense of who we are, for better or worse. This book reminds us that we live with the legacies of war still, in ways we may not see.

Authors and chapter titles.

21 October 2019 updated

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