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…
Cooper, Anthony: Kokoda revised
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Soviet World War II posters at the Australian War Memorial
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
‘Review note: Great War miscellany’, Honest History, 18 July 2014 This is our third roundup of the embarrassment of riches coming to our attention in the World War I centenary period. It is a bit broader in sweep than our…
Arango, Tim: Gallipoli and national identities
Arango, Tim ‘At Gallipoli, a campaign that laid ground for national identities‘, New York Times, 26 June 2014 An American views the Gallipoli legacy from both Turkish and Australian perspectives. He interviews Rupert Murdoch on the role of his father,…
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Highlights reel: HB Higgins on militarism
‘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 ADFA address
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…
Commemorating our warriors – all of them
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…
MAPW et al: Enduring effects of war
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…
War heroes and Boys’ Own adventures
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: Conservative commemoration
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…
Common interests of Germany and Great Britain: 100 years ago today
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: recounting WWI casualties
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
‘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.: marginalised remembrance
Oliver, Bobbie & Sue Summers, ed. Lest We Forget? Marginalised Aspects of Australia at War and Peace, Black Swan Press, Curtin University, Perth, WA, 2014 The book asks what is being remembered and what is being forgotten within our war…
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Greig, Andrew: Taming 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: Frontier Wars 2014
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…
Blinkered commemoration at the Australian War Memorial
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
‘Review note: more Anzac miscellany 2014’, Honest History, 24 May 2014 Honest History’s David Stephens has an article on Australian Independent Media Network, ‘Five arguments for downsizing Anzac‘, which reworks his speeches at the Canberra Peace Convergence and at a…
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Review note: Battle of Indigenous warriors
‘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 (war Penguins)
Gardiner, Eric ‘Headless pines‘, Meanjin, 73, 2, June 2014 Review by a Meanjin intern of the ‘War Popular Penguins‘ (Patsy Adam-Smith, The Anzacs; Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel; George Walter, The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry; Frederic Manning, The Middle Parts of…
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Ball, Martin: Pro patria mori
Ball, Martin ‘Pro patria mori’, Meanjin, 63, 3, Spring 2004, pp. 3-12 Often in times of war, art and literature can become part of a number of forces that legitimate or sugar-coat warfare. In this essay, the author discusses first…
Wadham, Ben: Camouflage and national identity
Wadham, Ben ‘Camouflage and national identity’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 Tropes of sacrifice, duty and honour that mark the birth of a nation are like camouflage that seeks to hide the truth from the viewer. But in this case,…
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Gilbertson, Ashleigh: Singapore Conference 2014
Gilbertson, Ashleigh ‘A different kind of imperial war: conference report: The British Empire and the Great War: Colonial Societies/Cultural Responses, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 19-22 February 2014’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 315 Gilbertson A different kind of imperial war…
Jacobs, Genevieve: Anzac Day at Wallendbeen
Genevieve Jacobs ‘Anzac Day at Wallendbeen’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 Genevieve Jacobs gave the 2014 Anzac Day address at Wallendbeen, NSW (population 316). She is a presenter with ABC Local Radio, Canberra. 310 Jacobs Wallendbeen The speech questions high…
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Review note: Anzac miscellany 2014
‘Review note: Anzac miscellany 2014’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 Anzac Day and the period surrounding it always produces reflective pieces, as well as colour supplements and, increasingly, promotional links to football games. In 2014, 99 years on, the number…
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Maloney, Shane & Chris Grosz: Franz Ferdinand and platypus
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: Unlikely radical Malcolm Fraser
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: Moral Compass on war and peace
ABC The Moral Compass, 27 April 2014 Geraldine Doogue talks with James Brown, author and former soldier, Leslie Cannold, ethicist, Ken Doolan, National President of the RSL, and Peter Stanley, social-military historian and President, Honest History, on issues to do…
Stephens, David: Parochial commemoration
Stephens, David ‘Parochial commemoration of war‘, Pearls and Irritations [John Menadue’s blog], 23 April 2014 Guest blog arguing that the Australian War Memorial narrowly defines its own legislation with the result that the Memorial ‘is missing many opportunities to expand…
Abbott, Tony: Anzac Day 2014
Tony Abbott Address to the Anzac Day national ceremony, Canberra, Friday, 25 April 2014 As someone who has never served in the armed forces, never faced a shot fired in anger, and never lost close family members in war, I…
Rose, James: Family at war
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…
Teaching children about war
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 Lismore 2014
Poole, RJ ‘Anzac Speech, 25 April 2014, Remembering and Healing service, Lismore’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 I think it’s appropriate that we honour those Australians who have died in a theatre of conflict – and I think it’s right…
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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: Remembering and Healing in Lismore
Stephens, David ‘Alternative Anzac: Remembering and Healing in Lismore models a peaceful world’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 (updated 27 June 2014) If you live in Canberra and have never been further north on the New South Wales coast than…
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Oswald, Bruce & Waddell, Jim, ed.: Military lawyers
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
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: Psychopathology of drones
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
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…
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Beaumont, Joan, et al: Asia today – 1914 redux?
