The Australian War Memorial has opened a permanent display on the Holocaust. (SBS report.) The exhibition, The Holocaust: Witnesses and Survivors, builds on the memories of 30 000 Holocaust survivors who made their homes in Australia after World War II.…
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The Divided Sunburnt Country series ‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (18): The Prime Minister is determined to carry on’, Honest History, 26 November 2016 The referendum (plebiscite) had been held on 28 October. Prime Minister Hughes was the guest of…
Braithwaite, Richard Wallace Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Only six escapees survived the Sandakan death marches of 1945 in North Borneo, the worst atrocity ever inflicted on Australian soldiers. 1787 Australian…
‘At war with the Braithwaites’, Honest History, 23 November 2016 Peter Stanley reviews Richard Wallace Braithwaite, Fighting Monsters: An Intimate History of the Sandakan Tragedy Around the end of the 1960s the twenty-year-old Richard Braithwaite, then a university student, wore…
Shield, John* ‘Top End Anzackery: an illustrated review note (featuring a mouse who flies a Spitfire)’, Honest History, 22 November 2016 Re-enactment, 74th anniversary of Darwin bombings, 2016 (Defence department) In 2012, the 70th Anniversary of the Bombing of Darwin…
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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…
‘The Conscription Conflict and the Great War’ (review of Archer, Damousi, et al), Honest History, 16 November 2016 Derek Abbott* reviews The Conscription Conflict and the Great War, edited by Robin Archer, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot and Sean Scalmer. See…
Archer, Robin, Joy Damousi, Murray Goot & Sean Scalmer, ed. The Conscription Conflict and the Great War, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2016 Collection with articles by the editors, Douglas Newton, Frank Bongiorno, John Connor and Ross McKibbin. While the Great…
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,…
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Reid, Richard ‘“That famous army of generous men”: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day‘, Honest History, 11 November 2016 An extended article about six men who fought in the Great War and the reflections their stories provoked in the…
Stephens, David ‘When a motley crew of Canberra stirrers protected the War Memorial from competition‘, Honest History, 11 November 2016 Tells the story of the Lake War Memorials Forum, a group which fought for two years to prevent the building…
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‘” The Call to the People of Australia”, Remembrance Day, 1951: highlights reel’, Honest History, 11 November 2016 This Remembrance Day is the 65th anniversary of one of the stranger documents of early post-war Australia. Titled ‘The Call to the…
Stanley, Peter ‘AWM sixtieth anniversary: the Memorial and its people, 11 November 2001‘, Australian War Memorial Today, Peter Stanley is Associate Director of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales Canberra, as well…
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The Australian War Memorial was opened 75 years ago today. The Australian War Memorial at Canberra, symbol of a young nation’s courage and sacrifice, was officially opened yesterday [began the report in the Canberra Times]. The impressive service of tribute…
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David Stephens ‘When a motley crew of Canberra stirrers protected the War Memorial from competition’, Honest History, 11 November 2016 updated Twelve years ago, some Canberra citizens conceived the idea of building in the city new war memorials, one for…
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Rationale Critiquing the Anzac-centred received view of Australian history necessarily involves forensic examination of the work of our premier commemorative institution, the Australian War Memorial. The Memorial – rather surprisingly, in view of its interest in warlike matters – has…
Richard Reid* ‘”That famous army of generous men”: some stories and reflections for Remembrance Day’, Honest History, 11 November 2016 In early November 1993 I stood at 8.00 am in the misty cold of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Adelaide…
The Divided Sunburnt Country series Note: No. 16 in the series was updated on 7 November to include a short speech by Michael McKernan on the impact of conscription in Jugiong, NSW, and a paper by Frank Bongiorno on why…
The Divided Sunburnt Country series ‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (16): Conscription miscellany – and mainstream avoidance’, Honest History, 4 November 2016 updated Update 16 November 2016: review of Archer, et al, ed., The Conscription Conflict and the Great War.…
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‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (15): Final thunderous appeals, pro and con, on the eve of the conscription plebiscite 100 years ago’, Honest History, 27 October 2016 The Divided Sunburnt Country series Pro Prime Minister Hughes’s final appeal appeared in…
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The Promise is a new movie about the Armenian Genocide. Directed by Terry George, starring Oscar Isaac, Christian Bale and Charlotte Le Bon, it has been expensive to produce and is now facing distribution issues in the United States, partly…
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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‘, Honest History, 20 October 2016 This article continues our analysis of ten of Dr Nelson’s speeches from…
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…
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (14): No conscription! Facts for doubting boneheads’, Honest History, 16 October 2016 The Divided Sunburnt Country series Here are some extracts from a piece in Direct Action for 14 October 1916 (just two weeks before…
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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…
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…
‘Honest History highlights reel: Nick Dyrenfurth’s Mateship: A Very Australian History’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 updated Update 22 October 2021: A survey on mateship throws up some interesting results. *** Nick Dyrenfurth’s book Mateship: A Very Australian History, was…
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (13): DVA materials help children today debate conscription then’, Honest History, 11 October 2016 updated Update 21 October 2016: Queensland Government Anzac Centenary website has a useful summary on conscription in 1916. The Divided Sunburnt…
Quite early in the Honest History project we realised that it was important to review movies and television series that came within our areas of interest. (We even explained why we were doing it.) Practically (due to resource limitations), this…
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (12): The conscription battle hots up – 100 years ago’, Honest History, 30 September 2016 The Divided Sunburnt Country series Our intrepid researcher, Steve Flora, has worked his way through the National Library’s excellent Trove…
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Dando-Collins, Stephen The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill, Penguin Random House, Melbourne & Sydney, 2016 In The Hero Maker, award-winning historical author and biographer Stephen Dando-Collins exposes the contradictions of one of Australia’s most successful, but troubled, writers.…
‘Paul Brickhill: chronicler of bombers, busters and a great escape’ (review of Dando-Collins biography), Honest History, 22 September 2016 John Myrtle* reviews The Hero Maker: A Biography of Paul Brickhill by Stephen Dando-Collins In the 1950s Australian-born Paul Brickhill wrote…
Catharina Koopman* ‘Campo 78 – the WWII Aussie camp in Abruzzo‘, Dante Alighieri Society, Canberra, 29 June 2016 updated A review of the bilingual book, Campo 78: The Aussie Camp, by Gabriella Di Mattia (Accademia degli Agghiacciati, Sulmona, Italy, 2015).…
Woods, Martin Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War, National Library of Australia Publishing, Canberra, 2016 A selection of maps from the National Library’s collection along with detailed explanatory text. The war produced more maps than any…
‘Fighting against the tide?’ (review of Martin Woods on World War I maps), Honest History, 15 September 2016 Peter Stanley reviews Martin Woods, Where are Our Boys? How Newsmaps Won the Great War The National Library of Australia, uniquely now…
Broinowski, Alison ‘Review note: What was all that about? Abe Forsythe’s Down Under’, Honest History, 12 September 2016 A longer version of this article, taking up more general issues to do with Afghanistan, is here on Pearls and Irritations. A…
Stephens, David ‘We go to Rio: questioning received war history’, Teaching History (History Teachers’ Association of New South Wales), 50, 3, September 2016, pp. 4-6 Pdf accessible here made available by courtesy of HTANSW, which holds copyright. Anzac may be…
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (11): The Case for Universal Service‘, Honest History, 8 September 2016 The Divided Sunburnt Country series When Prime Minister WM Hughes announced the first conscription referendum there was already plenty of literature in circulation…
Turnbull, Noel ‘Leadership in the face of Anzackery’, Noel Turnbull (blog) 29 August 2016 Another to add to our series ‘Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context‘. The author has been a journalist, academic, public relations consultant, and…
Diamadis, Panayiotis ‘Friendships are based on truths: looking again at the crime of crimes’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 Analysis of recent press articles on the genocides of the indigenous Hellenes, Armenians and Assyrians of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Two…
Panayiotis Diamadis ‘Friendships are based on truths: looking again at the crime of crimes’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 In recent weeks, there have been three major pieces published in The Australian and the Daily Telegraph (Sydney) on the genocides…
‘“These young giants from the furthest corner of the earth”: Lord Northcliffe (egged on by Keith Murdoch) talks up the Anzacs after Pozières: Honest History document’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 The document below is taken from The Sun (Sydney)…
Honest History has tracked the ‘Defining Moments’ project at the National Museum of Australia pretty much since it began. The project was an expression of the NMA’s claim to be ‘Where our stories live’ – ‘stories’ plural – which we…
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (10): Prime Minister Hughes announces the first conscription referendum, 100 years ago today’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series Just after 3.53 pm on Wednesday, 30 August 1916, on a cold…
Australia’s Vietnam War had many facets, some of which we explored in our recent Honest History series. One of these facets, local Australian opposition to the war and to conscription, gets some coverage in the galleries at the Australian War…
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Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series Willy Bach ‘A “kick in the guts”? A final look at Long Tan’, Honest History, 30 August 2016 I am happy to say there were others who…
Butler, Richard ‘Nuclear disarmament – Australia’s profound and cynical failure‘, Pearls and Irritations, 23 August 2016 updated The author looks at Australia’s distinguished history in nuclear disarmament negotiations, before commenting on the recent decision by Australia to insist that there…
John Moses ‘The fallacy of Presentism in Australian history‘, Honest History, 23 August 2016 The paper seeks to illustrate that historiography can be misused for promoting political agendas. It uses examples from Marxism-Leninism, particularly in the then East Germany and…
ABC Local Radio ‘Liz Tynan on the secret history of Maralinga‘, Conversations with Richard Fidler, 9 August 2016 The ABC (actually Sarah Kanowski) talked to science journalist Elizabeth Tynan (49 minutes) about her book on the British nuclear tests at…
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series On 31 July 1916, Prime Minister WM Hughes returned to Australia (Fremantle) after six months in Britain and Europe, where he had raised Australia’s profile in Allied war councils. He spoke at the Melbourne Town…
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series ________________________________ Viet Thanh Nguyen Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2016 This is the final post in our series…
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series ________________________ This week’s commemoration of Australia’s Vietnam War (hanging off the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan) underlines that history is made by those who…
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Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series _______________________________ David Stephens ‘We need to talk about how we commemorate our wars in other people’s countries – and our own’, Honest History, 18 August 2016 updated…
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series Richard Broinowski ‘The Battle of Long Tan turns fifty – but not without a hitch’, Honest History, 18 August 2016 updated An article by Mark Schliebs in…
