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,…
Stephens, David: For Remembrance Day: parsing “the Australian War Memorial”
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From the Honest History vault: Anzac Treasures book from 2014 gives us some hints about the new, bigger Australian War Memorial
Seven years ago, historian Peter Pedersen produced for the Australian War Memorial a bulky, beautifully illustrated book called Anzac Treasures: The Gallipoli Collection of the Australian War Memorial. The book marked the beginning of the Anzac Centenary, a four-year long…
Haultain-Gall, Matthew: The Battlefield of Imperishable Memory: Passchendaele and the Anzac Legend
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…
Fathi, Romain: Why have Australians forgotten Belgium when we obsess about our Diggers’ deeds in France?
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…
Stephens, David: 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?
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…
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Stephens, David: A wasting asset? War Memorial visitor numbers have been declining – and vainglorious vandalism could make them worse
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…
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Waterford, Jack: Let’s re-imagine Anzac Day and phase out ADF and RSL’s ownership
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.…
Stephens, David: Shots across the bows: some Anzac weekend reading and listening
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…
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From the Honest History vault: A note on Paul Keating’s Remembrance Day Address 2013
There is a lot of material on the Honest History website about Remembrance Day; just use our Search engine with the term ‘Remembrance Day’. Seven years ago, former Prime Minister Keating made a speech on Remembrance Day. That speech, in…
Stephens, David: War Memorial visitor figures not keeping pace with population increase
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.…
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Aktar, Ayhan: The struggle between nationalist and jihadist narratives of Gallipoli, 1915-2015
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…
Lest We Forget: a collection of Anzac-related articles from Guardian Australia, Inside Story and The Conversation
Paul Daley in Guardian Australia warns us against confusing the battle against coronavirus with the wars that are marked by Anzac Day. Those at the vanguard of resisting the coronavirus are not Anzacs. They are nurses, doctors, police, ambos, orderlies,…
Will Anzac Day 2020 give us time to think about why Australia goes to war? These pieces provide food for thought
Anzac Days in recent years have been notable for large crowds and occasional outbursts of triumphalism. With the quieter version this year might we have more time and head-space to ask the important questions: why does Australia go to war…
Griffith Review archive opened: classic 2015 edition on enduring legacies of the Great War
The excellent Griffith Review has done us all a great service by opening its archive to make available for a few days selected pieces from its classic edition 48 Enduring Legacies, first published in April 2015 (edited by Julianne Schultz…
Stephens, David: Anzac Day and history as what we choose to remember
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…
From the Honest History vault for Anzac Day in the time of Coronavirus: Peter Stanley on Norfolk Island 2015
In April 2015, the then president of the then Honest History association, Professor Peter Stanley was so determined to get away from the centenary commemoration in extremis of Anzac Day that he went to Norfolk Island for a holiday. Here,…
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From the Honest History vault for Anzac Day in the time of Coronavirus: Genevieve Jacobs at Wallendbeen 2014
We said earlier this week that the Coronavirus crisis perforce will give us a quieter Anzac Day in 2020. Quiet Anzac Days have not been unknown in the past and one such was at Wallendbeen, NSW, in 2014. Genevieve Jacobs,…
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From the Honest History vault for Anzac Day in the time of Coronavirus: Anzackery is the bastard twin of a useful Anzac
Anzac Day 2020 will be very different from recent Anzac Days. For example, instead of the Dawn Service in Canberra, with thousands gathered outside the Australian War Memorial, there will be a few officials holding a service inside the building,…
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Stanley, Peter: Uneasy peace
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.…
Stephens, David: From the Honest History vault: Awkward humility: the speeches of the Hon. Brendan Nelson AO
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…
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Stephens, David: Strengthening the RSL link is not the most pressing need for the War Memorial Council
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: Paul Daley and Don Watson address the place of place in the Australian story – as well as death and the Australian character
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…
Stephens, David: Australian War Memorial’s $498 million funding boost would be better spent on veterans
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…
Nutritious Anzac Day fare from non-mainstream media: Eureka Street, Pearls & Irritations, The Conversation
Andrew Hamilton from Eureka Street looks at the lessons from New Zealand, following the Christchurch massacre. When Australians think of Anzac Day, we normally focus on the initial Big A and not on the small nz. It remains a day…
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Stephens, David: Lest We Forget Yassmin Abdel-Magied: a two-year retrospective
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,…
Stephens, David: More on the War Memorial’s carelessness about naming rights
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…
Daley, Paul: Both major parties were suckerpunched into supporting the $500m war memorial expansion
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…
Stephens, David: Köken Ergun’s Şehitler (Heroes) is a well observed Dardanelles doco that deserves wide distribution
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.…
Stephens, David: Architects dig in against Australian War Memorial extensions; mixed messages from the Memorial; odd perspective from the ABC
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…
Stephens, David: A free kick from the ABC and an opportunity missed at Senate Estimates: when does the use of a name become a naming right?
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…
Stephens, David: Thoughts of the people against the War Memorial’s grandiose extensions project
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…
Parliamentary committee recommends national resting place for Indigenous remains – but resists temptation to push hard for corporate dollars for national institutions
Update 20 May 2019: Paul Daley in Guardian Australia makes a useful comparison. Update 17 April 2019: Gina Fairley in ArtsHub comments. Update 5 April 2019: Canberra Times story on the puzzlement of MOADOPH on what the report said about…
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Budget 2019: War Memorial’s inside track once again plus still more spending on World War I centenary
Update 4 April 2019: a perceptive Budget comment in Eureka Street from Esther Anatolitis. Australian War Memorial Last night’s Budget had better news for the Australian War Memorial than for other national cultural institutions. The Budget provides for 12 extra…
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Fathi, Romain: Our Corner of the Somme: Australia at Villers-Bretonneux
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…
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Stephens, David: A bracing journey through the green fields of France: Romain Fathi’s Villers-Bretonneux and Australia’s place in it
David Stephens* ‘A bracing journey through the green fields of France: Romain Fathi’s Villers-Bretonneux and Australia’s place in it’, Honest History, 29 March 2019 David Stephens reviews Our Corner of the Somme: Australia at Villers-Bretonneux, by Romain Fathi First, the…
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Fathi, Romain: ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ The Sir John Monash Centre at Villers-Bretonneux: a Frenchman’s reflection on his visit
Romain Fathi* ‘“Look at me! Look at me!” The Sir John Monash Centre at Villers-Bretonneux: a Frenchman’s reflection on his visit’, Honest History, 12 March 2019 updated Update 29 May 2019: Philip Goad in ArchitectureAu on the architecture of the…
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Stephens, David: Total Australian spending on World War I centenary: an aide memoire for the curious
David Stephens* ‘Total Australian spending on World War I centenary: an aide memoire for the curious’, Honest History, 19 February 2019 updated Australian Government ‘The total Australian Government Anzac Centenary funding over the last ten years to 2018-19 is approximately…
Wells, Alexander: Whatever happened to the arts of peace?
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…
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Bromfield, Nicholas: The genre of Prime Ministerial Anzac Day addresses, 1973–2016
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…
Hawkins, Jo: Consuming Anzac: The History of Australia’s Most Powerful Brand
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…
Piggott, Michael: Anzac still a powerful brand after all these years
Michael Piggott* ‘Anzac still a powerful brand after all these years’, Honest History, 6 January 2019 updated Michael Piggott reviews Consuming Anzac: The History of Australia’s Most Powerful Brand by Jo Hawkins How doctoral students, still recovering from the physical…
Miller, Nick: If you could put a price on WWI fallen, it wouldn’t be $100 million
Nick Miller ‘If you could put a price on WWI fallen, it wouldn’t be $100 million‘, The Age, 5 December 2018 updated An FOI claim on the Department of Veterans’ Affairs reveals that visitor numbers to the Monash centre at…
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Haigh, Bruce: The ANZACS: ransacked by the Right
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…
Karageorgos, Effie: An urgent rethink is needed on the idealised image of the ANZAC digger
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…
Dyster, Barrie: Grieving for Gallipoli: a reflection for the centenary of the 1918 Armistice
Barrie Dyster* ‘Grieving for Gallipoli: a reflection for the centenary of the 1918 Armistice’, Honest History, 23 September 2018 The centenary of the end of the Great War is an opportunity to reflect on the world-wide impact of the conflict.…
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Stephens, David: War Memorial fundraising probe should come up with donations code of practice
David Stephens* ‘War Memorial fundraising probe should come up with donations code of practice’, Honest History, 29 May 2018 updated Update 10 June 2018: Toni Hassan in Fairfax with quotes from Director Nelson and Honest History spokesperson. Update 31 May…
Whyte, Sally: War Memorial should ditch weapons manufacturers: Anti war organisation
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…
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Tseen Khoo: What Anzac Day meant for Asian Australians
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…
Honest History’s submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Canberra’s National Institutions – and the proposed $500m extension to the Australian War Memorial
Note: This post has grown since it began and now covers two closely related matters: the Honest History submission to the parliamentary inquiry into Canberra’s national institutions; the proposed $500m extension of the Australian War Memorial – an underground project…
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McGibbon, Ian: William Malone and the entrenched myth of insubordination at Gallipoli
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…
Some schadenfreude about Picardy (une joie malicieuse à propos de Picardie)
We thought this little story deserved a multilingual headline. Close followers of the Anzac season will have caught up with the despatches about the error-ridden Villers-Bretonneux piece in some Fairfax papers by veteran ‘storian Jonathan King. The article has now…
Nine alternative views for Anzac Day – including Lisa Barritt-Eyles on how Lake Macquarie tackled the Frontier Wars
Rather than keep up with the flood of formulaic Anzac Day stories, we collected these few, some of them from our associates, all of them, to varying degrees, coming at ‘the One Day of the Year’ from different angles. (There…
Broinowski, Alison: Anzackery and the preening peloton
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.
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Brooker, Ben: 100 years of Anzac: ludicrous spending for nationalist validation
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…
Hamilton, Andrew: Remembering shared humanity on Anzac Day
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…
War Memorial commissions film that shows Turkish side of Gallipoli, then and now
A film by Turkish film-maker, Koken Ergun, is showing in Sydney till 12 May. The film, Heroes, was made with $25 000 and ‘free rein’ from the Australian War Memorial, is now owned by the Memorial and will be shown…
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Winton, Tim: About the boys: Tim Winton on how toxic masculinity is shackling men to misogyny [with some related stuff]
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…
Reynolds, Henry: Brendan Nelson and the War Memorial – what about the frontier wars?