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: Female doctors in World War I
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…
Hannaford, Scott: Silent war
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…
Daley, Paul: Indigenous remains
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…
Morrison, David: Welcome home parade
Morrison, David ‘Welcome Home Parade for 2nd Cavalry Regiment Task Group and Combined Team – Uruzgan Four and Five: Lieutenant General David Morrison, AO, Chief of Army Darwin, 1 March 2014‘ LTGEN Morrison spoke on the 113th anniversary of the founding…
Green, Michael: Once were warriors
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…
Watson, Don: Over the top
Watson, Don ‘Lest we go over the top‘, The Monthly, February 2014 ‘The experience of war very much depends’, the author says, ‘on where one happens to be standing at the time.’ Front line soldiers, generals, writers and politicians all…
Abbott, Tony: Darwin welcome home
Abbott, Tony Remarks at the 1st Brigade Welcome Home Reception, Parliament House, Darwin, 1 March 2014 The Prime Minister noted that the Afghanistan commitment had been inconclusive militarily but praised the social contribution made by Australian forces. Thanks to you,…
Wadham, Ben: Militarisation and hate
Wadham, Ben ‘Yumi and Ben: the militarisation of Australia and the democratisation of hate‘, The Conversation, 6 March 2012 Analyses the sexist and racist reaction to the insulting remarks made by a television personality about a Victoria Cross winner. The…
Brown, James: Anzac’s Long Shadow
Brown, James Anzac’s Long Shadow: The Cost of Our National Obsession, Black Inc, Melbourne, 2014; also available electronically “A century ago we got it wrong. We sent thousands of young Australians on a military operation that was barely more than…
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Powell, Damian X.: Remembrance Day
Powell, Damian X. ‘Remembrance Day: memories and values in Australia since 1918’, Paper (edited text) read to the Royal Historical Society of Victoria on 18 November 2003 (later published as ‘Remembrance Day: memories and values in Australia since 1918’, Victorian…
Blaxland, John: Australian flag
Blaxland, John ‘Flying the flag for a fresh start‘, Canberra Times, 1 February 2014 Few realise that the overwhelming majority of Australia’s 102,000 war dead fought and died for the British Empire under Britain’s Union Jack as their national flag.…
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Hughes Henry, Adam: Nationalism, politics, history and war
Hughes Henry, Adam ‘Nationalism, politics, history and war’, Australian Rationalist, 74, Winter, 2006, pp. 23-38 The article ranges widely, addressing the remembrance of war, death in conflict as a righteous sacrifice, war criminality, the distortion of history through the filter…
O’Lincoln, Tom: Kokoda and Anzac
O’Lincoln, Tom ‘Can Kokoda challenge Anzac?’ Paper delivered to conference The Pacific War 1941-45, Heritage, Legacies and Culture, Monash University at Caulfield, 6 December 2011 233 Can Kokoda challenge Anzac (pdf provided by author) The author argues that veneration of…
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Stanley, Peter: Anzac’s Long Shadow highlights a national obsession
Stanley, Peter Honest History’s President, Professor Peter Stanley, reviews and reflects on James Brown’s new book, Anzac’s Long Shadow. James Brown, Anzac’s Long Shadow: The Cost of Our National Obsession, Black Inc, Melbourne, 2014, $19.99; also available electronically James Brown,…
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Stanley, Peter: Anzac’s Long Shadow highlights a national obsession
Stanley, Peter ‘Anzac’s Long Shadow highlights a national obsession’ Honest History President, Professor Peter Stanley, reviews James Brown’s book (published 11 February 2014) and finds parallels with the attitudes of Honest History to the way in which Australia is approaching…
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Jauncey meets Mephistopheles (18 February 2014)
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…
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Hughes Henry, Adam: Boer war
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
Stephens, David ‘Hugh White on Australians and war’, Honest History, 5 February 2014, updated Hugh White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University and a former senior public servant in the Department of Defence. Here he considers…
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Hyland, Tom: Afghanistan not reported or understood
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…
Evans, RJW: Greatest catastrophe
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),…
Colebatch, Hal GP: Australia’s secret war
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
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: Great War debate
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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Twomey, Christina: Trauma and Anzac reinvigoration
Christina Twomey writes in the December 2013 issue of History Australia arguing that changing ideas about trauma and victimhood, emerging from the 1980s, played an important and insufficiently recognised role in the reinvigoration of Anzac for contemporary times. The recasting…