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series _____________________________ Parades, recognition and misremembering Part of the narrative of Australia’s Vietnam War in the more than 40 years since our commitment ended has been that Australian…
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series Victoria Haskins writes in her Anzac Her Story blog about Jennie Scott Griffiths, born in Texas in 1875, mother of ten children, newspaper editor, and anti-war campaigner in World War I Australia and just after…
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series Honest History has published a number of posts on the effects of Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by United States forces during the Vietnam War.…
‘Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: an Honest History series’, Honest History, 15 August 2016 updated UPDATE 11.45 am FRIDAY: Still difficulties with access. UPDATE 6.00 AM THURSDAY: Restricted access to be allowed. STOP PRESS: Cancellation of…
Australia’s Vietnam War – and keeping it in context: others in the series This post shows the Vietnam War from the other side, with pictures (curated by Alex Q. Arbuckle for Mashable) by Vietnamese photographers of civilians, militia and…
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…
Update 31 August 2016: an article on The Millions website commemorating the 70th anniversary of the publication in The New Yorker of John Hersey’s long article Hiroshima. The anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings tends to creep up on…
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series Michael Hamel-Green wrote in Green Left Weekly earlier this year an article called ‘When Australia voted no to war: the 1916-17 conscription referenda‘. The article is a useful brief introduction to the conscription struggle, an…
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Between the centenary of Fromelles and Pozières it seems appropriate to re-run a small collection Honest History put together late in 2014 on the physical effects of war on the men and women who fight it. The collection was provoked…
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.…
Stanley, Peter ‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18 (6): “I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier”: pacifists’, Honest History, 19 July 2016 This is an extract from Chapter 23 of John Connor, Peter Stanley & Peter Yule, The War…
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In the wake of the Chilcot report and recognising its relevance for Australia, we are re-running a perspicacious October 2013 piece from Alison Broinowski (vice president of both Honest History and Australians for War Powers Reform). Called ‘The streaker’s defence:…
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…
Sherratt, Tim ‘Investigating the Hansard black hole‘, Tim Sherratt: Research Notebook, 29 May, 10 July 2016 Not about the Budget black hole this time but about deficiencies in the ParlInfo search engine which countless people have used for research in…
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series This series focuses on the home front and asks whether issues at home were actually the big stories of the Great War, especially of the years 1916-18. We have seen already how national issues like…
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After seven years, Sir John Chilcot has reported on how the United Kingdom found itself in Iraq in 2003 and what it all meant. Chilcot’s report considers the actions and words of British Prime Minister Blair, United States President George…
Broinowski, Alison ‘What are we willing to fight for?‘, Independent Australia, 3 July 2016 Honest History Vice President, Alison Broinowski, reviews Firing Line: Australia’s Path to War Quarterly Essay 62 by James Brown (Anzac’s Long Shadow) and expands upon the…
Sharpe, Matthew ‘Friday Essay: The Battle of the Somme and the death of martial glory‘, The Conversation, 1 July 2016 Commemorating the death today 100 years ago of over 19 000 British soldiers in a stupid venture. The generals learnt…
Öztürk, Özgür ‘Gallipoli campaign: a symbolic battleground‘, Geliboluyuanlamak (Understanding Gallipoli), 24 June 2016 This is an essay from a Turkish MA student on the blog of Dr Tuncay Yilmazer, a Turkish specialist in the Ottoman Empire and the Great War.…
‘Online Gem No. 10: Official histories of Australia at war’, Honest History, 29 June 2016 Over the past century Australian governments have commissioned six separate series of official war histories, one for each of the major conflicts in which Australia…
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‘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…
The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series One hundred years ago this month, as Anzac troops settled in on the Western Front – 600 had been killed by the end of June, enlistments in the AIF dropped to their lowest monthly total…
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Brayley, Annabelle Our Vietnam Nurses, Penguin, Sydney, 2016 When Australia joined the Vietnam War, civilian and military nurses were there to save lives and comfort the wounded. With spirit and good humour, they worked hard and held strong, even though…
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‘Our Vietnam nurses’ stories should have been told before this’ (review of Brayley), Honest History, 15 June 2016 Pamela Burton reviews Annabelle Brayley’s Our Vietnam Nurses. It is refreshing to read stories of heroism by those who travel to war…
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James Brown’s Quarterly Essay, Firing Line: Australia’s Path to War, is launching during June and July in Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney. Dates from 16 June and bookings are required in all venues. Details. James Brown investigates Australia at war.…
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The ABC has a story today that some RSL members who heard the prime minister’s speech to the RSL National Conference were upset that he mentioned the work of veterans’ organisation, Soldier On. A reading of the PM’s speech shows…
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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…
Dow, Aisha ‘Thousands face mental scars from modern war service‘, The Age, 5 June 2016 Like the generations before them, many of today’s returned soldiers are facing enormous challenges adapting back to everyday life. Forty-one Australians serving in the Australian…
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‘Review note: a quick skim through some subscription journals’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 updated Update 18 June 2016: Nicholas Farrelly and James Giggacher write in the Canberra Times about the history of their highly successful academic blog, New Mandala,…
Cashen, Phil ‘Ireland, Empire and Irish-Australians‘, Shire at War, 4 June 2016 Microcosm in Yarram, Gippsland, Victoria, of tensions playing out across Australia. The article briefly outlines the movement towards Irish Home Rule, which stalled with the outbreak of war…
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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…
‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18: a new series from Honest History’, Honest History, 7 June 2016 updated Dorothea Mackellar in theatrical costume, 1918 (Wikimedia Commons/SLNSW) In 1904, Dorothea Mackellar, then aged 19, wrote her poem ‘My country’, which included…
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The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series ___________________ By 1916 trade unions were pretty well established in Australia and so, for that matter, were people whose families came from Ireland. Catholics from Ireland probably tended to support the labour side in politics…
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Hill, Anthony For Love of Country, Penguin Viking, Melbourne, 2016 At the close of the First World War, and after surviving a gas attack on the Western Front, Captain Walter Eddison moved his family from war-ravaged Britain to start a…
‘For love of country in war and peace’ (review of Anthony Hill), Honest History, 7 June 2016 Gentle Reader reviews Anthony Hill’s For Love of Country. This book is described on the cover as ‘a true Australian family story of…
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…
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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…
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The ‘Divided sunburnt country’ series ________________ In 1915 Australians took part in a special census, called the War Census, ostensibly to help organise the country’s resources for total war but effectively to prepare for the introduction of conscription for war…
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Wolf, Charlie & Athol Bittley ‘AFL club songs ranked by ambition and boastfulness‘, Thermocow, 27 May 2016 Now that we’ve got your attention … This article on a comedy blog is just a bit of fun but go beyond the…
This post is by way of being a ‘soft launch’ for a new Honest History series. We are using the series to explore a crucial question: whether what happened at home in Australia during the Great War was actually more…
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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…
Vicken Babkenian & Peter Stanley Armenia, Australia and the Great War, NewSouth, Sydney, 2016; available electronically Australian civilians worked for decades supporting the survivors and orphans of the Armenian Genocide. 24 April 1915 marks the beginning of two great epics of…
Babkenian, Vicken & Peter Stanley ‘”Armenian propaganda uses the ANZAC [sic]”: A response’, Honest History, 19 May 2016 The Australian Turkish Advocacy Alliance (ATA-A) website has published a review of Armenia, Australia and the Great War, by Vicken Babkenian and…
‘Who speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’ (review of Babkenian and Stanley), Honest History, 19 May 2016 Gareth Knapman reviews Armenia, Australia and the Great War by Vicken Babkenian and Peter Stanley ‘Who, after all, speaks today of…
Newton, Douglas ‘The Centenary of the Great War – and Anzac‘, Pearls and Irritations, 7 May 2016 This overview article links to four others on changing war aims during the Great War and lost opportunities for peace 1914-18. As well…
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‘Douglas Newton confronts the really important questions about war’, Honest History, 16 May 2016 David Stephens reviews five articles by Douglas Newton that take us ‘behind the scenes’ in the Great War. The piece also appears in John Menadue’s blog,…
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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…
ABC Radio National ‘Shell shock: a century of silence‘, Big Ideas, 25 April 2016 The affects and significance of shell shock have been underplayed for a century, according to Yale emeritus professor, Jay Winter. (Professor Winter is also associated with…
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There was an interesting presentation at UNSW Canberra yesterday from Professor Oliver Janz of the Free University of Berlin. It brought out some differences between the way World War I is being commemorated in Germany, France and the United Kingdom.…
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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…
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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…
‘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…
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‘Across the sea to Ireland: Australians and the Easter Rising 1916 – highlights reel’, Honest History, 26 April 2016 updated Update 22 February 2017: Stephanie James paper for UNSW Canberra: ‘Australian Political Perceptions of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin’.…
‘Review note: Vietnam – the war that made us what?’ Honest History, 26 April 2016 SBS showed a three-part series on the Vietnam War, Vietnam: The War that Made Australia (now on video), which had an unusually narrow focus and…
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…
Gilpin Faust, Drew ‘Two wars and the long twentieth century‘, New Yorker, 13 March 2015 Honest History just found this one but it is a useful comparison of the American Civil War and the Great War in terms of the…
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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…
‘101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide: another April date that today’s Australians overlook’, Honest History, 6 April 2016 updated Update 23 April 2019: a new book by Israeli historians, Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi, The Thirty-Year Genocide, is reviewed by…
‘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’…
‘Five Inside Stories and four Conversations: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 22 March 2016 updated Recent update on the Reef 20 April 2016: ABC report on the extent of bleaching, including map, showing particularly the extreme position in the northern…
Penny Edwell* ‘Review note: First World War Commemoration and Memory Conference, IWM North’, Honest History, 17 March 2016 Organised by the Imperial War Museum North Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers Network (FWW Network), the First World War: Commemoration and Memory…
Bird, Jacqueline* ‘In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 15 March 2016 A detailed account of more than twenty years of history, leading up to the agreement by the Australian War Memorial…
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…