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…
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Stephens, David: Lest We Forget again: Anzac Day is an opportunity to confront our violent frontier past and its shadow today
David Stephens ‘Lest We Forget again: Anzac Day is an opportunity to confront our violent frontier past and its shadow today’, Honest History, 10 April 2018 updated Yassmin Abdel-Magied, 2017 (Guardian Australia/ABC) Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a young Somali-Australian Muslim woman, was…
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Stanley, Peter: Not Gallipoli: a visit to Dybbøl, a Danish site of memory
Peter Stanley* ‘Not Gallipoli: a visit to Dybbøl, a Danish site of memory’, Honest History, 10 April 2018 What does a visit to Dybbøl tell Australians? It offers a reminder that battlefield commemoration need not be strident, garish or sentimental,…
Stephens, David: Brendan Nelson’s bunker and with cap in hand: contrasts in funding our national cultural institutions
David Stephens* ‘Brendan Nelson’s bunker and with cap in hand: contrasts in funding our national cultural institutions’, Honest History, 9 April 2018 updated Update 11 May 2018: Honest History’s submission to the JSCNET Inquiry into Canberra’s National Institutions The Director…
Daley, Paul: A $500m expansion of the war memorial is a reckless waste of money
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…
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Peter Stanley: Shades of the Great War are missing in this nicely packaged offering from Adelaide
Peter Stanley ‘Shades of the Great War are missing in this nicely packaged offering from Adelaide’, Honest History, 4 April 2018 Peter Stanley reviews Robert Kearney and Sharon Cleary, Valour and Violets: South Australia in the Great War The centenary…
Kearney, Robert & Sharon Cleary: Valour and Violets: South Australia in the Great War
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…
Victorian government survey on Anzac Day recognition of Frontier Wars provokes predictable pile-on
In August last year, the Victorian government did some research on ‘the social value of war commemorative events’. Among many other questions, the research (using a sample of about 500 people) asked whether the deaths of Indigenous Australians in the…
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Daley, Paul: Beating the khaki drum: how Australian identity was militarised
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…
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New study to investigate culture of abuse and bullying in the Australian Defence Force
Academics James Connor (UNSW Canberra) and Ben Wadham (Flinders University) have a grant to investigate ‘the culture behind abuse and bullying in the Australian Defence Force’. The media release has more. Our research [said Dr Connor] will look at the…
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Armstrong, John: Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. April 2015 – April 2019
John Armstrong* ‘Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. April 2015–April 2019‘, New Zealand Journal of Public History 27, 2017, pp. 59-63 This (pdf) is a long review of the Museum of New Zealand…
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Troughton, Geoffrey, ed.: Saints and Stirrers: Christianity, Conflict and Peacemaking in New Zealand, 1814-1945
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…
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Hynd, Douglas: New Zealand Great War peacemaking history has Trans-Tasman relevance
Douglas Hynd* ‘New Zealand Great War peacemaking history has Trans-Tasman relevance’, Honest History, 5 December 2017 Douglas Hynd reviews Saints and Stirrers: Christianity, Conflict and Peacemaking in New Zealand, 1814-1945, edited by Geoffrey Troughton Contemporary critiques of Christianity, whether as…
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Newton, Douglas: First World War centenaries that really matter are looming
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…
Stephens, David: Faulty abacus? DVA and the cost of commemoration
David Stephens ‘Faulty abacus? DVA and the cost of commemoration’, Honest History, 30 November 2017 The Department of Veterans’ Affairs, working through the French government tourist bureau, Atout, recently squired a couple of Australian-based journalists around the battlefields of the…
Down the Remembrance Trail to Villers-Bretonneux with the (fairly self-effacing – so far) DVA publicity machine
Readers of the Launceston Examiner, North-west Tasmania Advocate and Canberra Times earlier this week will have seen some articles under the byline of Michael Grealy. The articles in the Canberra Times were headed ‘New tribute to Diggers in Europe’, ‘“Mad…
‘Anzackery’ definition included in the new edition of the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary
‘Anzackery’ is one of the new words included in the sixth and latest edition of the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary, edited by Mark Gwynn and Amanda Laugesen, and to be published on 26 October. As in the Australian National Dictionary…
St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne: Anzac Day, 25 April 2017: Truly, we will remember them
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…
Haultain-Gall, Matthew: Forgetting and remembering the Anzacs in Flanders Fields
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…
Daley, Paul: The Anzac skull that tells a shocking and tragic story of battlefield violence
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…
Stanley, Peter: The Crying Years: Australia’s Great War
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…
Haultain-Gall, Matthew: Same old relics, same old story? Displaying the third battle of Ypres at the Australian War Memorial, past and present
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…
Clark, Anna: Trench warfare: The Honest History Book
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…
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Better late than never: Minister says best form of commemoration is to look after today’s veterans and families
Update later 15 August 2017: Minister welcomes report of the Senate References Committee into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel. (The report is here.) SBS Insight program ‘Coming Home’ on issues faced by ADF personnel coming back into the civilian…
Stanley, Peter, ed.: Charles Bean: Man, Myth, Legacy
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…
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Minister says stand-alone DVA will continue – but here’s some advice, just in case
We don’t quite know why he felt the need but Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Minister for Defence Personnel, and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security [pause for breath],…
Lockhart, Greg: What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front?
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,…
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The Vimy Trap rings Anzackery bells (review of McKay & Swift)
‘The Vimy Trap rings Anzackery bells’, Honest History, 25 July 2017 David Stephens* reviews The Vimy Trap Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War, by Ian McKay and Jamie Swift The Battle of Vimy…
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McKay, Ian & Jamie Swift: The Vimy Trap Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great War
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…
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Armenian Genocide 1915-23: 43 distinguished Australians call on SBS to change its approach to this historic humanitarian disaster
Honest History has provided many resources on the Armenian Genocide (use our Search engine with term ‘Armenian’). The Honest History Book includes a chapter by Vicken Babkenian and Judith Crispin on Australian involvement with Armenians after the Genocide, which is…
Stephens, David: Now that the Ataturk Memorial at Gallipoli is being restored … some options for President Erdogan to consider
David Stephens ‘Now that the Atatürk Memorial at Gallipoli is being restored … some options for President Erdoğan to consider’, Honest History, 18 June 2017 updated Update 13 July 2017: interesting questions posed (in Turkish) by veteran Gallipoli tour guide,…
Stephens, David: Anzac is not just the One Day of the Year: the myth that just keeps on giving
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…
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Turkish Gallipoli memorials refurbishment takes out Ataturk’s apocryphal ‘Those heroes’ words – for now at least
Update 18 June 2017: our considered view on all of this, including three options for what to do next – addressed to President Erdogan. Update 18 June 2017: Yahoo 7; Courier Mail; Stuff Co NZ; Daily Mail; News Limited; West…
Honest History: Second edition of Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial
Honest History ‘Second edition of Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 13 June 2017 updated Update 1 October 2017: the For Country, For Nation exhibition (discussed in the Alternative Guide) closed in Canberra in September…
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Werskey, Gary: The Anzac Christmas card
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,…
SBS, The Australian and the Armenian Genocide: a recent exchange of views
Update 26 June 2017: more on this story from Mitchell Bingemann again in The Australian of 26 June and from Michael Ebeid of SBS in Senate Estimates (from page 87 of the proof Hansard). George Donikian, Armenian-Australian, former SBS and…
Butler, Richard: The Honest History Book (UNSW Press 2017)
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…
Budget provisions on commemoration, Veterans’ Affairs, more space at the War Memorial, cultural institutions – and a machinery of government proposal
Update 12 May 2017: For a non-mainstream media view of the overall Budget, see the articles by Michael Keating, former Secretary of the Departments of Finance and Prime Minister and Cabinet, in Pearls and Irritations. Part 1, Part 2. There’s…
ABC Q&A comments by Minister Tehan and others show how far past Peak Anzac we have come
The ABC’s Q&A program last night (video; transcript; Twitter; ABC story) tackled a number of questions with compere Virginia Trioli and panellists including Dan Tehan, Minister for a number of things including the Centenary of Anzac and Veterans’ Affairs. Honest…
Shield, John: How to teach and commemorate Anzac: a view from Darwin High School
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…
Phillips, Richard: Australia: Anzac Day and the official silence about anti-war opposition in WWI
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,…
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Stephens, David: Anzac and Anzackery: have Australians normalised war?
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…
Lest we forget Lest We Forget: Rudyard Kipling’s Recessional: Honest History document
‘Lest we forget Lest We Forget: Rudyard Kipling’s “Recessional”: Honest History document’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 updated Update 4 June 2017: an Army musician sang ‘Recessional’ at the opening of the Boer War memorial in Canberra last week. Last…
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Turnbull, Noel: Anzac Day at Port Melbourne
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…
Bond, Catherine: Anzac: The Landing, The Legend, The Law
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.…
Word War One: how the law shaped the Anzac legend (review of Bond)
‘Word War One: how the law shaped the Anzac legend’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 Jo Hawkins reviews Catherine Bond’s Anzac: The Landing, The Legend, The Law In the weeks leading up to the 2015 centenary of the Gallipoli landing,…
Markwick, Roger D.: The “sacralisation” of history and state legitimation
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…
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The “sacralisation” of history and state legitimation
Roger D. Markwick* ‘The “sacralisation” of history and state legitimation’, Honest History, 2 May 2017 This is a slightly edited version of a paper presented to a conference, History and Authority: Political Vocabularies of the Modern Age, Humanities Research Centre,…
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Angry Anzac Day 2017: three pieces from Guardian Australia: get those responses rolling in
Update 1 October 2017: Autobiographical piece from Yassmin Abdel-Magied covers the Anzac fuss. Update 18 August 2017: Yassmin Abdel-Magied talks about being Australia’s most publicly hated Muslim. Update 7 August 2017: Yassmin Abdel-Magied wonders where the free speech defenders were…
On every Anzac Day: a rapid round-up of reports before rumbling on to the next ridge
Related material: earlier; later. *** Two years ago, media academic Sharon Mascall-Dare wrote about how journalists every year slip into a standard Anzac Day reporting mode. Look for an old Digger, some attractive young kiddies waving flags, and someone crying,…
The full set: seven pieces of non-mainstream, non-marked up, non-profit commentary for Anzac Day
Related material: later; later still. *** Updated with a few more on Anzac Day itself This Anzac season, as in a number of previous years, Australian children – and possibly some adults, too – can pick up some Anzac mementoes…
Stephens, David: ‘”Johnnies and Mehmets”: Kemal Ataturk’s “quote” is an Anzac confidence trick
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,…
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West, Brad & Ayhan Aktar: How a more divided Turkey could change the way we think about Gallipoli
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…
McKenna, Mark: Friday essay: King, Queen and country – will Anzac thwart republicanism?
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…
Phillips, Walter: My late pilgrimage to Gallipoli
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…
My late pilgrimage to Gallipoli
Walter Phillips* ‘My late pilgrimage to Gallipoli’, Honest History, 21 March 2017 Since my childhood I have been aware of a connection with Gallipoli. This was largely because my father fought there and bore the marks of war in his…
Yip, Andrew: Friday essay: video games, military culture and new narratives of war
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…
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Stephens, David: Cooking the (visitors) books: the Australian War Memorial struggles with statistics – again
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…
Crotty, Martin: In their footsteps? Anzac fun runs and the consumption of the past
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…
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In their footsteps? Anzac fun runs and the consumption of the past
Martin Crotty* ‘In their footsteps? Anzac fun runs and the consumption of the past’, Honest History, 7 February 2017 Running for fun and Anzac I am an historian of Australia at war, a frequent commentator on the way Australia commemorates…
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Cooking the (visitors) books: the Australian War Memorial struggles with statistics – again
David Stephens ‘Cooking the (visitors) books: the Australian War Memorial struggles with statistics – again’, Honest History, 7 February 2017 ‘There has always been an element of myth-making and myth-peddling in the Memorial’s work; it should not extend to its…
Babkenian, Vicken: Gladys Berejiklian, the Great War, Gallipoli and the Armenian Genocide
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…
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Mein Smith, Philippa: The ‘NZ’ in Anzac: different remembrance and meaning
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…
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Frances, Raelene & Bruce Scates, ed.: Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac
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…
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New views from a little way beyond Gallipoli (review of Scates & Frances ed., Beyond Gallipoli)
‘New views from a little way beyond Gallipoli’, Honest History, 21 November 2016 David Stephens reviews Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac, edited by Raelene Frances and Bruce Scates This book is a collection of 15 papers (plus introduction) from…
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Green, Jonathan: Why must a war define us? Honest History highlights reel
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…
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Stanley, Peter: Three Great War histories review: was the slaughtering really worth it?
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,…
Bond, Catherine: Is it time to repeal Australia’s century-old laws on the use of the word “Anzac”??