Brissenden, Michael: Afghanistan media coverage
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…
Jauncey considers Keating on Remembrance Day (19 November 2013)
Paul Keating’s Remembrance Day speech 2013 marked the twentieth anniversary of his Unknown Australian Soldier speech at the Australian War Memorial in 1993. The tomb and the surrounding area at the Memorial has now been refurbished to include explicit recognition…
Cahill, Rowan: Khaki future?
Cahill, Rowan ‘A khaki future?‘ Overland, 1 October 2013 Brief history of Australia’s ‘martial and warlike’ history from 1788, noting military rule by the New South Wales Corps in the first days of settlement, through preparations for World War I,…
Keating, Paul: Remembrance Day 2013
Keating, Paul ‘Paul Keating’s address at the Australian War Memorial 2013: we are too wise to be cannon fodder again‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November 2013 Speech (official text here) marking 2oth anniversary of Keating’s speech as Prime Minister at…
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War fires should be left to smoulder: Eureka Street
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…
Paul Daley gets to the heart of Honest History
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…
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Daley, Paul: Heart of Honest History
Paul Daley ‘The Heart of Honest History’ (Honest History Launch, 7 November 2013, Manning Clark House, Canberra), Honest History, 8 November 2013 Thanks Peter [Stanley]. Thanks Sebastian [Clark]. I, too acknowledge the traditional owners of this land [Canberra]. And thanks…
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White, Hugh: Purpose of war
White, Hugh ‘Lest we forget: the purpose of war is not war itself‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 October 2013 Admiration for the work of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan has been accompanied by a lack of discussion at to why they…
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McMullin, Ross: Grand days of hope and glory
McMullin, Ross ‘Grand days of hope and glory‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 October 2013 The popular myth is that Australia came of age amid the carnage of World War I. But years before Gallipoli, this young nation was internationally admired…
Broinowski, Alison: Streaker’s defence
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
Lake, Marilyn ‘Fractured nation’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 6, October 2013 Marilyn Lake writes that World War I led to the desolation of the national spirit, the nation’s joie de vivre and its high reputation in the world as an…
Daley, Paul: Frontier war
Daley, Paul ‘Why does the Australian War Memorial ignore the frontier war?‘ The Guardian Australia, 12 September 2013 Bordered with militarily precise shrubs including the herb of remembrance, rosemary, the outer walls are adorned with a series of elaborately carved…
Stanley, Peter: Gallipoli Club address
Stanley, Peter ‘Gallipoli – 98 years on’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 4, August 2013 Professor Stanley answers these questions: How important is Gallipoli to Australians? Is the Gallipoli story just a national myth? Is Gallipoli’s importance based on tenuous history?…
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Piggott, Michael: Battle for Australia
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…
DVA multiple authors: DVA education publications
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,…
Australian War Memorial multiple authors: AWM education publications
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…
Martin, AW: Menzies
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: Hughes
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…
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White, Hugh et al: Time for war: correspondence
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.: New Australian militarism
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 & conflicts
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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Broinowski, Alison: Streaker’s defence: history and war powers
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…
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Fractured nation
‘During World War 1 Australia lost its way. Its enmeshment in the European war fractured the nation’s soul.’ Marilyn Lake In the year 1913 Canberra was born as our national capital on the very eve – as we now know…
Australia’s war history
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…
Click here for all items related to: Australia's war history
Lyons, Martin & Penny Russell, ed.: History themes and debates
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: Costs of war
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…
McMullin, Ross: Farewell Dear People
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
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…