Jacqueline Bird ‘In the matter of Agent Orange: Vietnam veterans versus the Australian War Memorial’, Honest History, 15 March 2016 * CONTENTS Opening comments Initial reaction to FB Smith’s work The 2008 trigger at the War Memorial The case against…
‘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…
Two events in the last week juxtaposed enlightened commemorative rhetoric and complaints about bureaucracy. The rhetoric came from the prime minister on 26 February, opening the new Soldier On Robert Poate Reintegration and Recovery Centre in Canberra. It is critical…
Fathi, Romain ‘”A piece of Australia in France”: Australian authorities and the commemoration of Anzac Day at Villers-Bretonneux in the last decade’, Shanti Sumartojo & Ben Wellings, ed. Nation, Memory and Great War Communication, Peter Lang, Bern & Oxford, 2014,…
With the release of the Defence White Paper today, we are reposting a paper that we first posted in November 2014. The paper asks the question, ‘Does arms spending lead to war?’ The summary of our paper is here and…
Daley, Paul ‘Our major cultural institutions are in crisis – and our history is being militarised‘, Guardian Australia, 22 February 2016 updated ‘What price do we put on a nation’s memory? And what should that memory recall?’ Analyses the current…
Update 10 March 2016: a new book by Brett Bowden on the bombing of Darwin. The new Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Dan Tehan MP, has issued his first media release. It marks the 74th anniversary today of the…
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Arbuckle, Alex Q. ‘1965-1975 another Vietnam: unseen images of the war from the winning side‘, Mashable, 5 February 2016 Next month, 8 March, is the 50th anniversary of the Australian government’s announcement that its commitment to the Vietnam War would…
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…
Smaal, Yorick Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015 Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939-45 explores the queer dynamics of war across the Australia and forward bases…
‘Sex, soldiers and the South Pacific (review of Smaal)’, Honest History, 8 February 2016 Diane Bell* reviews Yorick Smaal’s Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939-45: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War Note: The cover of the…
‘Review note: Stephens and Seal’s Remembering the Wars: Commemoration in Western Australian Communities‘, Honest History, 6 February 2016 Anyone who’s spent time in country Australia will have noticed the centrality of a war memorial to nearly every community. Recently, memorials…
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About 70 people attended this conference at ANU on 4-5 February, jointly run by the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at ANU and the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society at UNSW Canberra. Front-line conference wranglers…
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David Stephens ‘Singing country: the musical legacy of David Morrison, Australian of the Year – and a straw in the wind at the Australian War Memorial?’, Honest History, 2 February 2016 Before David Morrison became Australian of the Year he…
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…
Stephens, David ‘Singing country: the musical legacy of David Morrison, Australian of the Year – and a straw in the wind at the Australian War Memorial?’, Honest History, 2 February 2016 The article looks at the story behind the song…
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…
‘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 ‘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…
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Pilger, John ‘Australia’s day for secrets, flags and cowards‘, New Matilda, 23 January 2016 The original Australians are the oldest human presence. To the European invaders, they did not exist because their continent had been declared terra nullius: empty land. To…
Dean, Peter J. ‘Commemoration, memory, and forgotten histories: complexity and limitations of Australian army biography‘, War and Society, 29, 2, October 2010, pp. 118-36 Addresses the question ‘how far has biography been utilized in understanding the history of the Australian…
Connor, John, Peter Stanley & Peter Yule The War at Home: The Centenary History of Australia and the Great War Volume 4, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2015 The War at Home interprets the experience of the Australian people during the…
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[Note: this post was originally published in January 2016] Nick Walsh Kokoda Track, The author, 2nd edition, Melbourne 2012 This little book (70 pages, a dozen photographs, two clear maps) was written by a veteran who died recently aged 100…
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Peter FitzSimons Fromelles and Pozières: In the Trenches of Hell, Random House, Sydney, 2015; electronic version available On 19 July 1916, 7000 Australian soldiers – in the first major action of the AIF on the Western Front – attacked entrenched…
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‘The Fitzkrieg reaches Fromelles and Pozières’, Honest History, 11 January 2016 David Stephens reviews Peter FitzSimons’ Fromelles and Pozières: In the Trenches of Hell. This is a better book than this reviewer expected. He edited a trenchant but balanced review…
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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…
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…
‘Honest History Christmas miscellany 2015: lots to read and ponder’, Honest History, 20 December 2015 Christmas often brings a reckoning and it is the same in our compact little enterprise. We would have loved to have afforded some of the…
Rowan Cahill ‘Two poets (Denis Kevans and Henry Weston Pryce), war and a manuscript: a review essay’, Honest History, 17 December 2015 In the Special Collections of the Australian Defence Force Academy’s (ADFA) Academic Library is a manuscript by poet…
Appleby, Gabrielle ‘What say do our elected representatives have in going to war?‘ The Conversation, 10 December 2015 updated The authorisation of military force is one of the most serious and consequential powers that governments possess. This power should be…
Powell, Graeme with Stuart Macintyre Land of Opportunity: Australia’s Post-War Reconstruction, National Archives of Australia, Canberra, 2015 This is 336 pages (30 chapters) of guidance to the files of the National Archives of Australia on a crucial decade of Australia’s…
Vatsikopoulos, Helen ‘Australian Women War Reporters review: how female journalists made it to battle‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 December 2015 Reviews Jeannine Baker’s Australian Women War Reporters: Boer War to Vietnam. Australian women journalists might have been granted equal pay…
Vladiv-Glover, Slobodanka (Millicent), ed. ‘Writings from the Balkan Theatre of War by Miles Franklin (Extracted from the Archives of the Mitchell Library)’, Transcultural Studies: A Series in Interdisciplinary Research, Special Issue: The Serbs and Miles Franklin in World War I…
Diane Bell* ‘Miles Franklin and the Serbs still matter: a review essay’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 [Publication details of the work reviewed: Vladiv-Glover, Slobodanka. (Editor). (2014). ‘Writings from the Balkan Theatre of War by Miles Franklin (Extracted from the Archives…
‘Going to the Flicks, Brisbane, November 1915: highlights reel’, Honest History, 1 December 2015 Brisbane Courier 26 November 1915 26 November 1915 was a Friday and it was the final night of the ‘stirring military program’ at the Strand Theatre…
Eales, Robert ‘Morant, the expendable icon‘ (and other Boer War resources), Boer War Topics (website) Update 28 November 2020: Military historian Tom Richardson reviews Peter FitzSimons’ Morant book in Nine Newspapers and gives it a mixed report. ‘Still, for all…
Daley, Paul ‘“He should have died”: the Vietnam veteran who never really returned‘, Guardian Australia, 25 November 2015 Partly a review of historian Michael McKernan’s memoir (When this Thing Happened) about his brother-in-law, Joe Stawyskyj, a national servicemen, injured for…
Beaumont, Joan, Lachlan Grant & Aaron Pegram, ed. Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century, Melbourne University Press, Carlton Vic. 2015; available electronically Over the twentieth century 35,000 Australians suffered as prisoners of war in conflicts ranging…
‘Fitting POWs into our skewed Anzac legend’ (review of Beyond Surrender), Honest History, 25 November 2015 Kristen Alexander* reviews Beyond Surrender: Australian Prisoners of War in the Twentieth Century, edited by Joan Beaumont, Lachlan Grant and Aaron Pegram _____________________ As…
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…
White, Hugh ‘Principle of self-reliance more important now than it has ever been‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 November 2015 The article looks at the implications of the government announcement that the Defence White Paper will not now be released until…
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…
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‘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.…
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Nelson, Robert ‘We should honour those who refused to go to war‘, Age, 11 November 2015 The author considers who and what is worthy of remembrance, noting the recently published book World War One: a History in 100 Stories. The…
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Wellings, Ben ‘Only the conscription referendums made Australia’s Great War experience different‘, The Conversation, 10 November 2015 ‘Relegating the global and transnational dimensions and reiterating familiar – if erroneous – national narratives’, the author argues, ‘creates distortions in the image…
Hassan, Toni ‘The War Memorial: what’s it good for?‘ Age, 6 November 2015 Also in other Fairfax papers, this piece takes up themes common in Honest History: the Australian War Memorial shies away from recognising the Frontier Wars, it plays…
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‘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…
Online gem No. 3: Canberra’s 1940 air crash (13 October 2015 updated) On the morning of 13 August 1940 a Hudson A16-97 aircraft flying from Melbourne to Canberra crashed on the eastern approaches to Canberra’s airport. All ten people on…
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Update 25 October 2015: extract from Jeannine Baker’s Australian Women War Reporters: Boer War to Vietnam Update 26 September 2015: more from Nicholas Stuart and Gai Brodtmann MP. Update 25 September 2015: Helen Vatsikopoulos writes. A cheeky reflection from Mark…
Victoria, Brian ‘War remembrance in Japan’s Buddhist cemeteries, Part I: Kannon hears the cries of war‘, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 13, Issue 31, No. 3, August 3, 2015; ‘Part II: Transforming war criminals into Martyrs: “true words” on Mt.…
Stephens, David ‘Less twaddling by the lake: three art exhibitions in Canberra‘, Honest History, 16 September 2015 A review of Reality in flames at the Australian War Memorial, Heroes and villians: William Strutt’s Australia at the National Library of Australia…
David Stephens ‘Less twaddling by the lake: three art exhibitions in Canberra’, Honest History, 16 September 2015 The three exhibitions covered in this review offer a multi-hued picture of parts of our history. The first show, Reality in flames, has…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 2 June 1915 Our final insight into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915, 12 May 1915, 19 May 1915, 26 May 1915. Again, thanks to Vicken Babkenian for unearthing…
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Summers, Julie Fashion on the Ration: Style in the Second World War, Profile Books, London, 2015 From the young woman who avoided the dreaded ‘forces bloomers’ by making knickers from military-issue silk maps, to Vogue’s indomitable editor Audrey Withers, who…
Radojević, Mira & Ljubodrag Dimić Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918: a Short History, Srpska knjizevna zadruga (Serbian Literary Cooperative), Belgrade, 2nd edition, 2014 Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918 is a book of facts based on well-known sources and documents. Affirming…
Gluckstein, Donny, ed. Fighting on All Fronts: Popular Resistance in the Second World War, Bookmarks, London, 2015 Collection of ten articles and introduction. Fighting on All Fronts brings together ten writers to take up the story of popular resistance. The…
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…
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…
‘Finding a thing to wear during World War II’, Honest History, 1 September 2015 Janet Wilson* reviews Fashion on the Ration: Style in the Second World War by Julie Summers This book accompanied an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum…
‘Redressing historical inadequacies?’ Honest History, 1 September 2015 Derek Abbott* reviews Serbia in the Great War 1914-1918, by Mira Radojevic and Ljubodrag Dimic, and Fighting on All Fronts: Popular Resistance in the Second World War, edited by Donny Gluckstein. These…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 26 May 1915 More insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915, 12 May 1915, 19 May 1915. In this edition: [Translated from Ikdam:] While the English papers…