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…
Stephens, David: Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the building of the Atatürk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85: Part II
David Stephens ‘Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the building of the Atatürk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85: Part II’, Honest History, 25 October 2016 updated This is a revised and extended version of an article…
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Stephens, David: ‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats
Stephens, David ‘“Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats‘, Honest History, 20 October 2016 This article continues our analysis of ten of Dr Nelson’s speeches from…
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‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats
David Stephens ‘“Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part II: Long bows, Holly Golightly and political baseball bats’, Honest History, 20 October 2016 updated In our previous article we looked at the structure, themes and…
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O’Malley, Vincent: What a nation chooses to remember and forget: the war for New Zealand’s history
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…
Daley, Paul: Why Australia Day and Anzac Day helped create a national ‘cult of forgetfulness’
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…
‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon Brendan Nelson AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling
David Stephens ‘“Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 The received Australian view of war can be encapsulated in phrases like ‘Lest we forget’, ‘the…
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Stephens, David: Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the story of the Ataturk Memorial, Canberra, 1984-85: Part I
David Stephens ‘Turks did the heavy lifting: a longer look at the story of the Atatürk Memorial, Canberra, 1984-85: Part I’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 updated This material revises and extends an article published in April 2016 and based…
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Stephens, David: ‘Awkward humility’: The speeches of the Hon Brendan Nelson, AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling
Stephens, David ‘” Awkward humility”: The speeches of the Hon Brendan Nelson AO: Part I: Thrice more with feeling‘, Honest History, 11 October 2016 The article analyses ten speeches from 2007 to 2016 regarding their structure, recurring themes and sets…
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Baker, Mark: Phillip Schuler: The remarkable life of one of Australia’s greatest war correspondents
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…
Disappointing take on an interesting man (review of Baker on Phillip Schuler)
‘Disappointing take on an interesting man’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 Kristen Alexander* reviews Mark Baker’s Phillip Schuler: The Remarkable Life of One of Australia’s Greatest War Correspondents Phillip Schuler was a journalist working at Melbourne’s Age newspaper when the…
Lamperd, Ruth: Families speak about military loved ones lost and how we failed them
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…
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Wishart, Alison: Importance of food, water and diet to the Anzac campaign at Gallipoli
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…
Piggott, Michael: Charles Bean’s legacy: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016
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.…
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Charles Bean’s legacy: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016
Michael Piggott ‘”Charles Bean’s legacy”: UNSW Canberra conference, July 2016’, Honest History, 2 August 2016 For once in considering a conference, the curate’s egg judgment ‘good in parts’ doesn’t apply, though this conference did have parts and it was hosted…
Baker, Mark: The myth of Keith Murdoch’s Gallipoli letter
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…
Riches, Leah & James Bennett: We can’t see the war for the memorials: balancing education and commemoration
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…
Sweetman, Terry: Great War remembrance high in cost, low on inclusion for Australians
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…
Turna, Burak: The Hidden Victory of Anzacs: Gallipoli
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…
Stephens, David: How some Turks would rather that Johnnies and Mehmets were not equal
David Stephens ‘How some Turks would rather that Johnnies and Mehmets were not equal: research report’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 updated The equality of death ‘There is no difference’, we are told every Anzac Day, ‘between the Johnnies and…
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Ozakinci, Cengiz: 25 April 1985: Arıburnu, “Anzac Cove”, the Mehmets and the Johnnies
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…
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Macedonians in Constantinople, drones over Gaba Tepe (review of Turna)
‘Macedonians in Constantinople, drones over Gaba Tepe’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 Peter Stanley reviews Burak Turna’s The Hidden Victory of Anzacs: Gallipoli. Imagine a world in which all historical sources, archival and published, on World War I have been…
Pennell, Catriona & Mark Sheehan: Official World War I memorial rituals could create a generation uncritical of the conflict
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…
Review note: Irish Easter Rising commemoration has lessons for Australia
‘Review note: Irish Easter Rising commemoration has lessons for Australia’, Honest History, 23 June 2016 I am just one-eighth Irish and by no means an expert in being Irish or in Irish history. But Honest History’s recent collecting of material…
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Stephens, David: Keepers of the flame: making war memorial councils more representative
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…
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Keepers of the flame: making war memorial councils more representative
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 updated Contents The Australian War Memorial Act…
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Moyal, Ann: Churchill and Gallipoli: a personal commentary
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…
Churchill and Gallipoli: a personal commentary
Ann Moyal ‘Churchill and Gallipoli: a personal commentary’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 I have long enjoyed a personal and historical interest in Sir Winston Churchill. As a highly privileged young research assistant to Lord Beaverbrook, I spent a month…
From the Honest History Archives: Tangled up in red, white and blue
‘From the Honest History archives: Tangled up in red, white and blue (September 2013)’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 The Honest History website now includes more than 2000 posts and pages, many of them containing original writing. Readers can find…
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Tendering for the knight: film-makers bid to document Sir John Monash for the green fields of France
Regular readers of Honest History will have followed our coverage of the proposed Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre to be built next to the Australian memorial at Villers-Bretonneux in France. We have described the Centre as a boastful Aussie boondoggle.…
Honest History sends copy of Alternative Guide to Australian War Memorial to every member of Memorial Council
Which word should we use to describe what happened on 25 April 1915: ‘landing’ or ‘invasion’? Why do we refer to dead soldiers as ‘the fallen’? Does the ‘freedom’ we are said to have fought for in our many wars…
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Kirby, Tim (dir.): Gallipoli: When Murdoch went to war
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…
Snyder, Timothy: Poland vs history (Australian comparisons not far beneath)
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…
Anzac Day miscellany 2016
Update 30 August 2016: Mick Cook (The Dead Prussian Podcast) talked to Sharon Mascall-Dare about Indigenous and non-Anglo Celtic Anzacs. Thirty minutes but no transcript. Update 27 May 2016: we found this one much later, paragraphs lurking at the beginning…
Lockhart, Greg: Gallipoli reckoning (review of Roberts and Uyar)
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…
Frame, Tom, ed.: Anzac Day: Then & Now
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…
Honest History: Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial
Update 13 June 2017: Look for the second edition of the Alternative Guide here. It contains pretty much everything that was in the first edition plus new material on World War II and later conflicts. The first edition has been…
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Anzac Day then and now – and probably for the future (review of Frame anthology)
‘Anzac Day then and now – and probably for the future’ (review of Frame anthology), Honest History, 26 April 2016 Paddy Gourley reviews Anzac Day: Then & Now, edited by Tom Frame. This book has been produced by the Australian…
Ankara calling: the rush to build the Ataturk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85
‘Ankara calling: the rush to build the Atatürk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1984-85’, Honest History, 26 April 2016 (Note: a summary version of this article appeared in Pearls and Irritations.; an extended two-part version, using more sources, commences here.)…
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More on the Australian pilgrimages to Gallipoli, 1960 and 1965
‘More on the Australian pilgrimages to Gallipoli, 1960 and 1965’, Honest History, 26 April 2016 In Honest History’s work on the provenance of the alleged ‘Atatürk words’ of 1934 (‘Those heroes that shed their blood …’), we have found isolated…
Review note: a reasonably flexible Anzac Day package from DVA for little kids
‘Review note: a reasonably flexible Anzac Day package from DVA for little kids’, Honest History, 26 April 2016 Honest History has often been critical of the products the official commemoration industry puts in front of children. We thought the prize-winning…
Irving, Nick: Glorifying the Anzac myth and our attitudes to violent men
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…
Newton, Douglas: Hard questions we should face on Anzac Day 2016
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…
A quieter year this year? Anzac Week news and reflections
These few links are taken at random from media coverage of what looks like being a quieter Anzac Day. Perhaps we are wrong. We’ll see. In any case, the quieter build-up has given some observers a chance to make some…
Alomes, Stephen: Our national folly: war romance and the Australian national imaginary
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…
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Reynolds, Henry: Unnecessary Wars
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…
Kaching! Another $5 million from corporates to the Anzac spend
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 largest financial services companies. The money will go towards refurbishing…
Fathi, Romain: Is Australia spending too much on the “Anzac centenary”? (plus HH background on spending politics)
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…
Is Australia spending too much on the “Anzac centenary”? A comparison with France
Romain Fathi ‘Is Australia spending too much on the “Anzac centenary”? A comparison with France’, Honest History, 14 April 2016 How much exactly does the commemoration of the ‘Anzac centenary’ cost the Australian taxpayer? The group Honest History documents that,…
Keeping up with the Anzac centenary: have we passed ‘Peak Anzac’?
‘Keeping up with the Anzac centenary: have we passed “Peak Anzac”? Honest History, 13 April 2016 The PHA seminar of 5 April The Professional Historians Association (Victoria) held a seminar on 5 April ‘reflecting on the Anzac centenary and memorialisation’.…
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Holbrook, Carolyn: Anzac centenary and memorialisation: speech to PHA (Vic)
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Professional Historians Association Historically Speaking: Reflecting on the Anzac centenary and memorialisation (Emerald Hill Library and Heritage Centre, South Melbourne, 5 April 2016)’, Honest History, 13 April 2016 My work has centred on the history of how Australians…
Tout-Smith, Deborah: Anzac centenary and memorialisation: speech to PHA (Vic)
Deborah Tout-Smith ‘Professional Historians Association Historically Speaking series, 5 April 2016: Reflecting on the Anzac centenary and memorialisation’, Honest History, 13 April 2016 I’d like to begin my reflections by acknowledging the size of the audience for the World War…
Protest at Turkish government treatment of dissidents
Updated 8 April 2016: John Tulloh, former foreign editor, makes a useful point at the beginning of a piece in Pearls and Irritations on current Turkish politics: It is the time of the year when we have our annual bout…
Stanley, Peter, et al: From the Honest History Archives: five April takes on Anzac and Anzackery
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…
Invasion, massacre and the Queen’s uniform: Honest History miscellany
‘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’…
Honest History’s David Stephens on 6PR Perth Drive with Adam Shand
Adam Shand on 6PR looked at issues to do with travel to Turkey, in the wake of DFAT upgrading travel alerts. He put questions to HH’s David Stephens about commemoration and appropriateness. Among other things, Stephens said that, if Anzac…
Many more Kiwis at Gallipoli than previously thought
New evidence uncovered in New Zealand strongly suggests twice as many New Zealanders served in the Dardanelles campaign than has previously been thought. Research by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and the New Zealand Defence Force shows more than…
Review note: UK-based Gallipoli 100 has useful resources for schools
‘Review note: UK-based Gallipoli 100 has useful resources for schools‘, Honest History, 17 March 2016 Gallipoli 100 is based in the United Kingdom and has put together some useful resources related to … yes, Gallipoli. The site includes information about…
Brookes, John: Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac
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…
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Walsh, Michael JK & Andrekos Varnava, ed.: Australia and the Great 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…
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Martyrs’ Day in Turkey and what probably did not happen on 18 March 1934
‘Martyrs’ Day in Turkey and what probably did not happen on 18 March 1934: recent research from Cengiz Özakinci’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 updated Background The date 18 March marks the anniversary of the Ottoman naval victory in 1915,…
After the Fall: Singapore conference on World War I (review of Walsh and Varnava)
‘After the Fall: Singapore conference on World War I’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 updated David Stephens reviews Australia and the Great War: Identity, Memory and Mythology, edited by Michael JK Walsh and Andrekos Varnava Conference papers that wait too…
Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac
John Brookes* ‘Constructing nationalism: telling us how it is on Anzac’, Honest History, 15 March 2015 Nationalism is a politically constructed discourse intended to delineate and reveal a community to itself. The rise of Anzac in Australia in the last…
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David Rieff: When history does more harm than good: Highlights reel
‘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,…
Stephens, David: Malcolm Turnbull’s post-Anzac pitch to the Australian Defence Force
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)…
New Minister gets (smaller) commemoration bandwagon rolling
The latest Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Dan Tehan MP, was on his feet today in the Parliament taking note of the 25th anniversary of the end of the Gulf War in 1991 and setting…
Stephens, David: ‘The Australian War Memorial is happy to let your opinion stand as it is’
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…
‘The Australian War Memorial is happy to let your opinion stand as it is’: AWM response to recent Honest History posts
David Stephens ‘“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 Honest History readers will recall our articles remarking…
McConnel, James & Peter Stanley: Australia fights Britain over Fromelles
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…
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‘Visitation’ numbers at the Australian War Memorial since 1991: is this joint really jumpin’?
David Stephens ‘“Visitation” numbers at the Australian War Memorial since 1991: is this joint really jumpin’?’ Honest History, 2 February 2016 updated The title of this piece needs some explanation. First, ‘visitation’. The author thought this word meant the visit…
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Stephens, David: ‘Visitation’ numbers at the Australian War Memorial since 1991
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…
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High Commissioner Fisher talks up the war, January 1916: highlights reel
‘High Commissioner Fisher talks up the war, January 1916: Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 2 February 2016 Andrew Fisher left the Australian prime ministership on 30 October 1915 and, with his family, travelled to London to take up the…
Uyar, Mesut: Gallipoli ceasefire May 1915
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…
Minister defends expensive Monash boondoggle* while sod is turned
Update 25 October 2017: the publicity machine cranks up as the opening of the centre approaches. Update 21 January 2016: augmented version now up on Independent Australia. FRENCH COVERAGE NOW ADDED; SEE BELOW Anzac centenary minister, Stuart Robert, has wielded…
Ozakinci, Cengiz: Tale of the Anzacs who took Mustafa Kemal prisoner in 1918
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…
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Sparrow, Jeff: militarisation of Australian nationalism
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…
Kaching! Australia’s Anzac centenary spend hits $A562 million
Australia’s projected spend on the Anzac centenary-century of service now stands at an estimated $561.8 million, following an announcement today of a $10 million donation by Rio Tinto to the Anzac Centenary Public Fund. Anzac centenary minister, Stuart Robert, said:…
Stephens, David: A century since we stole quietly away
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…
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A century since we stole quietly away
David Stephens ‘A century since we stole quietly away’, Honest History, 23 December 2015 To judge from Trove (the National Library’s newspaper database) the first news of the successful evacuation from Gallipoli arrived in time for the evening editions of…
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McKenna, Mark & Stuart Ward: Anzac myth and creative memorialisation
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,…
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Scates, Bruce, Rebecca Wheatley & Laura James: 100 Stories
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…
Stephens, David: will the new Anzac centenary minister be too busy to bother?