Hearder, Rosalind: POW history
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
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: Strength of a nation
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…
Gerster, Robin: Big-noting
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…
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Damousi, Joy & Marilyn Lake, ed.: Gender and 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…
Medical Association for Prevention of War: War and militarism
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…
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Australian War Memorial: Australians at War
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…
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White, Hugh: Primal fears, primal ambitions
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…
Whimpress, Bernard: Creeping Anzacism
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,…
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McKernan, Michael: Here is their spirit
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 of Stockings
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
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…
Stockings, Craig & John Connor, ed.: Before the Anzac dawn
Stockings, Craig & John Connor, ed. Before the Anzac Dawn: A Military History of Australia before 1915, NewSouth, Sydney, 2013 This book provides a comprehensive and compelling account of Australian military history before any soldier set foot on Gallipoli. It…
Stockings, Craig, ed.: Zombie myths
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…
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Stockings, Craig, ed.: Dirty dozen
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…
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Caulfield, Michael: Vietnam years
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…
Campbell, Stuart: Realities of war
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…
Bowers, Mike: So much to remember
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: Cundall Korea
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: Max Dupain and camouflage
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 exhibition
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
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…
Lester, Tim: The fallen
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: Australian military tradition (1988)
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: Gallipoli
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.…
Rundle, Guy: Anzac Day 2012
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…
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McKernan, Michael: Anzac Day
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…
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MacInnes, Scott: Remembrance
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…
Ziino, Bart: Mourning and commemoration
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?
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…
Ziino, Bart: Round trip
Ziino, Bart ‘A kind of round trip: Australian soldiers and the tourist analogy 1914-1918’, War & Society, 25, 2, October 2006, pp. 39-52 Examines the argument that going to war was like being a tourist. Has extensive notes and references…
Ziino, Bart: Distant grief
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
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…
Pryor, Sally: Australian War Memorial
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…
Stephens, David: Australian War Memorial
Stephens, David ‘Memories and messages at the Australian War Memorial‘, The Drum (ABC), 29 April 2011 Thoughts provoked by a visit to the Australian War Memorial on Anzac Day, stressing particularly the effects of the normalisation of militarism. Notes also…
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Twomey, Christina: National service
Twomey, Christina ‘The national service scheme: citizenship and the tradition of compulsory military service in 1960s Australia‘, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 58, 1, March 2012, pp. 67–81 Between 1964 and 1972, the National Service Act 1964 required Australian…
Stanley, Peter: Bad Characters
Peter Stanley Bad Characters: Sex, Crime, Mutiny and Murder and the Australian Imperial Force, Murdoch/Pier 9, Sydney 2010 Australia’s long-standing love affair with the Diggers has blinded us to the dark side of the Anzac legend. Bad Characters is a…
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Stanley, Peter: Invading Australia
Stanley, Peter Invading Australia: Japan and the Battle for Australia, 1942, Viking Penguin, Melbourne, 2008 The author makes the important distinction between the emotional fears of Australians in 1942 that they were under threat of Japanese invasion and the historical,…
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Henderson, Gerard: Anzac Day
Henderson, Gerard ‘The lingering myth of Anzac Day‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 April 2005 Speculates about Anzac’s resurgence and denies the ‘left-wing’ view that Australians in 1915 were fighting someone else’s war.