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Taylor, Alan ‘Syria’s children‘, The Atlantic, 27 August 2015 Contains 35 photographs of the effects of the war in Syria on children. It must be a question for countries contemplating involvement whether this will make things on the ground better…
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Australia. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade FOI disclosure log reference nos 15/25024 and others, Freedom of Information This material was disclosed under FOI to Vache Kahramanian on behalf of the Armenian National Committee of Australia. Reference number 15/25024 is…
Furst, David, Tomas Munita, Jodi Rudoren, Isabel Kershner, Jon Huang, Sergio Pecanha ‘Walking in war’s path‘, New York Times, 22 August 2015 We don’t normally feature the Gaza Strip on Honest History but this is an exceptional piece of reportage…
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Banivanua Mar, Tracey ‘Remember the Pacific’s people when we remember the war in the Pacific‘, The Conversation, 19 August 2015 Summarises the story of war in the Pacific from the point-of-view of the people who lived there and had to…
Broinowski, Alison ‘Borderless war or, when you get in a hole, stop digging‘, Pearls and Irritations, 15 August 2015 The United States has formally asked for Australian involvement in Syria. Honest History vice president had already posted this article on…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 19 May 1915 We continue these insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915, presenting a different, English-language, view of the Dardanelles campaign. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915, 12 May…
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‘Review note: Stuart Macintyre’s Australia’s Boldest Experiment‘, Honest History, 19 August 2015 updated World War I is far enough back for spruikers of a particular view of it to extract bits selectively from, say, the ambivalent Charles Bean and impress…
We presented these items in our e-Newsletter no. 28 earlier in the month on the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima-Nagasaki (and the 100th anniversary of Lone Pine). We wanted to run them through again. Also, given today’s 49th anniversary of Long…
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‘VP Day 70th anniversary: Honest History miscellany’, Honest History, 16 August 2015 Anniversary Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the surrender of Japan in 1945, commemorated as Victory in the Pacific Day. ABC News provided a comprehensive round-up. Geraldine Doogue…
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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.…
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Spurling, Tom & John Mark Webb ‘The Great War brought us tragedy but it also birthed Australian science‘, The Conversation, 13 August 2013 Shows how the war enabled Australia to embrace science and technology innovation in a national way. Traces…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 12 May 1915 We continue our presentation of these fascinating insights into expatriate missionary life in the Ottoman Empire of 1915. Previous editions: 28 April, 5 May 1915. Our colleague, Vicken Babkenian, who has sourced…
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Rollo, Stuart ‘In the most unlikely of places, anti-semitic tropes find new life‘, New Matilda, 11 August 2015 The author notes slogans ‘Victims of the Rothschilds’ on signs at the Light Horse Interchange, a war memorial road exchange at Eastern…
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Sparrow, Jeff ‘If black lives really matter in Australia, it’s time we owned up to our history’, Guardian Australia, 7 August 2015 Weaves together Adam Goodes, the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign in the United States, the treatment of Pacific Islander…
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‘Wilfred Burchett in Hiroshima: highlights reel’, Honest History, 9 August 2015 Today is the 70th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. By the end of 1945 up to 80 000 people in Nagasaki had died…
‘Hiroshima-Nagasaki and Lone Pine: miscellany’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 Battle of Lone Pine (Battle of Kanlı Sırt), 6-10 August 1915 Bombing of Hiroshima, 6 August 1945 Bombing of Nagasaki, 9 August 1945 (Images warning) Update 12 August 2015: a…
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Stephens, David ‘“And the children went”: Hands on History at the Australian War Memorial‘, Honest History, 4 August 2015 A description of a ‘Hands on History’ session for school children on holidays, leading in to an assessment of how the…
Heaton, Barbara Carol* ‘A history of unrest and turmoil: coal miners during World War II’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 An examination of coal mining in wartime, drawing heavily on resources collected by former mining official, Jim Comerford, and now…
David Stephens ‘”And the children went”: Hands on History at the Australian War Memorial in the school holidays’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 During the last school holidays, the Australian War Memorial ran some ‘Hands on History’ sessions for children.…
Barbara Carol Heaton* ‘A history of unrest and turmoil: coal miners during World War II’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 Controversy continues over the role of militant unions in Australia during World War II. While the sharpest focus has been…
‘The War Census of 1915: Honest History highlights reel (Part II)’, Honest History, 4 August 2015 War worries are added to by the census, which probes into the pockets and the soul of every citizen, asking him in plain print…
Ian Buckley ‘”Australia’s foreign wars: origins, costs, future?! and other essays”‘, Honest History, 4 August 2015 While we have categorised this as one post, it actually links to a trove of articles by this deep-thinking now 90-year-old. (The author made…
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We wanted to run these again, particularly a week ahead of the simultaneous (pretty much) anniversaries of Lone Pine and Hiroshima. The first two items put our war history in perspective; the third might look like an easy mark but…
These four quotes from our Whizzbangs collection suggest that, while the Bush may have made us, we’ve moved on to drier country. We ignite Whizzbangs in our monthly newsletters. Before. ‘It is easy enough to see why men went to the…
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Menadue, John ‘Militarisation, the new norm‘, Pearls and Irritations, 27 July 2015 Menadue, distinguished former senior public servant, writes on his blog about the increasing militarisation of Australia, through the creation of the Australian Border Force, military vice-regal appointments, warlike…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 5 May 2015 This is the complete edition for the date shown of an English language weekly newsletter published by the American missionaries in Constantinople. The issues from 1915 provide great insight from the ‘other side’…
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Ashley Kalagian Blunt ‘Life after genocide: legacies of a shattered culture‘, Griffith Review, July 2015 A Canadian-Armenian now living in Australia examines her heritage and touches on Australian connections as well. She notes how the Armenian genocide provided lessons for…
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Australian War Memorial Reality in Flames: Modern Australian Art & the Second World War Opened on 3 July 2015, this is ‘the first exhibition dedicated exclusively to exploring how Australian modernist artists responded creatively to the Second World War’. Modern…
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…
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‘ANZUS-China miscellany’, Honest History, 17 July 2015 Update 18 July 2015: Chinese Ambassador Ma attempts to reassure Australia about China’s benign intentions. _____________________________ Recently Honest History collected some material on China-Japan-Australia-US relations and ran it under the heading ‘Spratlyswatch’. While…
Broinowski, Alison ‘Toxic warfare: Agent Orange revisited‘, Honest History, 16 July 2015 The article comments on the decision by the Australian War Memorial Council to commission a further volume on the medical aspects of the Vietnam War. Also relevant are…
Alison Broinowski ‘Toxic warfare: revisiting Agent Orange’, Honest History, 16 July 2015 Soon after the Australian War Memorial announced that three new histories of the wars in East Timor, Afghanistan, and Iraq (to 2014) are to be written in the…
Bible House, Constantinople The Orient, 28 April 1915 An unusual post for Honest History but a fascinating one, this is the complete edition for the date shown of an English language weekly newsletter published by the American missionaries in Constantinople. The…
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Broinowski, Alison ‘Officially acceptable war history‘, Honest History, 11 July 2015 The article discusses the projected official histories of the Australian involvements in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq. Dr Broinowski is Vice President of Honest History and of Australians for…
Alison Broinowski ‘Officially acceptable war history’, Honest History, 11 July 2015 The government is soon to announce who will write the official history of Australia’s three latest military interventions in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs,…
Halloran, Neil ‘The fallen of World War II‘, Vimeo, 4 May 2015 Fifteen minute interactive video illustrating comparative deaths, military and civilian, by country. Comparisons with other wars. Should be compulsory viewing for Australians fixated on our national figures. David…
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Rasmussen, Sune Engel ‘All that remains: our questionable legacy in Afghanistan‘, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Good Weekend’, 4 July 2015 Article by a Kabul-based Danish journalist, which notes the growing strength of the Taliban since Australia left Oruzgan province. On the…
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Tooze, Adam The Deluge: the Great War and the Remaking of Global Order 1916-1931, Allen Lane, London, 2014; electronic version available; US edition has different title Adam Tooze’s panoramic new book tells a radical, new story of the struggle for…
Terzis, Gillian ‘Death trends: hashtag activism and the rise of online grief‘, Kill Your Darlings, July 2015 Our constant connection to the news and to the opinions of others means that grief can easily become a viral phenomenon … I…
‘Deluge: Great War and remaking global order’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 Adam Tooze’s book is reviewed by Derek Abbott* ________________ The causes of World War I are the source of seemingly endless debate. From Prussian military hubris or German…
Ian Buckley ‘A case history: Britain, Empire decline, and the origins of WW1, or, might the lessons of the Boer War have saved the day?‘ Honest History, 7 July 2015 Boer women and children in a British concentration camp during…
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Little, Daniel & Donkin, Chris ‘The numbers reveal the government didn’t play “god” with the Vietnam draft‘, The Conversation, 2 July 2015 Despite the claims of former conscript and former deputy prime minister, Tim Fischer, mathematical analysis suggests that the…
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‘The War Census of 1915: Honest History highlights reel (Part I)’, Honest History, 7 July 2015 Some historians and observers say that Gallipoli saw the birth of the Australian nation as men flocked to the colours. Others argue that the…
Update 13 August 2015: extracts in Pearls and Irritations John Menadue’s blog Pearls and Irritations reprints the chapters by Michael McKinley on ‘Alliance ideology, the myth of sacrifice and the national security culture‘ and the late Malcolm Fraser on ‘We…
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Kerkhove, Ray ‘Barriers and bastions: fortified frontiers and white and black tactics: paper presented at “Our shared history: resistance and reconciliation”, CQU seminar, Noosa, 11 June 2015‘, Honest History, 22 June 2015 Nineteenth century Australia had fortifications erected to protect…
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O’Brien, Patricia ‘The ANZACs in the Pacific – myths in Empire‘, Australian Outlook, 12 June 2015 Notes the 1914 actions by New Zealand in Samoa and Australia in New Guinea and how they developed into post-war colonialism. The end of…
‘Sheralyn Rose responds to Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 18 June 2015 Dr Sheralyn Rose, the wife of a Vietnam veteran, has responded to our highlights reel on Vietnam mythbusting. Rather than ask her to provide this material as…
‘Vietnam Veterans’ Federation responds to Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 12 June 2015 The Vietnam Veterans’ Federation through its national research officer, Graham Walker, has responded to our highlights reel on Vietnam mythbusting. Rather than ask Graham Walker to…
Dapin, Mark The Nashos’ War: Australia’s National Servicemen and Vietnam, Penguin Viking, Melbourne, 2014 [O]ur ideas of national service contain strange contradictions and inaccuracies: that the draft was unpopular but militarily necessary; that the nashos in Vietnam all volunteered to…
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…
‘Mythbusting about Australians returned from Vietnam: Honest History highlights reel’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 updated UPDATE 14 July 2015: further volume planned on medical aspects of Vietnam War service. Comment by Alison Broinowski. UPDATE 18 June 2015: Dr Sheralyn…