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…
What is history? (review of Scates et al)
‘What is history? An old question; a new answer?’ Honest History, 1 December 2015 Jim Windeyer* reviews World War One: A History in 100 Stories by Bruce Scates, Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James. Another review by David Stephens. Jim Windeyer…
Subversive stories of an old war (review of Scates et al)
‘Subversive stories of an old war’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 David Stephens reviews World War One: A History in 100 Stories, by Bruce Scates, Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James. Another review by Jim Windeyer. __________________________________ This book is sentimental…
Will the new Anzac centenary minister be too busy to bother?
David Stephens ‘Will the new Anzac centenary minister be too busy to bother?’ Honest History, 1 December 2015 updated [Note: earlier, edited versions of this article appear in the Public Servant Informant supplement of the Canberra Times for 1 December 2015,…
No sign of Ataturk’s minister at Anzac, April-May 1934
‘Gold, rum but no sign of Ataturk’s minister at Anzac, April-May 1934’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 We return to the provenance of the famous ‘Ataturk words’ of 1934 – the ones commencing ‘Those heroes that shed their blood and…
Henry, Adam : Nation-state, killing and death
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…
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Anzac, Lest We Forget feature in Reclaim Australia rallies
Small Reclaim Australia rallies in a number of centres at the weekend were notable for featuring Anzac-related slogans and flags. At Melton, near Melbourne, Reclaim Australia demonstrators carried a banner bearing poppies, silhouettes of marching troops and the words ‘Lest…
Spittel, Christina: Australia in the Great War (review of AWM WWI galleries)
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.…
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Tognolini, John: History Man’s Past; Brothers
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…
A history man’s view of war (review of Tognolini)
‘A history man’s view of war’, Honest History, 18 November 2015 Derek Abbott* reviews A History Man’s Past & Other People’s Stories: A Shared Memoir. Part One: Other People’s Wars and Brothers, Part One: Gallipoli 1915, both by John Tognolini.…
Cochrane, Peter: Keith Murdoch and the birth of a dynasty
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…
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Daley, Paul: lavish spending on memorials cloaks reality
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,…
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Canberra Youth Theatre & Long Cloud Youth Theatre, New Zealand: Dead Men’s Wars
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…
Trans-Tasman youth production asks important questions about Anzac
‘Trans-Tasman youth production asks important questions about Anzac’, Honest History, 15 October 2015 David Stephens reviews Dead Men’s Wars by Ralph McCubbin Howell, presented by Canberra Youth Theatre (Australia) and Long Cloud Youth Theatre (New Zealand) Like another co-production a…
The first Anzac Day? Adelaide 1915: highlights reel
‘The first Anzac Day? Adelaide 1915: highlights reel’, Honest History, 13 October 2015 updated This year, 2015, as surely everyone knows now, is one hundred years since the Gallipoli landing/invasion, 25 April 1915, popularised as ‘Anzac’. But when was the…
Flitton, Daniel: ANZAC centenary’s costly history lessons
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’…
Adelaide prepares for the first Anzac Day, 1915
Today it is exactly 100 years since a notice appeared on page 2 of The Register, an Adelaide newspaper. The notice commenced: ANZAC DAY IMPORTANT PUBLIC NOTICE CERTAIN MISLEADING STATEMENTS have been circulated regarding the objects of the Anzac Day…
Triggs, Gillian, et al: Anzac spirit and human rights
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…
Review note: commemoration theme sits lightly on an old Canberra perennial
‘Review note: commemoration theme sits lightly on an old Canberra perennial’, Honest History, 22 September 2015 When an event has been going for 27 years it will be looking for new twists. Canberra’s venerable Floriade spring festival has done night-time…
Hynd, Doug: St Mark’s remembers Anzac Day (review)
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…
St Mark’s remembers Anzac Day
‘St Mark’s remembers Anzac Day’, Honest History, 19 September 2015 Doug Hynd reviews the April 2015 issue of St Mark’s Review __________________________ This thematic issue ‘St Mark’s remembers’ on ‘remembering Anzac Day’ is, in the best sense of the term,…
Ozakinci, Cengiz: how Ataturk did not meet Birdwood in 1918
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…
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Stephens, David: Freedom and the Australian War Memorial: is Honest History not a force for good?
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…
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Freedom and the Australian War Memorial: is Honest History not a force for good?
David Stephens ‘Freedom and the Australian War Memorial: is Honest History not a force for good?’, Honest History, 1 September 2015 Communication has always been central to warfare. Carrier pigeons, flags, field telephones, Mel Gibson rushing through the trenches in…
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Radio New Zealand National: Easter over Anzac
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…
Stephens, David: Anzackery: parochial puffery a century on
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: ‘There will be blood’: ministers and the military responsibility of children
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…
Talking about Turkey in the 1960s: highlights reel
‘Talking about Turkey in the 1960s: highlights reel’, Honest History, 22 August 2015 The Returned and Services League (RSL) papers in the National Library of Australia constitute about the largest of that cultural institution’s massive collection of manuscripts. And about…
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Stephens, David: Public Works Committee’s paddle in Monash museum
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…
Public Works Committee’s paddle in Monash museum
David Stephens ‘Public Works Committee’s paddle in the Monash museum’, Honest History, 19 August 2015 This is the third in our series considering the Monash project at Villers-Bretonneux, France. Earlier articles looked at the submission from the Department of Veterans’…
Bowers, Mike: Anzac Cove and Gallipoli – interactive
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.…
Comment on Salahi Sonyel’s 1989 Ataturk biography
David Stephens ‘Comments on Salahi Sonyel’s 1989 Ataturk biography’, Honest History, 14 August 2015 Thank you to Turkish correspondents on Twitter for passing on details of the book by Salahi R. Sonyel, Ataturk: the Father of Modern Turkey, Turkish Historical…
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Ozakinci, Cengiz: two more articles on ‘Ataturk words’ of 1934
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…
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Leadbeater, Tim: Anzac Day and politics of forgetting (Aotearoa New Zealand)
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…
Stanley, Peter, et al: AnzacLive Blog for Lone Pine centenary
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…
Stephens, David: Monash interpretive centre, Villers-Bretonneux (II)
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…
Stanley, Peter: Çanakkale conference reflections 2015
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…
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Monash interpretive centre, Villers-Bretonneux (II)
David Stephens ‘Monash interpretive centre (Immersion II of II): Public Works Committee dips toe in water’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 updated We find it difficult to treat this project as anything other than a massively self-indulgent and boastful boondoggle*,…
Çanakkale Gallipoli conference reflections 2015
Peter Stanley ‘Headphones, genocide and Fanta: reflections on the Çanakkale Gallipoli conference’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 ‘International’ conferences are often hard work, hard to organise, hard to fund, hard to run and hard to attend, especially as an ‘international’…
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Robertson, Tim: foreign fighter with Anzac spirit
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…
Review note: Australia and the First World War (Australian Historical Studies)
‘Review note: AHS Classics virtual issue “Australia and the First World War” (Australian Historical Studies)’, Honest History, 12 July 2015 This virtual issue ‘reprints’ seven articles with an introductory essay from Bart Ziino. They are all free access until end…
Stephens, David: Money, Monash and motive: analysing a project in France (I)
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…
Money, Monash and motive: analysing a project in France (I)
David Stephens ‘Money, Monash and motive: the Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux (Immersion I of II)’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works (PWC) considered the Sir John Monash Interpretive Centre on 26 June and…
Review note: WWI in Australia (Journal of Australian Studies)
‘Review note: World War I in Australia (Journal of Australian Studies, virtual special issue, April 2015)’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 We recently noted difficulties of access with some online journals. This issue of the Journal of Australian Studies, published…
Stephens, David: Australia spending so much more on WWI centenary
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…
Mascall-Dare, Sharon: Ethical journalism during the Anzac centenary
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…
Ethical journalism during the Anzac centenary
Sharon Mascall-Dare ‘All is not lost: the case for ethical journalism during the Anzac centenary’, Honest History, 18 June 2015 The following is an extract from a presentation at the Canakkale-Gallipoli Wars Conference held in Canakkale, Turkey, 21-24 May 2015.…
Moorehead, Alan: Gallipoli
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…
Anzac and Anzackery: Kogarah speech
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…
Ataturk in the City of Hume, Victoria: Honest History Factsheet
‘Ataturk in the City of Hume, Victoria: Honest History Factsheet’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Update 19 June 2015: media coverage in Hume Leader. _______________ Honest History’s research on the ‘Ataturk words’ of 1934 is here, summarised in a media…
Moyal, Ann: Alan Moorehead’s Gallipoli
Ann Moyal ‘Alan Moorehead’s Gallipoli’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Recalling an Anzac classic, first published in 1956. There have been at least some 70 books by individual authors published under the title Gallipoli in the century since. From the…
Dyrenfurth, Nick: Mateship
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…
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Stephens, David: Anzac and Anzackery (Kogarah speech)
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…
Keys, Richard: The ‘Great’ War
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 …
The ‘Great’ War
Richard Keys* ‘The “Great” War’, Honest History, 2 June 2015 Brendan Nelson shamefully described the Australian War Memorial as holding the soul of Australia. Julia Gillard said Gallipoli defined us as a nation. With the government spending millions on Anzac…
Manne, Robert, Robin Prior & Carolyn Holbrook: What really happened at Gallipoli?