Masters, Chris: Uncommon Soldier
Masters, Chris Uncommon Soldier: The Story of the Making of Today’s Diggers, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2012 ‘Moving away from our ongoing fascination with Anzac story, he looks at the rich and illuminating present to write a character…
Carlyon, Les: Great War
Carlyon, Les The Great War, Macmillan, Sydney, 2006 Winner of the inaugural Prime Minister’s Prize for History, 2007. The author was a member of the Australian War Memorial Council for some years. He discusses his work here.
Carlyon, Les: Gallipoli
Carlyon, Les Gallipoli, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2002; first published 2001 The epitome of large war remembrance books, written for a general audience. The author was a member of the Australian War Memorial Council for some years.
Waterford, Jack: Nelson
Waterford, Jack ‘Nelson flying wrong flags‘, Canberra Times, 26 April 2013 Columnist critical of new Australian War Memorial Director for allegedly ill-judged changes at the Memorial also makes some general points about commemoration and the role of Anzac. The last…
Lake, Marilyn et al Wheeler Centre debate: April 2013
Lake, Marilyn, Graham Wilson, Jeff Sparrow, Brendan Nelson, John Martinkus, Nicholas Jans ‘Intelligence Squared Debate: Anzac Day is More Puff Than Substance, 30 April 2013‘, The Wheeler Centre (video, audio, no transcript) The plucky bravery of the Anzacs is one…
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Rudd, Kevin: Anzac Day 2010
Rudd, Kevin Prime Minister speech at the ANZAC Day national ceremony, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, on the commemoration of the centenary of ANZAC, 25 April 2010 The Prime Minister announced the formation of the commission to consider how to commemorate…
Lake, Marilyn: We must fight free of Anzac
Marilyn Lake ‘We must fight free of Anzac, lest we forget our other stories‘, Age, 24 April 2009 Rehearses many of the arguments put in What’s Wrong with Anzac? Looks at the troubles of soldier settlers after World War I,…
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Ross, Lloyd: Curtin
Lloyd Ross Curtin: A Biography, Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic., 1977 Biography by a former Curtin associate. Took many years to write, drew upon dozens of interviews, but lacks spark. Still, a useful reference for labour history over forty years, as…
Rose, James: Here’s looking at us #1: the Australian War Memorial
James Rose ‘Here’s looking at us #1 – the Australian War Memorial‘, Crikey, 13 August 2013 Blogger reviews the Memorial and asks whether we should see the dead commemorated there ‘as the War Memorial encourages us, as young men and women…
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Piggott, Michael: The Battle for Australia: Henry Reynolds’s ‘Forgotten War’
Michael Piggott* ‘The Battle for Australia: Henry Reynolds’s “Forgotten War”‘, Honest History Newsletter No. 5, September 2013 There is so much about Henry Reynolds’s latest book (Forgotten War, NewSouth Publishing, 2013) to admire, to think about and to endorse. What…
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Reynolds, Henry: Forgotten War
Henry Reynolds Forgotten War, New South, Sydney, 2013 The book (winner of the Victorian Premier’s award for non-fiction) chronicles in relentless detail the frontier war between settlers and Indigenous Australians, which saw upwards of 30 000 Aborigines and at least…
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Gower, Steve: Remembrance and commemmoration: Coates Oration 2008
Steve Gower Remembrance and commemoration: speech (Sir Albert Coates Oration) delivered by Steve Gower AO AO (Mil) ME, Director, Australian War Memorial on 25 November 2008 at Ballarat University The speaker touches on individual stories (Coates, Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop,…
Bendle, Mervyn F.: Gallipoli: second front in the History Wars
Mervyn F. Bendle ‘Gallipoli: second front in the History Wars‘, Quadrant Online, LIII, 6, June 2009 Lengthy article with many citations taking to task historians like Joan Beaumont, Marilyn Lake, Mark McKenna, Robin Prior and Peter Stanley and commentators such…
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Lester, Tim & Marilyn Lake: What’s wrong with Anzac?