Raden Dunbar ‘”Jeune Barbarine”: sexual slavery and prostitution in Egypt circa 1914′, Honest History, 9 June 2015 This photograph, ‘Jeune Barbarine’, is of a Berber girl from the Barbary Coast of North Africa. It was made in Egypt shortly before…
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‘Review note: accessing three special editions’, Honest History, 9 June 2015 The title of this note is chosen deliberately: while, like any review, this one will do some assessing it is also concerned with accessing – with how the reader…
Ian Buckley ‘Learning from Adam Smith: help at hand today‘, Honest History, 9 June 2015 Buckley contests the view that Adam Smith argued ‘that unalloyed selfishness aimed solely at the maximisation of production, trade and profit is in the best…
‘War dances and real wars: Honest History First Peoples miscellany’, Honest History, 7 June 2015 Update 8 June 2015: Helen Davidson writes about Wayne Quilliam’s photographs of and interviews with the women of Indigenous Australia. Quilliam’s exhibition opens at UN…
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Edwards, Peter Australia and the Vietnam War, NewSouth and the Australian War Memorial, Sydney, 2014 The Vietnam War was Australia’s longest and most controversial military commitment of the twentieth century, ending in humiliation for the United States and its allies…
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‘, 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 …
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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…
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Ackland, Richard ‘Mass surveillance makes us servants of the state: that’s chilling‘, Guardian Australia, 26 May 2015 Text of the PEN Free Voices lecture at the Sydney Writers Festival, 24 May 2015. There were more than 50 comments. Censorship, control…
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…
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‘Their centenary country: Honest History First Peoples miscellany’, Honest History, 20 May 2015 and updated (Note: this article contains references to Indigenous people who have died.) Updates: More from Frank Brennan. A further article from Nolan Hunter on recognition. Roslyn…
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Broinowski, Alison, et al ‘Australians for War Powers Reform initiative‘, PerthIndyMedia, 11 May 2015 Alison Broinowski is with AWPR, is Honest History’s vice president and the co-editor of a book shortly to be published, How Does Australia Go to War?,…
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…
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…
Whizzbangs are Honest History’s miscellany of briefs from past and present, to stir up the entrenched and focus the mind. During April 2015 most of them had a war angle. Centenary. ‘Peace is not merely an absence of war. Peace…
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’40 years on, reflections on the fall of Saigon: Honest History list’, Honest History, 18 May 2015 STOP PRESS: 8.00pm, 19 May: Sam Bateman of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute asks whether the US knows what it is doing sending…
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…
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…
’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…
Douglas Newton ‘Two Anzac speeches 2015’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 updated Douglas Newton spoke on 22 April 2015 at Petersham Town Hall, Sydney, to a meeting of the Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign, based in Marrickville. The speech covered respect…
Douglas Newton ‘Anzac Day talk at Crows Nest Uniting Church, 26 April 2015, Honest History, 12 May 2015 (Note: this is one of two related speeches) 1. Respect The Great War was such a sprawling catastrophe that I am sure…
Douglas Newton ‘Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign Talk: Petersham Town Hall, 22 April 2015’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 (Note: one of two related speeches) 1. Respect At the outset I should say that I do not presume to tell anyone…
Dunbar, Raden The Secrets of the Anzacs: the Untold Story of Venereal Disease in the Australian Army, 1914-1919, Scribe, Brunswick, Vic., 2014 During World War I, about 60 000 soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force were treated for venereal diseases,…
‘La nef des fous: review of Dunbar’s Secrets of the Anzacs‘, Honest History, 12 May 2015 Diane Bell* reviews Raden Dunbar, The Secrets of the ANZACS: the Untold Story of Venereal Disease in the Australian Army, 1914-1919. (La nef des…
Philpott, William Attrition: Fighting the First World War, Little Brown, London, 2014 The First World War was too big to be grasped by its participants. In the retelling of their war in the competing memories of leaders and commanders, and…
‘War in the long run’, Honest History, 12 May 2015 Derek Abbott* reviews William Philpott’s Attrition: Fighting the First World War The historiography of World War I is a bitterly contested area: a necessary war to defeat Prussian militarism; a…
McQueen, Humphrey ‘The “Spanish” influenza pandemic in Australia, 1912-19’, Jill Roe, ed., Social Policy in Australia: some Perspectives 1901-1975, Cassell Australia, Stanmore NSW, 1976, pp. 131-147 (pdf of out-of-copyright material made available by the author) This article was originally delivered…
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,…
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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…
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Reid, David ‘Reconciliation, please, but don’t mention the war‘, Honest History, 6 May 2015 Canberran David Reid recalls a family history incident and reflects on how we remember some of our wars but not others. The magical but as yet…
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David Reid* ‘Reconciliation, please, but don’t mention the war’, Honest History, 6 May 2015 I pen this as a descendant of a Scottish surgeon who came by ship to Terra Australis 195 years ago. His son, who arrived with him…
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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…
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…
Fay Anderson ‘We censor war photography in Australia – more’s the pity‘, The Conversation, 4 May 2015 You may have noticed we recently marked the centenary of Anzac. One hundred years after Gallipoli, we are seeing photographs of telegenic young…
Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) ‘Statement in commemoration of World War I‘, MAPW, 27 April 2015 The Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) commemorates World War 1, including the Gallipoli landings of 25 April 1915, with a…
Waugh, Maxwell N. Soldier Boys: the Militarisation of Australian and New Zealand Schools for World War I, Melbourne Books, Melbourne, 2014 A form of compulsory cadet training was the norm in Australasian schools from 1910, unlike any other part of…
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Reynolds, Jonathan T., ed. 30-Second Twentieth Century: the 50 Most Significant Ideas and Events, each Explained in Half a Minute, Pier 9, Sydney, 2015 Twentieth Century presents a unique approach to modern history, condensing 100 years of innovation and art,…
ABC TV ‘Clare Wright‘, ABC News 24 One-plus-One, 24 April 2015 (video only) Historian Clare Wright talks with Jane Hutcheon about her early life, her early work on women in the liquor industry, her Stella Prize-winning book The Forgotten Rebels…
Yanikdag, Yucel ‘The battle of Gallipoli: the politics of remembering and forgetting in Turkey‘, Comillas Journal of International Relations [Madrid], 2, 2015, pp. 99-115 Differences in the competing versions of public memory for the Battle of Gallipoli have become more…
We ran this post as a ‘highlights reel‘ back in September and we have quoted it a number of times since. It says such profound things about commemoration we thought it was worth running again at a time which Minister…
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‘, 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…
‘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.…
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…
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…
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…
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Bearlin, Margaret with the assistance of Cynthia James and Mary Ziesak ‘Women’s power to stop war: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 1915 to 2015‘, Honest History, 14 April 2015 The article marks the centenary of the International Congress…
Margaret Bearlin in association with Cynthia James and Mary Ziesak ‘Women’s power to stop war: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom 1915 to 2015’, Honest History, 14 April 2015 2015 marks not only the centenary of Anzac; it is…
Neuhaus, Susan & Sharon Mascall-Dare Not for Glory: a Century of Service by Medical Women to the Australian Army and its Allies, Boolarong Press, Brisbane, 2014 From the trenches of the Western Front to the ricefields and jungles of South-east…
‘Medical women in war’, Honest History, 14 April 2015 Carolyn Holbrook reviews Susan J. Neuhaus and Sharon Mascall-Dare, Not for Glory: a Century of Service by Medical Women to the Australian Army and its Allies When Dr Agnes Bennett tried…
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…
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…
Moses, John A. ‘Conflict endemic to the human condition? A note‘, Honest History, 8 April 2015 The author discusses German war aims in the decades leading up to 1914, in passing comparing the analysis of Fritz Fischer with those of…
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John A. Moses ‘Conflict endemic to the human condition? A note’, Honest History, 8 April 2015 The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c. 535-475 BC) commented on war as follows: ‘We must know that war is common to all, and strife…
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van Weringh, Ilja ‘Van Weringh’s library‘, Diigo Collection of historiographical links with particular reference to start of World War I but other great material also.
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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…
Australian military deaths in the Boer War 1899-1902: 606; Boer civilian deaths, mostly women and children in concentration camps, 27 927, plus an unknown number of black Africans.
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‘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…
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 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…
There have been a few interesting items recently on photography and things on screens so we cobbled together this list along with a few things that were on the site already. It’s the sort of thing we do at Honest…
Stevens, David In All Respects Ready: Australia’s Navy in World War One, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2014 When the newly built Australian fleet sailed into Sydney for the first time in October 1913, it was portrayed as a sign…
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‘Great War navy’, Honest History, 27 March 2015 Alan Stephens* reviews In All Respects Ready: Australia’s Navy in World War One, by David Stevens Late last year Australia embarked on an extraordinarily extensive and costly five-year commemoration of ‘100 Years…
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Broinowski, Alison ‘ANZUS minus NZ, again?‘ Honest History, 25 March 2015 Considers Trans-Tasman efforts to get into the war in Iraq, particularly current New Zealand actions. Dr Broinowski is a committee member of Honest History and of Australians for War…
‘ANZUS minus NZ, again?’ Honest History, 26 March 2015 Alison Broinowski keeps up with Trans-Tasman manoeuvres Tony Abbott’s visit to New Zealand on 26 February was carefully coordinated with John Key’s announcement of a Kiwi military deployment to Iraq (see…
ABC TV ‘Bringing the war home‘, Four Corners, 9 March 2015 Article by Quentin McDermott and Mary Fallon, transcript and video of story about after-effects of war service in Iraq and Afghanistan. ‘As Australia prepares to send more troops to…
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Bach, Willy Britain, Australia, the United States and Agent Orange in the Indochina Wars: Re-defining Chemical-Biological Warfare: research paper (6 March 2015) This article re-examines the sanitised history of Agent Orange and other defoliants used in the Indochina War between…
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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…
Oppenheimer, Melanie The Power of Humanity: 100 Years of Australian Red Cross, Harper Collins, Sydney, 2014 This is the story of everyday Australians. It is a history of people helping people across “generations, united by a common passion and commitment…
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.…
Sarah Brasch ‘Our national cathedral?‘ Honest History, 15 March 2015 Describes the Last Post ceremony held almost every evening at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The author finds the ceremony ‘has a liturgy all of its own and a…
‘Our national cathedral?’ Honest History, 15 March 2015 Sarah Brasch* attends the Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial Unlike Washington DC, Canberra does not have a National Cathedral. But since 17 April 2013 our capital has had something…