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,…
Crispin, Judith: In Noah’s country (post-genocide Armenia)
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…
Stephens, David: ‘The Next War’: two speeches on Australia 2015
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…
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Militarism, fascism, Anzacism: Australian progress report 2015
David Stephens ‘Militarism, fascism, Anzacism: an Australian progress report 2015: speech to Solidarity Forum, University of Technology, Sydney, 9 May 2015’, Honest History, 23 May 2015 (For an associated speech.) I acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, the…
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Anzac and the militarisation of Australian society
David Stephens ‘Anzac and the militarisation of Australian society: Politics in the Pub, Glebe, 9 April 2015’, Honest History, 23 May 2015 (A video of the speech is on the Politics in the Pub website. Q&A. An associated speech.) I…
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Daley, Paul: Australian War Memorial’s rise and rise
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…
Stephens, David: constructing emotions (centenary spend)
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…
Rees, Peter: Bearing witness (CEW Bean)
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…
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Ronaldson, Michael: Ministerial statement Anzac centenary 2015
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…
Honest History miscellany: yet more angles on Anzac 100
‘Honest History miscellany: yet more angles on Anzac 100’, Honest History, 17 May 2015 This is our third and final round-up of centenary-related items that came to our attention around Anzac Day 2015, although some of them have been around…
Gray, Don: Australian military and Anzac
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…
Australian military and Anzac
Don Gray* ‘The Australian military and Anzac’, Honest History, 17 May 2015 This article is intended as a supplement to the recent article by David Stephens, ‘Rebooting Anzac for the next century’. That timely article questions the hyperbole and jingoism…
China, the US and Australia: Honest History Factsheet
’18 months of China, the United States and Australia: Honest History Factsheet’, Honest History, 16 May 2015 (updated) UPDATE 22 June 2015: James Laurenceson and Hannah Bretherton discuss the ACRI poll (see below 3 June) and other aspects. ‘What does…
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Two Anzac zingers as parliament resumes
Bipartisan wrap-up yesterday from prime minister and opposition leader on recent Anzac commemorations at Gallipoli, which they both attended. The speeches were similar, revealing the bipartisan approach to Anzac – almost as if both sides fear wedging by the other…
Budget 2015: Honest History Factsheet: centenary spending $551.8 million
Update 12 May 2017: after 2017 Budget: The additional $19.6 million in the Budget for DVA, would take the [total commemoration] figure [from $566. 8 million] to $586.4 million, comprising around $351 million Commonwealth, $140 million states and territories, and…
Tuck, John & Anthony Forsyth: social media misuse in workplace
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…
Bacon, Wendy: getting Scott McIntyre
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,…
Faber, David: Anzac Day, Gallipoli and Great War: futurological retrospective
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,…
Anzac Day, Gallipoli and Great War: futurological retrospective
David Faber* ‘Anzac Day, Gallipoli and the Great War: a futurological retrospective’, Honest History, 7 May 2015 Why are we liable/to die for survival?/Why is our nation/fighting? Mick Hucknell, ‘Simply Red’, 2011 The end of the soldier is not, as…
Holman, Brett: one day of the century
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…
Anzac-ed out 2015
Willy Bach ‘Anzac-ed out 2015’, Honest History, 5 May 2015 As we know…. They shall grow not old, Lives cut short Terminated Denied parenthood Pleasure, creativity Reflection Grandchildren as we that are left grow old: Lamely, sullenly Prematurely Age shall…
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Bach, Willy: Anzac-ed out 2015
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…
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Inglis, Ken: Gallipoli 1965
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…
Scates, Bruce & Rebecca Wheatley: search for The Water Diviner
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,…
Honest History miscellany: more angles on Anzac 100
Update 1 May 2015: Last posts? On the Mcintyre case, Gillian Triggs in Fairfax noted the limited mileage in free speech arguments, given Australia’s current legal arrangements. Anticipating some of Mcintyre’s remarks, Tasmanian Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson had his thoughtful…
Valentine, James: Gallipoli, the story we all grew up with
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…
Stanley, Peter: Anzac Day Norfolk Island 2015
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…
Dawn, Emily Bay, Norfolk Island, Anzac Day 2015
Peter Stanley ‘Dawn, Emily Bay, Norfolk Island, Anzac Day 2015’, Honest History, 27 April 2015 What may be Australia’s first dawn service is held each Anzac Day at Emily Bay on Norfolk Island. (They may get up as early on…
Daley, Paul: Quarantining Anzac Day from politicians
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…
Stephens, David: rebooting Anzac
David Stephens ‘Rebooting Anzac for the next century‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 April 2015 (and in other Fairfax) Traditions that are not continually refreshed become quaint and irrelevant and eventually die. The Anzac tradition has waxed and waned over a…
Daley, Paul: Ataturk’s words about Anzacs shrouded in doubt
Daley, Paul ‘Ataturk’s “Johnnies and Mehmets” words about the Anzacs are shrouded in doubt‘, Guardian Australia, 20 April 2015 and updated Examines the famous Ataturk words of 1934, drawing upon research by the Turkish scholar, Cengiz Ozakinci. Links to a…
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Tracking Ataturk: Honest History research note
Tracking Ataturk: Honest History research note NB: for later research on this subject go here Introduction Myths often take the place of history, particularly when stories are complex, facts are lacking, and audiences need comfort. This outcome seems to have…
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Honest History miscellany: angles on Anzac 100
So much stuff; so little time. Rather than try to recognise and categorise everything that’s whizzed past in the last couple of days, we’ve just grabbed a handful, as follows, before we settle down to take in Kate Aubusson’s Lest…
Freedom of speech in Burwood: Honest History Factsheet
Update 7 May 2015: further light shed Open letter by Socialist Equality Party to University of Sydney. Update 28 April 2015: meetings held The Socialist Equality Party meetings were held, with audiences of workers and youth. Update 2.30 pm 18…
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TV3NZ News: Australia’s Anzac obsession
TV3NZ News ‘Australia’s Anzac obsession‘, The Nation, 18 April 2015 Anzackery gets introduced to the people of Aotearoa New Zealand by producer-presenter Tony Wright with interviews with Peter Stanley and David Stephens from Honest History. There is to be a…
Aubusson, Kate: Gen Y on questioning Anzac
Kate Aubusson ‘Why my generation grew up thinking it was un-Australian to question Anzac‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 April 2015 Article from a young journalist, presaging presentation of her TV documentary Lest We Forget What? (Iview for limited time) She…
Honest History list: Armenian genocide
UPDATE 29 July 2015: Ashley Kalagian Blunt writes about coming to terms with the genocide in Canada and Australia. UPDATE 18 June 2015: Nikki Marczak writes on how what is happening today in the Middle East repeats many historical events…
Schultz, Julianne, Peter Cochrane, et al.: Enduring legacies
Schultz, Julianne, Peter Cochrane, et al. ‘Enduring legacies‘, Griffith Review, 48, 2015; available online to subscribers Update 7 May 2015: Honest History attended a discussion at the National Library with about 150 others. Julianne Schultz, editor of this volume, wrangled…
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Investing our legacies
‘Investing our legacies’, Honest History, 16 April 2015 David Stephens reviews Griffith Review 48, ‘Enduring legacies’, edited by Julianne Schultz and Peter Cochrane The title of this excellent collection is, at one level, obvious but, at another, full of possibilities.…
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ABC Four Corners: Anzac to Afghanistan
ABC TV ‘Anzac to Afghanistan’, Four Corners, 13 April 2015 Chris Masters intersperses interviews with Gallipoli veterans from 1988 and Afghanistan veterans from recent years, noting the similarities and differences in their experience. Also contributing are James Brown, author of…
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Then and now: two sad affairs
Then and now: two sad affairs, Honest History, 15 April 2015 Alison Broinowski reviews the Four Corners episode, ‘Anzac to Afghanistan‘ Fran Kelly is off to join the re-invasion at Gallipoli next week. So the count-down begins and pent-up excitement…
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Bucket tipped on Raise a Glass
[Note: related material is in this post. Some of the material below could just have easily gone in the other post or in both but we decided just to keep one updated after about 18 April. HH] Someone, possibly in…
Rotten fresh: can it get more crass?
Woolworths thought they had a great idea. It created an online gizmo which allowed punters to upload their chosen images of people killed or maimed or made mad by war. The gizmo then created an image with the words ‘Lest…
Babkenian, Vicken: Gallipoli’s inconvenient ‘other side’
Babkenian, Vicken ‘Gallipoli’s inconvenient “other side”‘, Pearls and Irritations, 10 April 2015 The author is an independent scholar at the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Sydney. The article examines the history of the Armenian genocide, looking at the…
Gallipoli: a necessary mythology?
Bill Edgar ‘Gallipoli: a necessary mythology?’ Honest History, 13 April 2015 Some years ago a group of history students were discussing the proposition of a group of psychologists that it is an emotional imperative for individuals to ally themselves with…
Edgar, Bill: Gallipoli: a necessary mythology?
Edgar, Bill ‘Gallipoli: a necessary mythology?‘ Honest History, 14 April 2015 The author compares the lives of two Lalors in order to ask whether we are neglecting our heritage from the 19th century. For the next four years we will…
Stanley, Peter: Gallipoli 1915: a century on – conference report
Stanley, Peter ‘Gallipoli 1915: a century on – conference report‘, Honest History, 14 April 2015 A report on the Australian War Memorial-Australian National University conference held in Canberra in March 2015. The conference attracted some 4oo participants, who heard from…
Gallipoli 1915: a century on – conference report
Peter Stanley ‘Gallipoli 1915: a century on – conference report’, Honest History, 14 April 2015 Those interested in Gallipoli had been anticipating the conference convened jointly by the Australian National University and the Australian War Memorial and held in Canberra…
Broadbent, Harvey: Defending Gallipoli: Turkish story
Broadbent, Harvey Defending Gallipoli: the Turkish Story, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2015; electronic version available Based on exclusive access to Turkish archives, Defending Gallipoli reveals how the Turks reacted and defended Gallipoli. Author and Turkish-language expert Harvey Broadbent spent five years…
Stanley, Peter: Broadbent’s Defending Gallipoli reviewed
Stanley, Peter ‘Defending Gallipoli review: how the Turks reacted to the Anzac landings‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 2015 The review compliments Broadbent for undertaking the massive task of translating and using disorganised Turkish archives to produce not just Defending…
Hemming, Judy & Michael McKinley: Anzac’s wars
Hemming, Judy & Michael McKinley ‘Anzac’s wars: remembering and its resistances‘, Honest History, 10 April 2015 The authors look at recent decisions in Australian and New Zealand defence policy in the light of their shared and occasionally diverging history. The…
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Anzac’s wars: remembering and its resistances
Judy Hemming & Michael McKinley ‘Anzac’s wars: remembering and its resistances’, Honest History, 10 April 2015 A prefatory comment This paper speaks of the regional responses by Australia and New Zealand to certain major wars. This does not imply that…
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Stephens, David: magic Anzackery pudding
Stephens, David ‘The magic Anzackery pudding‘, Honest History, 9 April 2015 Guest posting on 7 April on John Menadue’s blog. Norman Lindsay was busy during World War I. When he wasn’t doing propaganda posters of slavering Huns or sketching buxom…
Grey, Jeffrey, ed.: Great War centenary history
Grey, Jeffrey, ed. The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2014-16 Five volume set, including Australia and the War in the Air (Volume 1) by Michael Molkentin, reviewed by Kristen Alexander, The War…
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Death cults were around in 1914
‘Whatever cult of the fallen was invented afterwards to invoke the Australian people’s perpetual care for the Anzacs in death, their neglect of them in life was starkly revealed in the plunge into war in July-August 1914. Constantly confronted, as…
Honest History list: Alan Seymour
Alan Seymour, author of The One Day of the Year, has died at the age of 87, more than five decades after his play asked important questions about Australians’ attitude to Anzac Day. While a new production was playing at…
Daley, Paul: Indigenous Diggers and Anzackery
Daley, Paul ‘Indigenous Diggers and the new age of Anzackery‘, Meanjin, 2 April 2015 Contrasts the commemorative festival with the treatment of an atypical Indigenous Digger, caught between cultures. The opening paragraphs are a good summary of the history of…
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Stephens, David: Five arguments for downsizing Anzac
David Stephens ‘Five arguments for downsizing Anzac’, Teaching History (History Teachers’ Association of New South Wales), 49, 1, March 2015, pp. 16-19 Pdf accessible here made available by courtesy of HTANSW, which holds copyright. We need to make Anzac less…
Stephens, David: Peter FitzSimons: poltergeist with two brains
Stephens, David ‘Peter FitzSimons: poltergeist with two brains‘, Inside Story, 25 March 2015 A review of FitzSimons’ Gallipoli which makes some general points about FitzSimons as a ‘storian’ who should unleash his inner historian. The article argues that FitzSimons’ style…
What Kemal (probably, possibly) did: Ataturk’s letter
The Gallipoli 1915: a century on conference last week heard mentions of the famous ‘Atatürk letter’. We have a number of relevant references on the Honest History website, some of them incorporating research that others may not have done. These…
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Hawkins, Jo: Anzac for sale
Jo Hawkins ‘Anzac for sale: consumer culture, regulation and the shaping of a legend, 1915–21‘, Australian Historical Studies, 46, 1, 2015, pp. 7-26 After the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915, the word Anzac began to appear with increasing frequency…
Anzac last hurrah of white Aussie male?
ANU historian, Professor Joan Beaumont, joint winner of the Prime Minister’s prize for history, says: The Anzac legend has sometimes been seen as the last hurrah of the white Australian male. If you have a foundational national narrative that is…
Stephens, David: Anzackery in the time of Anzac
Stephens, David ‘Anzackery in the time of Anzac‘, Pearls and Irritations, 16 March 2015 On John Menadue’s blog, this short article takes an etymological look at the concept of Anzackery and quotes a couple of prize examples. While ridicule is…
Berzins, Hannah: Lest we forget the Frontier Wars
Berzins, Hannah ‘Lest we forget the Frontier Wars‘, Vimeo (video, 2014) The 2o minute video describes massacres at Murdering Island and Poison Waterholes Creek, near Narrandera, NSW, and considers how such events, and the Frontier Wars generally, should be commemorated.…
ABC RN Saturday Extra: Military anniversaries
ABC Radio National ‘Military anniversaries‘, Saturday Extra, 14 March 2015 Geraldine Doogue talks with Peter Stanley about anniversaries occurring in 2015. The dates commemorated are 1815, 1915, 1940, 1945 and 1975, as well as one non-military, 1215. An event of…
War songs and being awkward
Carolyn Holbrook, author of Anzac: The Unauthorised Biography and Honest History distinguished supporter, gave a speech the other day in Fremantle for MAPW. In the course of her remarks, Holbrook said this: [W]hy does it matter how Australians remember war? …
Gallipoli episodes 6 and 7 reviewed by Peter Stanley
‘Generations passing away*’, Honest History, 10 March 2015 Peter Stanley** reviews Gallipoli (Channel 9) episodes 6 and 7. Earlier reviews: episode 1, episode 2; episode 3; episode 4 and 5. (Caution: this review contains minor spoilers, notably that the Australians…
Gaita, Raimond: balancing security and liberty
Gaita, Raimond ‘Can Australia ever strike the “proper balance” between security and liberty?‘ Guardian Australia, 28 February 2015 Honest History had collected links to many articles written over the last few months about national security issues, triggered by fears of…
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Featherstone, Don (dir.): The War that Changed Us
Featherstone, Don (dir.) The War that Changed Us, Electric Pictures, 2014 Documentary (four parts) about Australia during World War I, produced by Andrew Ogilvie and scripted by Clare Wright and the director. It follows the stories of six people, who…
McKernan, Michael: WWI: Love & Sorrow
McKernan, Michael ‘WWI: Love & sorrow‘, reCollections (National Museum of Australia), 10, 1, 2015 Review of this exhibition, which is at the Melbourne Museum until November 2018. This is an exhibition [says McKernan] that openly and deliberately works on the…
Landsberry, Belinda: Anzac Ted
Landsberry, Belinda Anzac Ted, EK Books, Wollombi, NSW, 2014 A children’s book about a teddy bear who goes to war. There are reviews and a preview at the book link above and the bear’s (author’s) website. Another review is here,…
Can we bear Anzac Ted?