Tim Lester & Marilyn Lake ‘What’s wrong with Anzac?‘ The Age: Breaking Politics, 25 April 2013 (video) Tim Lester interviews Professor Marilyn Lake about aspects of commemoration. Professor Lake suggests the treatment of Anzac has been characterised by commemoration without…
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Gammage, Bill & Peter Spearritt, ed.: Australians 1938
Bill Gammage & Peter Spearritt, ed. Australians 1938, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987 One of the volumes in Australians: A Historical Library. Dozens of contributors, historians and others, present sections under the headings ‘Pioneers on Parade’, ‘Aborigines’,…
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Honest History: Freedom’s call resonates still
Honest History ‘Freedom’s call resonates still’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 One phenomenon Honest History hopes to explore is how geopolitical (or just political) reasons for going to war are transformed, apotheosised into more abstract, sublime justifications, especially…
Dean, Peter J, ed.: Australia 1942
Peter J. Dean, ed. Australia 1942: In the Shadow of War, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, Vic., 2013 A collection of essays on a momentous year in Australia’s history. The authors include David Horner, Kate Darian-Smith, Ross McMullin, Alan Powell…
Honest History: Eureka: have we found it?
Honest History ‘Eureka: have we found it?’ Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 The forces of law and order killed more white civilians at Eureka than in any other incident in our history. Perhaps that explains why the attention…
Honest History: Honest portrayal of the POW experience
Honest History ‘Honest portrayal of the POW experience’, Honest History e-Newsletter no. 3, August 2013 Peter Stanley says there is a lot more to war history than stories of blokes in khaki fighting battles in faraway places. Being a prisoner…
Honest History: Military history is not war history
Honest History ‘Military history is not war history: we owe it to future generations not to airbrush out the non-heroic parts’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 1, May 2013 A temporary emphasis on our military past may be inevitable during the…
Watson, Don: Caledonia Australis
Don Watson Caledonia Australis: Scottish Highlanders on the Frontier of Australia, Vintage, Milsons Point, NSW, 1997; first published 1984; later edition 2009 About the clash in Gippsland between immigrant Celts and Indigenous Australians. Shows how Scots dispossessed by the Highland…
Keneally,Thomas: Australia Vol. II
Thomas Keneally Australians Vol. II: Eureka to the Diggers, Crows Nest, NSW, 2012; first published 2011 Keneally’s second volume of three and continues in the style of the first, except that the cast of characters march more chronologically in chapters…
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Lloyd, Clem & Richard Hall, ed.: Backroom Briefings: John Curtin’s war
Clem Lloyd & Richard Hall, ed. Backroom Briefings: John Curtin’s War, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1997 Based on contemporaneous notes by journalist, Fred Smith, the book gives an insight into Curtin’s regular briefings to journalists and thus into the…
McGirr, Michael: Bypass
Michael McGirr Bypass: The Story of a Road, Picador, Sydney, 2004 Ostensibly, the story of a cycle trip down the Hume Highway by a former Jesuit. ‘In some ways’, McGirr says, ‘the Hume Highway is one long war memorial’ (p.…
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Jauncey, LC: The Story of Conscription in Australia
LC Jauncey The Story of Conscription in Australia, Macmillan of Australia, South Melbourne, Vic., 1968; first published 1935 There has not been as detailed an account of the World War I conscription battles since this book was written. This edition…
Inglis, KS, assisted by Jan Brazier: Sacred Places
KS Inglis, assisted by Jan Brazier Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., third updated edition, 2008; first published 1998; other editions Takes the Australian history of war memorials from the colonial period, through…
Fewster, Kevin, ed.: Bean’s Gallipoli