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…
Hazlehurst, Cameron Ten Journeys to Cameron’s Farm: an Australian Tragedy, ANU E-press, Canberra, 2013 A book on the 1940 Canberra air disaster and the lives leading up to it of its victims, including three Cabinet Ministers and the Chief of…
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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…
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Robertson, Emily ‘Propaganda at home (Australia)‘, Ute Daniel et al., ed., 1914-1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, 2015 Australian government propaganda was subordinate to state and federal recruiting bodies and thus was mainly tasked with maintaining…
Thompson, Janna ‘An assault on the life of a people‘, Inside Story, 23 February 2015 Almost one hundred years ago, in the midst of the first world war, Ottoman officials forced Armenian people living in Anatolia to leave their homes…
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‘Review note: “These are our stories” – Defining Moments at the National Museum of Australia’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 Cultural institutions tell stories. At the entrance to the National Museum of Australia, on its promontory on Canberra’s Lake Burley…
Update 20 June 2016: Canadian example of how an arms manufacturer manipulates the local employment angle. __________________ Since the days of muskets and Gatling guns Australian forces have used weapons built somewhere else. In the modern era, being locked into…
Laugesen, Amanda Furphies and Whizz-bangs: Anzac Slang from the Great War, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2014 Furphies and Whizz-bangs: Anzac Slang from the Great War tells the story of the First World War through an examination of the slang used…
‘Words in the trenches: Anzac slang reviewed’, Honest History, 3 March 2015 Paul Daley, author and journalist with Guardian Australia, reviews Furphies and Whizz-bangs: Anzac Slang from the Great War, by Amanda Laugesen ‘Mate, I’m tellin’ yer the point blank…
‘Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died…
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The stuff of memory. ‘We survivors do not want our past to be our children’s future.’ (Roman Kent, Auschwitz survivor, at 70th anniversary commemoration) Breadth of vision. Number of items in Australian War Memorial collections tagged ‘Gallipoli’: 13352; number of items tagged…
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North, David The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century, Mehring Books, Strawberry Hills, NSW, 2014; e-book available One hundred years after the outbreak of World War I and the Russian Revolution, none of the problems of the twentieth century—devastating…
‘The Russian Revolution, world history and Australia’, Honest History, 18 February 2015 David Stephens reviews David North’s The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century (and notes the same author’s In Defense of Leon Trotsky) Elsewhere on this website historians…
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…
Kerkhove, Ray ‘A different mode of war? Aboriginal “guerilla tactics” in defining the “Black War” of Southern Queensland 1843-1855: a paper presented July 2014 AHA Conference, University of Queensland, Brisbane’, Honest History, 3 February 2015 Frontier violence and Indigenous resistance…
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The catalogue of the National Library of Australia (NLA) records that during the 1970s just 51 personal narratives of the Great War were published. That number grew to 98 during the 1980s; there were 153 published during the 1990s and 215…
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David Stephens ‘Top down, bottom up, or bit by bit? Teaching children about war: paper to ADFA Summer School, 21 January 2015‘, Honest History, 21 January 2015 These are notes of a presentation to the UNSW Canberra ADFA Summer School…
‘Highlights reel: James Fallows on “The tragedy of the American military”‘, Honest History, 14 January 2015 This long article in The Atlantic, January-February 2015, examines American attitudes to the military but makes points applicable to Australia, given the long-running change…
Keneally, Thomas Australians: Flappers to Vietnam, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2014 This is the third volume in the novelist-historian’s take on Australia. Volume 1; volume 2. It looks at behavioural change, consumerism and nascent left and right wing…
‘Australians: Flappers to Vietnam reviewed’, Honest History, 18 December 2014 David Stephens reviews Thomas Keneally’s Australians: Flappers to Vietnam, the third volume in the author’s history of Australia. See Volume 1 and Volume 2. This is a fascinating but flawed…
Stanley, Peter ‘“Who are the liars?” A response to Hal Colebatch’s Australia’s Secret War‘, Honest History, 17 December 2014 Professor Stanley closely analyses Dr Colebatch’s book, joint winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History 2014. Professor Stanley concludes…
Peter Stanley ‘”Who are the liars?” A response to Hal Colebatch’s Australia’s Secret War’, Honest History, 17 December 2014 Hal Colebatch asks in Quadrant Online, ‘So, Professor Stanley, Who Are the Liars?’ Er, no one, I answer. Who says that…
Peter Stanley, Honest History President and previous joint winner of the Prime Minister’s Award for History, has written on The Drum about the work of the most recent joint winner, Hal GP Colebatch (Australia’s Secret War). Colebatch’s Australia’s Secret War…
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…
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…
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,…
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.…
This post replaces an earlier collection of material related to NAIDOC. The original post was unable to be updated for technical reasons, so we have created a new section (with a new title) where we intend to place related material…
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Stephens, David ‘Empire sun has set but do spiffing war yarns persist?‘ Honest History, 2 December 2014 This analytical piece compares WH Fitchett’s 1897 Deeds that Won the Empire: Historic Battle Scenes with Audacity: Stories of Heroic Australians in Wartime,…
David Stephens ‘Empire sun has set but do spiffing war yarns persist?’ Honest History, 2 December 2014 Some talk of Alexander And some of Hercules Of Hector and Lysander And such great names as these. But of all the world’s…
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…
This small collection highlights the trauma that is associated with all wars in all eras in all countries. It was provoked by an article in The Independent highlighting the photographs made by Bryan Adams of wounded British soldiers from Afghanistan.…
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? 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…
Cahill, Rowan ‘The future of history‘, Overland, 29 October 2014 Considers former prime minister John Howard’s book on former prime minister Robert Menzies (The Menzies Era) and moves on to remarks about current politics. Cahill says the book is ‘an…
Sheedy, Chris ‘For queen & country‘, Canberra Times, 31 October 2014 Useful corrective to the ‘other people’s wars’ argument about Australia’s entry into World War I. Quotes at length from historian, Craig Stockings, about how most Australians of 1914 saw…
Stephens, David ‘Does arms spending lead to war?‘ Honest History, 4 November 2014 and updated The article compares defence spending as a proportion of gross domestic product – the proportion has been around two per cent for more than 50…
David Stephens ‘Does arms spending lead to war?’ Honest History, 4 November 2014 The concepts of Australian defence spending as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and as a proportion of total expenditure are both well-known. The former particularly…
Paul Daley writes in Guardian Australia in praise of the National Museum of Australia’s list of ‘defining moments’ in our history and of its initiative in seeking public comments. He quotes the Prime Minister’s remarks opening the exhibition, questions them…
University of South Australia Annual Hawke Lecture Series Podcasts, audios, some transcripts, some papers from the following wide-ranging speakers and topics going backwards from 2014 to 1998: Hugh White on comparisons between 1914 and 2014; Elizabeth Blackburn on biology and…
St Columbans Mission Society The Way of Peace: Anzac Centenary Edition (1915-2015) A set of discussion and action sheets enabling Christian reflection and response during the Anzac centenary and beyond. The materials cover growing a culture of peace, power and…
Beaumont, Joan, et al. ANU Archives Annual Lectures The ANU Archives and the Friends of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre sponsor an annual lecture in Canberra and podcasts or vodcasts of recent ones are available. They include: 2014 Professor Joan Beaumont,…
Diamadis, Panayiotis ‘History repeating: from the Battle of Broken Hill to the sands of Syria‘, The Conversation, 3 October 2014 Compares the events surrounding the attack by two Afghans on picnickers at Broken Hill on New Year’s Day 1915 with…
‘A “non-khaki view” of Australia: “defining moments” matched against Honest History themes’, Honest History, 7 October 2014 updated Background The National Museum of Australia has put together 100 ‘defining moments’ in Australian history. The aim is ‘to stimulate a public discussion…
Holt, Stephen ‘An unlikely leftist: Douglas Berneville-Claye‘, Honest History, 7 October 2014 A case study in dishonest history at the personal level, which speaks to both the irresistible attraction of wartime fame and the inevitability of exposure by the forces…
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Holt, Stephen ‘An unlikely leftist: Douglas Berneville-Claye’, Honest History, 7 October 2014 Domestic opposition to Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s was a potent force. The opposition was a mass movement which attracted idiosyncratic…
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‘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,…
Rudd, Kevin ‘Centenary lessons: twentieth century Europe & twenty-first century Asia‘, Horizons (Centre for International Relations and Sustainable Development), September 2014 Based on a lecture delivered in Berlin in May 2014. In this important year of international reflection on the…
‘Highlights reel: Elizabeth Samet on soldiers dying in vain’, Honest History, 23 September 2014 and updated Elizabeth Samet teaches English to first-year cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In a recent article in Foreign Policy she…
Following are some statements by Prime Minister Abbott and then President George W. Bush, announcing action against terror groups and ‘jihadists’. ‘Regrettably, around the world and in this country itself, there are people who would do us harm. There are…
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…
‘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…
McQueen, Humphrey ‘Part III: Review of Reynolds The Other Side of the Frontier (1981)’, Honest History, 2 September 2014 Henry Reynolds’s The Other Side of the Frontier: An Interpretation of the Aboriginal Response to the Invasion and Settlement of Australia,…
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McQueen, Humphrey ‘Part II: Preface to The Black Resistance (1977)’, Honest History, 2 September 2014 The publication of the lecture in Part I stimulated a group of students to widen and deepen the sketch in the lecture. This became Fergus…
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McQueen, Humphrey ‘Part I: Defending Australia from the Pink Peril (1973)’, Honest History, 2 September 2014 From a lecture given in Australian History III, Australian National University, July 1973. It was later printed in Woroni (ANU) 16 July 1973, then…
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McQueen, Humphrey ‘The real battle for Australia: pioneering writing on the Frontier Wars (Parts I-III)’, Honest History, 2 September 2014 Introduction by David Stephens With the co-operation of the author, we have collected here three pieces of writing by historian…
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One hundred years ago today, 1 September 1914, this item appeared in The Brisbane Courier: THE BRITISH FORCES. OFFICIAL V. OTHER REPORTS. A REASSURING STATEMENT. LONDON, Sunday Night The Government Press Bureau states that its account of the fortunes of…
Buch, Neville ‘Why this war in this way? A note on the Great War’, Honest History, 28 August 2014 The question of whether World War I can be justified, either at the time, or looking back now, has overshadowed the…
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Honest History has a number of resources on these related issues. This article provoked by NAIDOC Week 2014 includes links to a number of articles discussing both the Frontier Wars and the rediscovered role of Indigenous servicemen. Peter Stanley gave…
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Sarah Stillman ‘Hiroshima and the inheritance of trauma‘, New Yorker, 12 August 2014 In recent years, a public-health hypothesis has emerged that one of the world’s most poorly understood pandemics isn’t a conventional virus—like H1N1, say, or some hemorrhagic fever.…
Department of Veterans’ Affairs ‘Timeline: Australians at war 1901-2000‘, Researching Gallipoli Concise timeline in 20 pages, illustrated. The years of World War I and 1945 alone receive a page each. Links to other parts of DVA’s historical resources.