‘Can we bear Anzac Ted? A review’, Honest History, 8 March 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews Anzac Ted by Belinda Landsberry At what age do we feel able to introduce our children to the idea and the reality of war and…
Gallipoli episodes 4 and 5 reviewed by Peter Stanley
‘Scars breaking out on the Peninsh*’, Honest History, 5 March 2015 Peter Stanley** reviews episodes 4 and 5 of Gallipoli (Channel 9). Reviews of episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episodes 6 and 7. Channel 9’s decision to ‘raise the…
Deery, Phillip & Julie Kimber, ed.: Fighting against War
Phillip Deery & Julie Kimber, ed. Fighting against War: Peace Activism in the Twentieth Century, Leftbank Press/Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Melbourne, 2015 The book includes 15 of the papers delivered at the 14th Biennial Labour History…
Stephens, David: Another look at the Australian War Memorial’s WWI galleries
David Stephens ‘Is this “our story”? Another look at the Australian War Memorial’s refurbished World War I galleries’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 Update 20 November 2015: a review from Christina Spittel of UNSW Canberra in the National Museum’s reCollections…
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Is this ‘our story’? AWM’s refurbished WWI galleries
‘Is this “our story”? Another look at the Australian War Memorial’s refurbished World War I galleries’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 David Stephens takes a further look at the new galleries. There are launches and launches. The Australian War Memorial…
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Dyer, Steve: Anzac Christmas at St Paul’s
Dyer, Steve ‘Anzac Christmas at St Paul’s, Melbourne‘, Honest History, 3 March 2015 A short article about two pieces of art, done almost a century apart, which combine Anzac and Christmas themes. There is also an intervention by bushfire. Steve…
Anzac Christmas at St Paul’s
Steve Dyer ‘Anzac Christmas at St Paul’s, Melbourne’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 Just before Christmas last year, in the entrance to St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Melbourne, there sat a nativity scene by artist Jan McLellan Rizzo. It was…
Stephens, David: Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?
Stephens, David ‘Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?‘ Honest History, 3 March 2015 The article gives three answers to the question posed, the most important answer being that ‘film and TV portrayals of historical events stumble around…
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Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?
David Stephens ‘Why does Honest History review movies and TV shows?’ Honest History, 3 March 2015 Regular browsers of our site will know we are offering reviews of movies and television shows that have a war theme. Last year we…
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Ivin, Glendyn (dir.): Gallipoli
Ivin, Glendyn (director) Gallipoli, Endemol Australia, 2015 Directed by Glendyn Ivin, based on Les Carlyon’s Gallipoli, in seven episodes. Reviewed for Honest History by Professor Peter Stanley, Honest History President, and military-social historian from the University of New South Wales,…
Gallipoli episode 3 reviewed by Peter Stanley
‘Men alone at the Dardanelles’, Honest History, 24 February 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews episode 3 of Gallipoli (Channel 9), ‘A man alone’. Other episodes reviewed: episode 1; episode 2; episodes 4 and 5; episodes 6 and 7. Episode 3 of…
Gallipoli episode 2 reviewed by Peter Stanley
‘Settling in for the long haul at Gallipoli’, Honest History, 22 February 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews episode 2 of Gallipoli (Channel 9), ‘My friend, the enemy’. Episode 1 reviewed. Episode 3. Episodes 4 and 5. Episodes 6 and 7. The…
Gallipoli episode 1 reviewed by Peter Stanley
‘Good in parts at Gallipoli’, Honest History, 12 February 2015 Peter Stanley* reviews Gallipoli (Channel 9), Episode 1, ‘The First Day’. Episode 2 reviewed. Episode 3. Episodes 4 and 5. Episodes 6 and 7. Channel 9’s mini-series Gallipoli is trumpeted…
Wright, Clare: birth of Australian nation
Wright, Clare ‘”A splendid object lesson”: a transnational perspective on the birth of the Australian nation‘, Journal of Women’s History, 26, 4, Winter 2014, pp. 12-36 Author-supplied pdf (use Adobe Tools button >> to rotate pages!) Historians have attributed the…
Stephens, David: Two views of World War I: War Memorial and National Library
David Stephens ‘Two views of World War I: sight-bites and Keepsakes‘, Honest History, 3 February 2015 The article is a review of the refurbished World War I galleries of the Australian War Memorial and the temporary Keepsakes exhibition at the…
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Two views of World War I: War Memorial and National Library
‘Two views of World War I: sight-bites and Keepsakes‘, Honest History, 3 February 2015 David Stephens reviews the refurbished World War I galleries at the Australian War Memorial and the Keepsakes exhibition at the National Library of Australia. (A further…
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Holbrook, Carolyn: Speech to History Teachers’ Summer School
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Speech to UNSW History Teachers’ Summer School, National Press Club, Canberra, 22 January 2015′, Honest History, 3 February 2015 Thank you. I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak to an audience that includes secondary school historians…
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Anzackery: a personal view
David Reid* ‘Anzackery: a personal view’, Honest History, 3 February 2015 The author came to Honest History’s attention when he wrote on Twitter that Anzackery ‘filled today’s military platoons’. We asked him to write for us at greater length. HH…
Reid, David: Anzackery: a personal view
Reid, David ‘Anzackery: a personal view‘, Honest History, 3 February 2015 A former soldier, whose father served in the RAAF and the peace-time army, reflects on the concept of Anzackery and its implications for future generations. Anzackery is a theme…
Newton’s Hell-Bent reviewed
Rod Olsen reviews Douglas Newton’s Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War ‘War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.’ (Clausewitz) ‘War is unlike life … It’s a denial of everything you learn life…
Brand Anzac
Is there any Australian brand worth more in the hearts and minds of Australians than “Anzac”? While Aussies might get parochial about Qantas and misty-eyed about Vegemite, such household names cannot compete with a brand so central to the national…
Fisk, Robert: Gallipoli centenary conceals Armenian genocide
Fisk, Robert ‘The Gallipoli centenary is a shameful attempt to hide the Armenian Holocaust‘, The Independent, 19 January 2015 Fisk says ‘Turkey is planning to use the 100th anniversary of the Allied attempt to invade Turkey in 1915 to smother…
Crombie, Kelvin: Gallipoli – The Road to Jerusalem
Crombie, Kelvin Gallipoli – The Road to Jerusalem, Koorong Books, West Ryde, NSW, 2014 The Gallipoli Campaign which began on 25 April 1915 was one of the biggest Allied defeats of World War One. Yet it stirred the imaginations and…
A fundamentally silly film: another perspective on The Water Diviner
‘A fundamentally silly film: another perspective on The Water Diviner’, Honest History, 13 January 2015 Honest History President, Peter Stanley, reviews Russell Crowe’s film, The Water Diviner. Other material on the film, including links to other reviews. See also our…
Allan, Susan: Governments and history: David Stephens interview
Allan, Susan ‘”Governments want a history that reflects their agenda“‘, World Socialist Web Site, 8 January 2015 Long interview with Honest History secretary, David Stephens, speaking in a personal capacity. The interview covers the politicisation of the Great War centenary…
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Daley, Paul: Anzackery, crowdsourcing and nationalism
Daley, Paul ‘Crowdsourcing is our latest weapon against nationalism and “Anzackery”‘, Guardian Australia, 29 December 2014 Daley quotes the coiner of the term ‘Anzackery’, Geoffrey Serle, writing in 1967, and goes on: Anzackery. What a word … Anzackery. Is there…
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Daley, Paul: My Brother Jack 50 years on
Daley, Paul ‘My Brother Jack at 50 – the novel of a man whose whole life led up to it‘, Guardian Australia, 23 December 2014 Covers the novel (first published 1964), the author, George Johnston (died of alcohol and TB…
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Crowe, Russell (dir.): The Water Diviner
Crowe, Russell (director) The Water Diviner, Fear of God Films and other production companies, Australia, 2014 Alison Broinowski briefly reviews the film for Honest History. A further review from Peter Stanley, including a link to an interview with the writers…
Back to Gelibolu: The Water Diviner reviewed
‘Back to Gelibolu’, Honest History, 22 December 2014 Honest History committee member Alison Broinowski reviews The Water Diviner, opening in theatres on Boxing Day ‘Gallipoli!’ demands Joshua Connor of a Turkish immigration clerk. ‘I want to go to Gallipoli!’ It…
Horn, Jonathan: Let’s not equate players with Anzacs
Horn, Jonathan ‘Sport is brutal – but let’s not equate players with Anzacs‘, Guardian Australia, 10 September 2014 Describes how sports team ‘channel’ the Australian Digger, quoting Mick Malthouse, Steve Waugh, Alan Bond and Michael Clarke – and Ben Roberts-Smith…
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Davidson, Jim: Sport with guns
Davidson, Jim ‘Sport with guns‘, Meanjin, 67, 4, Summer 2008, pp.10-13 Suggests that Australia’s ‘celebration of the military’ has addled our consciousness, in the way that, according to Patrick White, sport had done. ‘The two things are connected. Under John…
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Newton, Douglas: Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War
Douglas Newton Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic, 2014 Most histories of Australia’s Great War rush their readers into the trenches. This history is very different. For the first time, it examines events closely, even hour-by-hour,…
Bongiorno, Frank: Douglas Newton’s Hell-Bent launched
Frank Bongiorno ‘Hell-Bent: Australia’s Leap into the Great War, by Douglas Newton, Scribe, 2014: Canberra Launch, Australian National University, 28 November 2014’, Honest History, 7 December 2014 There is a powerful myth concerning the way Australia behaves in international affairs.…
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Cogan, James: Death of Phillip Hughes
Cogan, James ‘The death of Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes‘, World Socialist Web Site, 2 December 2014 and updated Thoughtful analysis of the national (and international) mourning said to be following the death of Hughes. Concedes his youth, likeability and talent…
Bates, Sonja: Anzac Day legend
Bates, Sonja ‘The Anzac Day legend: its origins, meaning, power and impact on shaping Australia’s identity (Master’s of Peace and Conflict Studies dissertation, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, 2013)‘ The Anzac legend lies at the centre…
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Anzac Day media style guide: Honest History Factsheet
All public occasions develop their own style and pitch (and Anzac Day is no exception) but perhaps we had not thought that Anzac Day needed a guide to how it should be presented. Such a guide exists and it is…
Faber, David & Robert Henry: Remembrance duet
Faber, David & Robert Henry ‘Remembrance duet‘, Honest History, 2 December 2014 These two pieces, David Faber’s story of the Dardanelles cenotaph in Adelaide and Robert Henry’s poem ‘The valley’, illustrate how people at home tried to come to grips…
Remembrance duet
David Faber and Robert Henry ‘Remembrance duet’, Honest History, 2 December 2014 ‘The Dardanelles cenotaph: our unknown war memorial’ by David Faber © A war memorial stands unobtrusively in Adelaide’s South Parklands. Life flows quietly around this cenotaph and little attention…
Morrison, David: White Ribbon Day address, 2014
Morrison, David Chief of Army address to the White Ribbon Breakfast, Adelaide, 25 November 2014 This is the most well-developed version of General Morrison’s views on the link between misogyny in the Australian Army and macho, Anzac-linked attitudes in male…
Honest History and the deep North
Peter Sellick writes in Online Opinion mainly about Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and what it says about how people behave during wars. Along the way, Sellick mentions Honest History’s role in presenting an alternative view…
Miscellany: militarisation still marching?