Kevin Fewster, ed. Bean’s Gallipoli: The Diaries of Australia’s Official War Correspondent, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 3rd edition, 2007; first published 1983; paperback edition 2009 Covers the period October 1914 to December 1915. Bean landed at Anzac Cove…
Day, David: John Curtin
David Day John Curtin: A Life, Harper Collins, Pymble, NSW, 1998; paperback edition 2006 Curtin played a part on the home front in World War I as an anti-conscription agitator, then led the nation as a war prime minister in…
Day, David: Ben Chifley
David Day Ben Chifley, Harper Collins, Pymble, NSW, 2001; paperback edition 2007 as Chifley: A Life Draws upon 40 years of research and writing since Crisp’s Ben Chifley but still produces a largely favourable portrait. Essential reading regarding the political…
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Day, David: Andrew Fisher
David Day Andrew Fisher: Prime Minister of Australia, Fourth Estate/Harper Collins, Pymble, NSW, 2008 Fisher seems to personify the fracture that the Great War wrought in the Labor Party and in Australia: from presiding over significant nation-building and social reforms…
Crisp, LF: Ben Chifley
LF Crisp Ben Chifley: A Biography, Longmans, Croydon, Vic, 1963; first published 1961 Classic Australian political biography, though criticised by some as hagiography. Particularly useful on the period after World War II, when Chifley as Prime Minister and Treasurer dealt…
Birmingham, John: A time for war
John Birmingham ‘A time for war: Australia as a military power‘, Quarterly Essay 20, December 2005 Traces a revival of Australian militarism in the 1990s and early 2000s, partly associated with the increase in ‘breathless idolatry’ and ‘nostalgic urgency’ accorded…
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Bean, CEW: Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18: Vol. 1 Anzac
CEW Bean Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18: Vol. 1 The Story of Anzac, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, ninth edition, 1939; first published 1921 Takes the story from the outbreak of war to the end of the…
Lake, Marilyn, Henry Reynolds et al: What’s wrong with Anzac?
Marilyn Lake & Henry Reynolds with Mark McKenna and Joy Damousi What’s Wrong with Anzac? The Militarisation of Australian History, New South, Sydney, 2010 The book caused considerable controversy on its release and since, although many of the themes in…
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Crotty, Martin & Marina Larsson, ed.: Anzac Legacies: Australians and the Aftermath of War
Martin Crotty & Marina Larsson, ed. Anzac Legacies: Australians and the Aftermath of War, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2010 The book explores the difficulties that returning soldiers have faced, from World War I to Iraq and Afghanistan, traces the physical…
Beaumont, Joan: Anzac Day to VP Day
Joan Beaumont ‘ANZAC Day to VP Day: Arguments and interpretations’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, 40, February 2007, pp. 1-7 Historiography of war in Australia, including many references in notes. Beaumont asks what are the roles of historians and…
Beaumont, Joan: Australian citizenship and the two world wars
Joan Beaumont ‘Australian citizenship and the two world wars’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 53, 2, June 2007, pp. 171–82 This article surveys Australian citizenship: its distinctive characteristics in the first half of the twentieth century, and how these…
Beaumont, Joan: The second war in every respect
Joan Beaumont ‘The second war in every respect: Australian memory and the Second World War’, Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 14, 1, Fall 2011, pp. 1-15 Shows how ‘the Second World War is relegated to a secondary place in…
Stanley, Peter: Gallipoli – 98 years on: Gallipoli Club address
Peter Stanley Gallipoli – 98 years on: Professor Peter Stanley’s speech to Gallipoli Memorial Club symposium, 7 August 2013 (posted to site, 28 October 2013) On 7 August (the anniversary of the August offensive on Gallipoli) the Gallipoli Memorial Club…
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