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‘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…
Anthony Cooper ‘Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism’, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Somehow, ‘revisionism’ in military history has been turned by some people into a dirty word. Since when did the self-evidently rational process of ‘revising’ or ‘reviewing’…
In December 1841, the British Envoy in Kabul, Sir William McNaghten, wrote to his superior, Lord Auckland, in these terms, as the British occupying force prepared to leave Afghanistan. ‘We shall part with the Afghans as friends, and I feel…
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…
Conflict, it seems, is part of the human condition, and we must always be ready for it… This exhibition … shows the continuity of our martial tradition and of our national character. Tony Abbott, as Opposition Leader, speaking at the…
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Woodrow Wilson was puzzled at the exultant reaction to his April 1917 speech to Congress asking for a declaration of war. ‘My message tonight was a message of death for our young men… How strange it seems to applaud that.’…
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‘Britain entering first world war was “biggest error in modern history”” (English historian Niall Ferguson; attracting 800 comments) ‘If war breaks out, it will be the greatest catastrophe the world has ever seen’. (British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, 1914,…
The Australian War Memorial has mounted a new exhibition, Afghanistan: the Australian story. Director Brendan Nelson has recognised the need to get the balance right between depicting past and current wars and this exhibition delivers on that commitment. The exhibition,…
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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…
Military history provides the foundation for Army training, education, esprit de corps, and decisionmaking. The lessons of the past form the doctrines of the future. These lessons are not based on poorly recorded or understood events. History is a way…
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Bastian, Peter Andrew Fisher: an Underestimated Man, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009 Hoping to set the record straight, this biography asks why one of Australia’s greatest reformers has sunk into obscurity. Calling for a reevaluation of Andew Fisher’s career,…
‘Highlights reel: ‘and the war came’, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Hobart Regatta photos from the Weekly Courier newspaper, January 1914 (Flickr Commons/Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office) This highlights reel takes extracts from Australian press editorials and other published material…
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Anthony Cooper ‘Retracing Kokoda: in defence of historical revisionism‘, Honest History, 4 August 2014 Critics of revisionism in history, including military history, assume that there is only one version of the story. But historians should interpret evidence and new evidence…
At a time when events in the Ukraine have brought to the fore attitudes to the role of Russia in world affairs, the Australian War Memorial happens to be hosting a number of talks highlighting Soviet World War II propaganda…
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‘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 ‘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,…
‘Highlights reel: HB Higgins on militarism’, Honest History, 11 July 2014 There may be a generational aspect to intellectual endeavour among public men and women. Whether it is because statesmen (very few stateswomen then) at the turn of the twentieth…
Stanley, Peter ‘NAIDOC Week 2014 address at Australian Defence Force Academy, 10 July 2014, Honest History, 10 July 2014 Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues. I’m honoured to have been asked to speak today and, in doing so, I acknowledge the traditional…
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NAIDOC Week sees two important articles about the need to comprehensively commemorate all who have shed blood for their country. Paul Daley writes in the Guardian Australia that it is ‘inconsistent to celebrate Indigenous Australians’ service in Imperial armies while…
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Medical Association for Prevention of War, Act for Peace & History Teachers’ Association of Victoria The Enduring Effects of War: Introduction, MAPW, Act for Peace and HTAV, Melbourne, 2014 Comprehensive (125 pages) and realistic lesson materials (pdf with links) prepared…
David Stephens writes in Independent Australia about how the mateship of service life and the poignancy of service deaths obscures the pointlessness of ‘sacrifice’ when there is no connection to the national interest. Hero worship of the military also gets…
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Stephens, David ‘Anzac Centenary Local Grants: conservative commemoration’, Honest History, 30 June 2014 This note comments on the statistics set out in Honest History Factsheet No. 2 on the Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program. Ken Inglis says in his book…
Around about now, the focus on matters 100 years ago is very sharp. There is even a statue of Gavrilo Princip being unveiled in Sarajevo. Our own small contribution is to draw attention to an opinion piece in the Sydney…
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Noonan, David Those We Forget: Recounting Australian Casualties of the First World War, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, Vic., 2014 The book argues that ‘official Australian casualty statistics suffered by the men of the Australian Imperial Force in the First World…
‘Review note: Australian war correspondents and war historians’, Honest History, 20 June 2014 and updated CEW Bean, the eminent war historian, began as a war correspondent. His work is represented by selections from his diary, the Official History, and the…
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…
Greig, Andrew Taming War: Culture and Technology for Peace, Peace Power Press, Avalon Beach, NSW, 2007 War is a very poor way to settle differences. Most of us know it’s stupid, but war goes on. It seems a shame that…
Peacebus ‘Lest we forget the Frontier Wars 2014: report of the fourth annual “Lest we forget the Frontier Wars” March @ the Australian War Memorial, 25 April 2014‘, Peacebus, 1 June 2014 Describes and illustrates demonstration held to commemorate the…
David Stephens writes in Fairfax media 10 June 2o14 about the parochial approach taken by the Australian War Memorial to commemoration, despite the possibilities offered by its legislation for a broader perspective. The hard copy in the Canberra Times 11…
‘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…
‘Review note: the Battle of the Indigenous warriors’, Honest History, 24 May 2014 and updated A notable element of the Anzac centenary is the attention being paid to the stories of Indigenous soldiers wearing the King’s uniform in the two…
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…
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’, 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,…
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…
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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…
‘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…
Maloney, Shane & Chris Grosz ‘Archduke Franz Ferdinand & the platypus‘, The Monthly, May 2011 Whimsically explores the visit to Australia in 1893 of the unfortunate Archduke, noting his penchant for barbecued meat and for shooting large amounts of wildlife,…
Manne, Robert ‘An unlikely radical‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 April 2014 Lengthy article based on interview with former prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, about his forthcoming book, Dangerous Allies. Fraser believes Australia should cut all military ties to the United States.…
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 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…
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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…
Rose, James ‘A family at war‘, Age, 14 April 2014 Raises issues about whether the final say in commemorating a dead service person rests with the state (represented in this case by the Australian War Memorial), supported by service organisations…
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Update 9 June 2015: Simpson Prize and Audacity The Simpson Prize question for 2016 continues the welcome recent trend to ask proper history questions of Year 9 and 10 students but the nomination of the war-sanitising Audacity for a Children’s…
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…
Canberra Airport – armaments advertising
Australia’s position as the seventh-largest large arms importer 2008-12 is reflected in this montage by Jonny Crane of Canberra Airport advertising, presumably aimed at arriving politicians and military procurement officials. 27 April 2014
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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…
Oswald, Bruce & Waddell, Jim, ed. Justice in Arms: Military Lawyers in the Australian Army’s First Hundred Years, Big Sky, Newport, NSW, 2014 Describes the work of Army legal officers in Australia and in expeditionary operations from the Boer War…
Dean, Peter, ed. Australia 1943: the Liberation of New Guinea, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, 2013 Includes chapters on the strategies of both sides and on army, navy and air operations in the Pacific and New Guinea. Authors include Dean,…
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Hemming, Judy & Michael McKinley ‘Expanding space, compressing time and the psychopathology of drones: paper presented to the 55th Annual Convention Panel TD 49 The International Studies Association, 27 March 2014, Toronto, Canada’ The paper 268 Hemming McKinley Toronto ISAPaper…
Sluga, Glenda ‘Historians’ war’, Honest History, 30 March 2014 256 Sluga Historians War Christopher Clark, expatriate Australian historian based at Cambridge, has aroused great interest in Europe with his new book, The Sleepwalkers, tracing how the nations of Europe moved…
Beaumont, Joan, Evelyn Goh, Michael Wesley, Hugh White, ‘Asia today – 1914 redux?’ ANU School of International Political and Strategic Studies seminar, Canberra, 18 March 2014 Notes of the seminar were prepared by David Stephens. Read more… 258 Asia Today…
Webb, Carolyn ‘Maverick female war doctors battled exclusion’, The Age, 15 March 2014 The article Maverick female war doctors battled exclusion-1 (text here) describes the work during World War I of Dr Vera Scantlebury (later Scantlebury-Brown), originally of Melbourne, in…
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Hannaford, Scott ‘The silent war‘, Canberra Times, 8 February 2014 Article and interactive material on the experiences of Australian veterans of the war in Afghanistan. While the technology of war has ‘advanced’ much of the evidence recounted could be applied…
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Daley, Paul ‘Restless indigenous remains‘, Meanjin, 73, 1, March 2014 The author explores the storage facilities of the National Museum of Australia and writes about the implications for the way we treat the dead from our wars, overseas and at…
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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…
Green, Michael ‘Once were warriors‘, The Age, 5 February 2014 Looks at moves in Melbourne to commemorate two Indigenous warriors, hung in 1842 for killing two white men. The City Council has agreed to a memorial but needs to decide…
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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 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,…
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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: 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…
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…
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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.…
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 ‘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…
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,…
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…
In November 2013 I presented a keynote address to the biennial conference convened by the energetic Narratives of War Research Group of the University of South Australia. In it I compared Australia’s memory of war with that of various countries…
Hughes Henry, Adam ‘Australian nationalism and the lost lessons of the Boer War‘, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, 34, June 2001 In the jingoism of the time [of the Boer War] can be seen the paradoxical nature of Australian…
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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…
Tom Hyland ‘The worst-reported and least understood foreign conflict in Australian history‘, Inside Story, 22 January 2014 Review of Don’t Mention the War: The Australian Defence Force, the Media and the Afghan Conflict by Kevin Foster. The reviewer notes that…
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Evans, RJW ‘The greatest catastrophe the world has seen‘, New York Review of Books, 6 February 2014 Extended review of six books on the beginnings of World War I. The authors are Margaret Macmillan, Charles Emmerson, Sean McMeekin (two titles),…
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Colebatch, Hal GP Australia’s Secret War: How Unions Sabotaged our Troops in World War II, Quadrant Books, Balmain, NSW, 2013 Describes strikes and other industrial action on the waterfront during the war, its impact on the war effort and the…
Daley, Paul ‘Black diggers: challenging Anzac myths‘, Guardian Australia, 14 January 2014 Looks at the stories of black servicemen during World War I, in the context of a new play ‘Black Diggers’. About 400 Indigenous Australians joined up. Notes that…
Prior, Robin ‘The first world war and Australia – oh, what a loopy debate‘, Guardian Australia, 10 January 2014 Political considerations have swamped evidence-based consideration of the beginnings and course of World War I. Looking at the debate on various aspects…
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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…
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Michael Brissenden ‘Afghanistan: the war we hardly knew‘, ABC The Drum, 14 November 2013 Discusses Department of Defence attitudes to media coverage of the war in Afghanistan. Attracted 145 comments. The culture of secrecy that has built up over recent…
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…
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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,…