Honest History continually collects resources to add to our growing database on the theme of ‘not only Anzac but also (lots of other strands of Australian history)’. Of course, our interest – and the times – being what they are…
Bishop remembered
He was “disturbed” by what he called the Anzac myth, “revitalised with a new and wrong emphasis, and at a time when successive Australian Governments have felt a need to rekindle a commitment to war as a means of responding…
Honest History list: Remembrance Day analysed
These articles, some new, some already on our website, raise some important aspects of Remembrance Day, once Armistice Day, always ‘the eleventh day of the eleventh month – and at the eleventh hour’, one of the earliest mantras many of…
Socialist Alternative: War! What For?
Socialist Alternative War? What For? an Anti-War Centenary Newspaper, Socialist Alternative, Carlton South, Vic., 2014 The presentation and use of history during the centenary of the Great War should involve the exposure of conflicting, evidence-based interpretations. This publication from Socialist…
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Stanley, Peter: Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary?
Stanley, Peter ‘Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary? Eldershaw Memorial Lecture to Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 12 August 2014′, Honest History, 4 November 2014 Professor Stanley, president of Honest History, outlines the history of Honest History, while interweaving elements of…
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Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary?
Peter Stanley ‘Honest History: possible, desirable, necessary? Eldershaw Memorial Lecture to Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 12 August 2014’, Honest History, 4 November 2014 Good evening ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, friends, and especially members of Peter Eldershaw’s family. I thank…
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Pedersen, Peter: Anzac Treasures
Peter Pedersen Anzac Treasures: The Gallipoli Collection of the Australian War Memorial, Murdoch Books, Sydney, 2014 This landmark publication commemorates the centenary of the Great War’s Gallipoli campaign, 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916. ANZAC Treasures approaches the subject of…
Stephens, David: Anzac Treasures follows a well-worn track
David Stephens ‘The well-worn track of commemoration’, Honest History, 23 October 2014 David Stephens reviews Peter Pedersen’s, Anzac Treasures: The Gallipoli Collection of the Australian War Memorial Anzac Treasures is a great big, complex book, just as the Australian War…
Lest We Forget collection reviewed
‘Lest We Forget comes out of the West’, Honest History, 7 October 2014 Paddy Gourley* reviews Bobbie Oliver & Sue Summers, ed., Lest We Forget? Marginalised Aspects of Australia at War and Peace, Black Swan Press, Curtin University, Perth, WA,…
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Stanley, Peter: Gallipoli burning?
Stanley, Peter ‘Is Gallipoli burning‘, Honest History, 2 October 2014 and updated Thousands of Australians and New Zealanders are expected at Gallipoli for next year’s Anzac commemoration. Professor Peter Stanley recently visited Gallipoli on a research trip. He was shocked.…
Is Gallipoli burning?
Stanley, Peter ‘Is Gallipoli burning?’ Honest History, 2 October 2014 Late in the Turkish summer of 1915 Lieutenant Humphrey Gell of the 89th Punjabis, the signals officer with 29th Indian Infantry Brigade headquarters, was told to destroy some used message…
Ever thus?
The young reporter in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962; directed by John Ford, screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck) hears the truth about the death of the outlaw Liberty Valance. Nevertheless, the reporter decides to destroy…
Curran, James & Stuart Ward: Unknown Nation
Curran, James & Stuart Ward The Unknown Nation: Australia after Empire, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2010 The book considers Australia’s search for national identity as ‘the receding ties of empire and Britishness posed an unprecedented dilemma as Australians lost…
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Anzac centenary sensitivity
Sometimes news items pass you by then return with renewed vigour. Such was the case for Honest History with the Battle of Bita Paka in September 1914, recently commemorated. Bita Paka, in the then German New Guinea, was ‘little more…
Seal, Graham: Inventing Anzac
Seal, Graham Inventing Anzac: The Digger and Modern Mythology, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2004 Anzac and the digger lie at the centre of Australian national identity. Separate but intertwined, their respective traditions have generated and maintained a potent…
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Holbrook, Carolyn: Launch of Anzac unauthorised biography
Carolyn Holbrook ‘Launch of Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography, Carlton, Vic.’, Honest History, 15 September 2014 Carolyn Holbrook delivered this speech at the Melbourne launch of her book at Readings, Carlton, 2 September 2014. Stuart Macintyre also spoke. The book is…
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Macintyre, Stuart: Launch of Holbrook’s Anzac
Macintyre, Stuart ‘Launch of Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography, by Carolyn Holbrook’, Honest History, 15 September 2014 This is an edited version of Professor Macintyre’s speech at Readings, Carlton, 2 September 2014. Frank Bongiorno reviews the book. The author speaks at…
Holbrook, Carolyn: Anzac: the unauthorised biography
Holbrook, Carolyn Anzac: the Unauthorised Biography, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014 Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography … traces how, since 1915, Australia’s memory of the Great War has declined and surged, reflecting the varied and complex history of the Australian nation itself. Most…
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Anzac’s unauthorised biography reviewed
‘The unauthorised biography of a legend’, Honest History, 15 September 2014 Frank Bongiorno reviews Carolyn Holbrook, Anzac, the Unauthorised Biography, NewSouth, Sydney, 2014. See also speeches by Stuart Macintyre and the author at the Melbourne launch of the book. _________________…
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Review note: more Great War miscellany
‘Review note: more Great War miscellany’, Honest History, 7 September 2014 This is a further round-up of recent (and recently discovered) writing on Anzac and World War I. Earlier ones are accessible here. We are trying to do no more…
Atkins, Jon: Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign
Atkins, Jon ‘Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign: its genesis and objectives’, Honest History, 1 September 2014 This article describes one example of community activity which is questioning the received, official view of Anzac, as set out in, for example, the Australian…
Wellings, Ben: Commemoration Britain and Australia
Wellings, Ben ‘Great War commemoration in Australia and Britain’, Honest History, 1 September 2014 In Britain they are commemorating the centenary of the First World War. I know this because it says so on my commemorative key chain that I…
World Socialist multiple authors: Australia’s Anzac Day
World Socialist multiple authors ‘Australia’s Anzac Day – the gap between official rhetoric and popular sentiments‘, World Socialist Web Site, 26 April 2014 Describes Anzac Day as traditionally ‘an official occasion for the promotion of militarism’. This year there has…
Parkes, Robert J. & Heather Sharp: Gallipoli in school textbooks
Parkes, Robert J. & Heather Sharp ‘Nietzchean perspectives on representations of national history in Australian school textbooks: what should we do with Gallipoli?‘ Ensayos: Revista de la Facultad de Educación de Albacete [Spain], 29, 1, 2014, pp. 159-81 Summarises two…
Lest we abuse their memory
‘Lest we abuse their memory’, Honest History, 7 August 2014 Richard Thwaites* reviews Shanti Sumartojo and Ben Wellings, ed., Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration: Mobilizing the Past in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Peter Lang, Bern, 2014 The powerful…
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PM Abbott joins the roll of Anzac PMs
The Prime Minister gave a speech to Legacy. Much of the publicity was about his proposal for an Arlington-style national cemetery in Canberra ‘in which significant ex-soldiers could be interred’. What this might mean was left for later consideration, particularly…
The small print on Veterans’ Affairs
Administrative history throws up interesting stories. Here’s one. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs has been involved in commemorations since 1990, implementing such notable enterprises as Australia Remembers in 1995, Saluting their Service after that, and now the Anzac Centenary Local…
General Morrison at the UN
Some time before the Chief of Army fixed the camera with a steely gaze to condemn misogyny in the Australian Army he gave a speech at the United Nations in New York. The occasion was International Women’s Day and the…
Paul Keating on Jack Lang on World War 1
Marilyn Lake’s essay ‘Fractured nation‘ brings to mind a remark made by the former Premier of New South Wales, JT Lang, to a young Paul Keating, later Prime Minister. Lang was around during the buoyant days of Australian nationalism, the…
Anzackery – not new
Researching the history of the term ‘Anzackery’, we came across this, published in 1967: Australians must be in many respects among the least nationalistic people in the world and, on the surface anyway, most sceptical of patriotic gestures. It is…
Anzac spirit in Bali?
The release of Schapelle Corby led Paola Totaro in The Guardian Australia to reprise public attitudes to Corby’s case. She noted one journalist’s view from 2005 that Australians ‘seemed to “fancy they see something of the Gallipoli spirit in Corby”,…
Universal solder? Universal birthing myth?
‘In those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation.’ These words were not said by an Australian or British observer at Gallipoli but by Brigadier-General AE Ross from Canada, recalling just after the war his feelings at the…
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Fires breaking out
Fire is a particularly powerful theme in Australian history. Paul Collins wrote in Burn: the Epic Story of Bushfire in Australia, about how Australians have been shaped by fire. Keith Hancock and Bill Gammage have written about fire in aboriginal…
Wellings, Ben & Shanti Sumartojo, ed.: Nation, memory and Great War commemoration
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…
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Review note: August guns
‘Review note: August guns’, Honest History, 8 August 2014 In the week that marked the centenary of the beginning of the Great War (as well as the 70th anniversary of the Cowra Breakout and the 69th anniversary of Hiroshima) it…
Senghor, Leopold Sedar: Senegalese sharpshooters
Senghor, Leopold Sedar ‘To Senegalese sharpshooters who died for France‘, No Glory in War 1914-1918 Senghor, one of Africa’s most noted poets and statesmen, wrote this poem in 1938-40. It is included here for three reasons: to remind us that…
Smith, Tony: Dubious celebrations
Smith, Tony ‘Dubious celebrations of war‘, Pearls and Irritations, 25 July 2014 Makes some important points on television programs about war which seek ‘sentimental responses in admiration of those who enlisted’, the wariness felt by war doubters once war is…
Mackie, Chris: Gallipoli beautiful city
Mackie, Chris ‘Long read: Gallipoli, the beautiful city‘, The Conversation, 1 August 2014 A detailed analysis of the classical aspects of the Anzac story, relevant partly because the war historian, CEW Bean, and many of his contemporaries had received a…
Labour and the Great War reviewed
‘Labour and the Great War from a dozen perspectives’, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Ernst Willheim* reviews Frank Bongiorno, Raelene Frances and Bruce Scates, ed., Labour and the Great War: The Australian Working Class and the Making of Anzac, Australian…
Bongiorno, Frank, et al, ed.: Labour and the Great War
Bongiorno, Frank, Rae Frances & Bruce Scates, ed., Labour and the Great War: The Australian Working Class and the Making of Anzac, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Special edition, Labour History, 106, May 2014 Examines the awkward…
Gillard, Julia: Anzac Day 2013
Gillard, Julia Anzac Day address, Morning Service, Townsville, 25 April 2013 So often, war means saying goodbye. This city of Townsville understands that truth so well. No one better exemplifies the ANZAC story of duty and sacrifice than the uniformed…
Review note: Great War miscellany
‘Review note: Great War miscellany’, Honest History, 18 July 2014 This is our third roundup of the embarrassment of riches coming to our attention in the World War I centenary period. It is a bit broader in sweep than our…
Arango, Tim: Gallipoli and national identities
Arango, Tim ‘At Gallipoli, a campaign that laid ground for national identities‘, New York Times, 26 June 2014 An American views the Gallipoli legacy from both Turkish and Australian perspectives. He interviews Rupert Murdoch on the role of his father,…
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Anzac Day Reflections
Reflections on an Anzac Day service Doug Hynd* The first Anzac Day of the millennium saw me make the substantial sacrifice of the several hours sleep required if I was to get up in time for the Dawn Service in…
Committed realist about our war obsession
The Governor of Tasmania, Peter Underwood, has died unexpectedly following surgery. He was 76. Apart from being a distinguished Governor and formerly Chief Justice he made memorable speeches calling for a realistic approach to the commemoration of war, particularly because…
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Stephens, David & Steve Flora: Simpson Prize
Stephens, David & Steve Flora ‘The Simpson Prize: history or civics?’ Honest History, 8 July 2014 and updated There is a link below to a pdf of the article. In summary, the article analyses a number of aspects of the…
Bongiorno, Frank: Labour and Anzac
Bongiorno, Frank ‘Labour and Anzac: historical reflections: Honest History lecture, Manning Clark House, Canberra, 15 June 2014’, Honest History, 8 July 2014 Associate Professor Bongiorno spoke to help launch his co-edited book (Labour and the Great War) on the same…
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McQueen, Humphrey: Anzac: a class struggle
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Anzac: a class struggle’, Honest History, 3 July 2014 ‘History wars’ are about how to control the future. They are not disputes over the past. Stories about the past are pressed into service to buttress the needs of…
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Moses, John A. & Davis, George F.: Anzac Day origins
Moses, John A. & George F. Davis Anzac Day Origins: Canon DJ Garland and Trans-Tasman Commemoration, Barton Books, Barton, ACT, 2013 Examines the origins of Anzac Day via a study of Garland, who ‘became known as the “architect” of ANZAC…
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Oliver, Bobbie & Sue Summers, ed.: marginalised remembrance
Oliver, Bobbie & Sue Summers, ed. Lest We Forget? Marginalised Aspects of Australia at War and Peace, Black Swan Press, Curtin University, Perth, WA, 2014 The book asks what is being remembered and what is being forgotten within our war…
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Sheedy, Chris & Steve Offner: Anzac myth busting
Sheedy, Chris & Steve Offner ‘Cover story – busting the Anzac myth‘, Uniken (University of New South Wales), 12 June 2014 Reports remarks at a conference from Jeffrey Grey, Craig Stockings and Peter Stanley, all of UNSW/ADFA on the blowing…
Bowers, Mike: Battlefields photographs
Bowers, Mike Battlefields of France and Palestine: a portfolio of photographs, 2009 and 2011 Maltzkorn Farm crucifix near Trones Wood, The Somme, France. Maltzkorn Farm was destroyed by the fierce battles which took place here 1 July-5 August 1916…
Daley, Paul & Mike Bowers: Battlefields
Daley, Paul (with illustrations by Mike Bowers) ‘Battlefields’, Honest History, 12 June 2014 Battlefields of France and Palestine, 2009 and 2011: a portfolio of photographs by Mike Bowers Paul Daley, columnist for the Guardian Australia, has written a number of…
Stanley, Peter: Patriotic teachers?
Stanley, Peter Do teachers have ‘patriotic’ obligations? Address to ACT-NSW History Teachers’ Associations conference, University of Canberra, 9 May 2014 Good morning and thank you for your kind invitation to speak to you today; and in greeting you I acknowledge…
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Frenette, Yves: Conscripting Canada’s past
Frenette, Yves ‘Conscripting Canada’s past: the Harper Government and the politics of memory’, Canadian Journal of History, 49, Spring-Summer, 2014, pp. 49-65 The author argues that the conservative Canadian government is reconstructing Canada’s past to serve a broader project of…
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Review note: more Anzac miscellany 2014
‘Review note: more Anzac miscellany 2014’, Honest History, 24 May 2014 Honest History’s David Stephens has an article on Australian Independent Media Network, ‘Five arguments for downsizing Anzac‘, which reworks his speeches at the Canberra Peace Convergence and at a…
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Gardiner, Eric: Headless pines (war Penguins)
Gardiner, Eric ‘Headless pines‘, Meanjin, 73, 2, June 2014 Review by a Meanjin intern of the ‘War Popular Penguins‘ (Patsy Adam-Smith, The Anzacs; Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel; George Walter, The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry; Frederic Manning, The Middle Parts of…
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Ball, Martin: Pro patria mori
Ball, Martin ‘Pro patria mori’, Meanjin, 63, 3, Spring 2004, pp. 3-12 Often in times of war, art and literature can become part of a number of forces that legitimate or sugar-coat warfare. In this essay, the author discusses first…
Wadham, Ben: Camouflage and national identity
Wadham, Ben ‘Camouflage and national identity’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 Tropes of sacrifice, duty and honour that mark the birth of a nation are like camouflage that seeks to hide the truth from the viewer. But in this case,…
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Gilbertson, Ashleigh: Singapore Conference 2014
Gilbertson, Ashleigh ‘A different kind of imperial war: conference report: The British Empire and the Great War: Colonial Societies/Cultural Responses, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 19-22 February 2014’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 315 Gilbertson A different kind of imperial war…
Stanley, Peter: Anzac and our first war
Stanley, Peter ‘On Anzac Day, we remember the Great War but forget our first war‘, The Conversation, 25 April 2014 On Anzac Day, Australia remembers its war dead, with one tragic exception. Australia is apparently disinclined to acknowledge the fact or…
Stephens, David: ANZAC Day Anzackery
Stephens, David ‘ANZAC Day Anzackery‘, Independent Australia, 25 April 2014 Anzackery today is a form of patriotic mysticism trotted out by prime ministers and old military buffers. But why is it so popular? Well, it’s partly because it simplifies complex…
Jacobs, Genevieve: Anzac Day at Wallendbeen
Genevieve Jacobs ‘Anzac Day at Wallendbeen’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 Genevieve Jacobs gave the 2014 Anzac Day address at Wallendbeen, NSW (population 316). She is a presenter with ABC Local Radio, Canberra. 310 Jacobs Wallendbeen The speech questions high…
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Diamadis, Panayiotis: Gallipoli before and beyond Anzac
Diamadis, Panayiotis ‘Gallipoli before and beyond Anzac’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 311 Gallipoli Before and Beyond Anzac Parts I-II This article originally appeared in To Vema, September-October 2013. To Vema is Australia’s largest circulation bilingual Hellenic-English newspaper. The article…
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Review note: Anzac miscellany 2014
‘Review note: Anzac miscellany 2014’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 Anzac Day and the period surrounding it always produces reflective pieces, as well as colour supplements and, increasingly, promotional links to football games. In 2014, 99 years on, the number…
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ABC: Moral Compass on war and peace
ABC The Moral Compass, 27 April 2014 Geraldine Doogue talks with James Brown, author and former soldier, Leslie Cannold, ethicist, Ken Doolan, National President of the RSL, and Peter Stanley, social-military historian and President, Honest History, on issues to do…
Stephens, David: Parochial commemoration
Stephens, David ‘Parochial commemoration of war‘, Pearls and Irritations [John Menadue’s blog], 23 April 2014 Guest blog arguing that the Australian War Memorial narrowly defines its own legislation with the result that the Memorial ‘is missing many opportunities to expand…
Abbott, Tony: Anzac Day 2014
Tony Abbott Address to the Anzac Day national ceremony, Canberra, Friday, 25 April 2014 As someone who has never served in the armed forces, never faced a shot fired in anger, and never lost close family members in war, I…
Anzac, Bolt and Cater boost Honest History visits
Nick Cater in The Australian gave Anzac-questioning historians a serve and characterised Honest History (incorrectly) as their house organ. Cater’s commenters were reasonably evenly balanced. Andrew Bolt in the Herald-Sun and the Daily Telegraph quoted a slab of Mr Cater’s…
Rose, James: Who profits from the Anzac brand?
Rose, James ‘Who profits from the Anzac brand?‘ The Saturday Paper, 19 April 2014 The Anzac legend is being further elevated as the nation gathers itself for the start of a year-long commemoration to mark 100 years since the doomed…
Pyne, Christopher: Crucible of nationhood
Pyne, Christopher ‘Crucible of nationhood‘, Pyne Online (originally published Australian Financial Review, 24-27 April 2014) The author is the Coalition’s Minister for Education. We should … remember how through this forge of war our infant nation reached out and grasped…
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Burnside, Sarah: Alternatives to Anzac Day
Burnside, Sarah ‘What would alternatives to Anzac day look like?‘ Guardian Australia, 23 April 2014 Discusses an ‘alternative national story’ derived from social democratic reforms prior to the Great War, which were interrupted by the destruction and disruption of the…
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Duffy, Conor: Anzac-themed cocktails
Duffy, Conor ‘Anzac-themed cocktails, plastic surgery shows sacred day is “for sale”, says veteran‘, ABC News, 24 April 2014 ABC report on wide range of uses of the Anzac ‘brand’ with reactions from RSL, commentators and commercial interests. Transcript.
Poole, RJ: Anzac speech Lismore 2014
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…
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Stephens, David: Remembering and Healing in Lismore
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…
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Stephens, David: Commemorating the survivors
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…
Bongiorno, Frank: CS Ryan Gallipoli photographs
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…
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Simpson, Catherine: Turkey, Gallipoli, film, nationalism
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…
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Serle, Geoffrey: Digger tradition
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…
Stanley, Peter: Lost Boys of Anzac
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…
Serle, Geoffrey: Austerica
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…
Daley, Paul: Australia’s forgotten soldiers
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…
Morrison, David: Welcome home parade
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…
Watson, Don: Over the top
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…
Abbott, Tony: Darwin welcome home
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,…
Marks, Kathy: Keneally and Gallipoli
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…
Garbutt, Rob: Social inclusion
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…
Wadham, Ben: Militarisation and hate
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…
Brown, James: Anzac’s Long Shadow
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…
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Powell, Damian X.: Remembrance Day
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…
Blaxland, John: Australian flag
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.…
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Hughes Henry, Adam: Nationalism, politics, history and war
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…
O’Lincoln, Tom: Kokoda and Anzac
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…
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Stanley, Peter: Anzac’s Long Shadow highlights a national obsession
Stanley, Peter Honest History’s President, Professor Peter Stanley, reviews and reflects on James Brown’s new book, Anzac’s Long Shadow. James Brown, Anzac’s Long Shadow: The Cost of Our National Obsession, Black Inc, Melbourne, 2014, $19.99; also available electronically James Brown,…
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Stanley, Peter: Anzac’s Long Shadow highlights a national obsession
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…
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Piggott, Michael: Listening to ANZAC Voices
Michael Piggott (linking to an Appendix on commemorating the survivors which includes confronting images) In The Pyramid: The Kurt Wallander Stories (Vintage Books, 2000) Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell has his famous protagonist struggling to give a report. ‘It’s a…
Piggott, Michael: Listening to ANZAC Voices
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…
Stephens, David: Should we softpedal on Gallipoli?
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: Hugh White on Australians and war
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…
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Twomey, Christina: Trauma and Anzac reinvigoration
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…
Daley, Paul: Anzac, the Australian flag, and Cronulla race riots
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…
McQueen, Humphrey: Eureka Dinner 2013
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…
Williams, John F: Anzacs, media, Great War
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…
Jauncey considers Keating on Remembrance Day (19 November 2013)
Paul Keating’s Remembrance Day speech 2013 marked the twentieth anniversary of his Unknown Australian Soldier speech at the Australian War Memorial in 1993. The tomb and the surrounding area at the Memorial has now been refurbished to include explicit recognition…
Francis, Adrienne: All commemoration is political
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…
Cahill, Rowan: Khaki future?
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,…
Keating, Paul: Remembrance Day 2013
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…
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Hynd, Doug: Anzac Day reflections
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…
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Daley, Paul: Heart of Honest History
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…
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Tara tackles tomfoolery
Woroni, the student newspaper of the Australian National University, carries a trenchant critique by Tara Shenoy of the politicisation of war in general, and Anzac in particular, dated 31 October 2013. The article ‘The tomfoolery of Anzackery‘ quotes Honest History’s…
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Thomson, Alistair: Anzac memories
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,…
Beaumont, Joan: Broken Nation
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…
White, Hugh: Purpose of war
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…
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Daley, Paul: Sparing no expense on Anzackery
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.…
McMullin, Ross: Grand days of hope and glory
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…
Lake, Marilyn: Fractured nation
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…
Daley, Paul: Frontier war
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…
Honest History: Young people and the Anzac tradition today
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.…
Watters, Chris: Anzac, Vimy Ridge, Monash and the education of children
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…
Stanley, Peter: Gallipoli Club address
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?…
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Stephens, David: Tangled up in red, white and blue
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…
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Davison, Graeme: Narrating the nation
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…
Abbott, Tony: Legacy address 2013
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…
Stephens, Tony: View beyond the battlefield
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…
Meaney, Neville: Australian defence and foreign policy
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…
Schreuder, Derek & Stuart Ward, ed: Australia’s empire
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…
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Darian-Smith, Kate, Patricia Grimshaw & Stuart Macintyre, ed.: Britishness
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…
Cahill, Rowan: Alec Campbell
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…
Fractured nation
‘During World War 1 Australia lost its way. Its enmeshment in the European war fractured the nation’s soul.’ Marilyn Lake In the year 1913 Canberra was born as our national capital on the very eve – as we now know…