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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…
Eureka Street (Vol 23, No 22, 10 November 2013) carries an article by Honest History’s David Stephens asking why Australians have been giving so much emphasis to Remembrance Day, and attributing values to war commemorations that are out of proportion…
Author and journalist Paul Daley caught the spirit of Honest History and brought in a range of personal reflections from his work as a historical writer, during his talk as guest speaker at the formal launch of the 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…
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…
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…
Broinowski, Alison ‘The streaker’s defence: history and the war powers’, Honest History e-Newsletter No 6, October 2013 The leaders who planned and executed the 2003 invasion of Iraq – one of the more notable disasters of recent war history – said they…
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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 ‘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…
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?…
Piggott, Michael ‘The Battle for Australia: Henry Reynolds’s “Forgotten War”’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 5, September 2013 Michael Piggott reviews the most recent of Henry Reynolds’s series of books on the ‘frontier wars’ between Indigenous Australians and white settlers. The…
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Department of Veterans’ Affairs multiple authors ‘Education resources: wars, conflicts and peace operations‘, Department of Veterans’ Affairs Links to 27 online publications, many with associated work books and teacher’s guides, some with CDs and some with primary and secondary versions,…
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Australian War Memorial multiple authors ‘Education publications‘, Australian War Memorial Portal to small selection of AWM publications, including posters, teachers’ notes, and the substantial booklets M is for Mates: Animals in Wartime from Ajax to Zep, Forever Yours: Stories of…
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Martin, AW with Patsy Hardy Robert Menzies: A Life: Vol. 1: 1894-1943; Vol. 2: 1944-1978, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1993 and 1999; online edition Politically at sea during his first term (1939-41), colossus during his second (1949-66) where he…
Fitzhardinge, LF William Morris Hughes: A Political Biography: Vol. 1: That Fiery Particle, 1862-1914; Vol. 2: The Little Digger, 1914-1952, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1978, 1979; electronic version available Fifty years of history of Australia as a nation from the…
White, Hugh, Michael Wesley, Graeme Cheeseman, Rowan Cahill, Bruce Haigh, Paul Monk & John Birminghan ‘A time for war: correspondence‘, Quarterly Essay, 21, March 2006, pp. 70-98 Six authors provide comment on Birmingham and Birmingham responds. Hugh White suggests that…
Cheeseman, Graeme & St John Kettle, ed. The New Australian Militarism: Undermining our Future Security, Pluto Press, Leichhardt, NSW, 1990 Collection of articles driven by a concern that the Hawke Labor Government at the time, driven by then Defence Minister,…
Leitenberg, Milton Deaths in Wars and Conflicts in the 20th Century: Cornell University Peace Studies Program, Occasional Paper #29, Centre for International Security Studies at Maryland, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 3rd edition, 2006 Extensively…
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The streaker’s defence: history and the war powers Alison Broinowski It takes a particular kind of courage for people in public life to admit that they got something wrong, even after their error is publicly obvious. All three leaders…
‘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…
Click here for all items related to: Australia’s war history What are the central elements of Australia’s involvement with war and how do we continually reinforce them? While Australians’ relationship with the Anzac tradition or myth is a key theme…
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Lyons, Martin & Penny Russell, ed. Australia’s History: Themes and Debates, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2005 A review (no longer accessible Dec 2014) suggested the editors ‘evidently asked their contributors to adopt a democratic, or rather egalitarian,…
Garton, Stephen The Cost of War: Australians Return, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1996 The achievements of Australian servicemen and women have played a central role in shaping Australia’s national identity. But while we rightly commemorate the sacrifices of Australians in…
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McMullin, Ross Farewell, Dear People: Biographies of Australia’s Lost Generation, Scribe, Melbourne, 2012 Collective biography of 10 Australians killed in World War I, emphasising the perennial outcome of major wars, the loss of many of the best people of a…
John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library “Doing the Best for the Country”: Behind the Scenes of Australia’s Wartime Decision-making 1939-45 Text and dozens of photographs under the headings ‘Australia’s wartime Prime Ministers’, ‘War Cabinet and Advisory War Council’, ‘Wartime discussions and…
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Hearder, Rosalind ‘Memory, methodology and myth: some of the challenges of writing Australian prisoner of war history‘, Journal of the Australian War Memorial (2007) Discusses the relative lack of attention to POWs, the reticence of former POWs (partly due to…
McKernan, Michael This War Never Ends: Australian Pows and Families, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 2001 An absorbing examination of what it was like to wait and to worry on the homefront during the years of the loved…
McKernan, Michael The Strength of a Nation: Six Years of Australians Fighting for the Nation and Defending the Homefront in WWII, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2006; kindle edition Nearly one million Australians out of a total population of…
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Gerster, Robin Big-noting: the Heroic Theme in Australian War Writing, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1987; reprint with different pagination 1992 The author is critical of CEW Bean and many others, writers of both fiction and non-fiction from World War…
Damousi, Joy & Marilyn Lake, ed. Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2nd edition, 2011; first published 1995 Essays which explore ‘the inter-relationship of gender and war in Australia for the first…
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Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) War and Militarism Seven papers published since February 2012 on militarising Australian history (Marilyn Lake), war is a health hazard (Jenny Grounds), sending Australians to war (Paul Barratt), promoting security (John Langmore), emotions…
Australian War Memorial Australians at War Massive store of materials, under concise summaries, relating to the colonial period and 14 theatres of war. Includes links to the complete text of the official histories of the two World Wars, the Korean…
White, Hugh ‘Primal fears, primal ambitions’, Arena Magazine, 76, April-May 2005, pp. 32-36 The article is based on a lecture at RMIT University in November 2004. ‘In Australia today’, the author says, ‘security has acquired a prominence in public policy…
Bernard Whimpress* ‘Creeping Anzacism: a paper delivered to the 15th State History Conference, Adelaide, 28 May 2006‘ Bernard Whimpress is an Adelaide-based historian best known as a sports writer. However, he has also written books and articles on city heritage,…
McKernan, Michael Here is Their Spirit: A History of the Australian War Memorial 1917-1990, University of Queensland Press in association with the Australian War Memorial, St Lucia, Qld, 1991 Describes the transformation of the vision of CEW Bean and John…
Kerr, Darren ‘Review essay: Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of Anzac‘, Australian Army Journal, VII, 2, Winter, 2010, pp. 139-44 The reviewer is a colonel in the Australian Army. For the Australian Army, the Anzac legend has not been…
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Stockings, Craig Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of Anzac, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009 The author suggests this battle, in North Africa against the Italians in January 1941, has been relatively neglected by Australians when it…
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Stockings, Craig & John Connor, ed. Before the Anzac Dawn: A Military History of Australia before 1915, NewSouth, Sydney, 2013 This book provides a comprehensive and compelling account of Australian military history before any soldier set foot on Gallipoli. It…
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Stockings, Craig, ed. Zombie Myths of Australian Military History: The Ten Myths that Will Not Die, NewSouth, Sydney, 2010 Over the years many books on Australian military history have given rise to a host of …‘zombie’ myths – myths that…
Stockings, Craig, ed. Anzac’s Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History, NewSouth, Sydney, 2012 Myth busting by military historians and other authors on a wide range of topics, including denials that our military history begins at Gallipoli, that our…
Caulfield, Michael The Vietnam Years: From the Jungle to the Australian Suburbs, Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2007 Contains many extracts from interviews with both Vietnam veterans and Australians who opposed our involvement in the war. There are recollections of both the…
Stuart Campbell ‘Realities of war never hit our TVs or our hearts‘, ABC The Drum, 21 June 2013 The author argues that after Vietnam, Western governments determined that there would never again be an uncensored TV conflict. As an Australian…
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Bowers, Mike ‘So much to remember‘, The Global Mail, 24 April 2012 Photojournalism ‘from a lifetime of wondering and wandering amid the Anzacs’. Depicts ‘the long shadow of Australia’s great war’ with images from France, Palestine and Gallipoli.
Veitch, Michael & Carol Raabus ‘Peter Cundall remembers the Forgotten War‘ 936 ABC Hobart, 22 April 2013 (audio and story) Memories of service in Australian Army in the Korean War: horror, boredom, terror, comradeship.
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Elias, Ann ‘Hidden history: Max Dupain, modernism and war time camouflage‘, The Conversation, 26 July 2013 Intersection between the arts (photography) and war (camouflage techniques). Describes how artists ‘used the techniques of abstraction, cubism and surrealism to help the military…
Australian War Memorial Afghanistan: The Australian Story Online version of exhibition at the Memorial opened August 2013. Stresses the impact on soldiers and families. Contains many short videos of soldiers’ and families’ stories. Honest History noted the exhibition here (under…
Scarlett, Philippa Indigenous Histories Website ‘[s]upporting Australian Indigenous history, art and culture’. Includes posts on Indigenous service men in both major wars from the Leane, Fell, Rigney, Punch, Stubbings and many other families. The site contains contact details for obtaining…
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Lester, Tim ‘The fallen‘, Sydney Morning Herald [various dates] (video series) Interviews by Tim Lester with families and friends of five soldiers killed in Afghanistan. While the war is recent the sentiments are timeless – impact on loved ones, sadness but…
Inglis, KS ‘The Australian military tradition’, John Lack, ed., Anzac Remembered: Selected Writings by K.S. Inglis, History Department, University of Melbourne, 1998, pp. 120-47; first published, Current Affairs Bulletin, 64, 11, April 1988 Describes how the Australian military tradition or…
Fox, Sharon ‘The Gallipoli experience – a traveller’s reflection’, Online Opinion, 21 April 2011 Balanced view by a mature age student of a pilgrimage to Gallipoli, noting both the manipulation of the Anzac myth and the losses suffered on both sides.…
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Anzac analysed,
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Rundle, Guy ‘Anzac Day and why we need to question “myths” of war‘, Crikey, 24 April 2012 Anzac-based nationalism from the Labor Government is related to the commitment to the Afghanistan war and specifically to Labor’s need to show its…
McKernan, Michael ‘True meaning of Anzac Day‘, Canberra Times, 7 May 2013 The author writes of a relative, disabled in the Vietnam War. His article warns about overglamourising Anzac Day, risking the loss of its real meaning, and confusing the…
MacInnes, Scott ‘Observing Remembrance Day: a personal reflection‘, The Drum (ABC ), 11 November 2011 The author discusses the significance of 11 November. There were 28 reader comments. Remembrance Day has always tended to concentrate more on the suffering and…
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Anzac analysed,
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Ziino, Bart ‘Mourning and commemoration in Australia: the case of Sir W. T. Bridges and the Unknown Australian Soldier’, History Australia, 4, 2, December 2007, pp. 40.1-40.17 The article discusses the significance of the return to Australia of the only…
Ziino, Bart ‘Who owns Gallipoli? Australia’s Gallipoli anxieties 1915-2005’, Journal of Australian Studies, 88, 2006, pp. 1-12 Since the Australian departure from Gallipoli in December 1915, there has been an ambivalent relationship with the Turkish authorities regarding care of ground…
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Anzac analysed,
Australia's war history
Ziino, Bart ‘A kind of round trip: Australian soldiers and the tourist analogy 1914-1918’, War & Society, 25, 2, October 2006, pp. 39-52 Examines the argument that going to war was like being a tourist. Has extensive notes and references…
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Reality of war
Ziino, Bart A Distant Grief: Australians, War Graves and the Great War, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, WA, 2008 The book ‘examines the role of war graves and cemeteries in private grief and mourning’. Given that the graves of…
Green, Jonathan & Marilyn Lake ‘Newsmaker: Marilyn Lake on Anzac and Aussie identity‘, ABC Sunday Extra, 1 April 2012 (audio and transcript) Marilyn Lake talks to Jonathan Green. Marilyn Lake makes clear that she has no objection to commemoration of…
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Pryor, Sally ‘Nelson defends modernising memorial‘, Canberra Times, 6 April 2013 Australian War Memorial Director, Brendan Nelson, defended recent changes at the Memorial, noting that ‘keeping the younger generation engaged with history was key’. He described the Memorial’s overall mission…
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