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…
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…
Schultz, Julianne, et al. ‘Small world‘, Griffith Review 37, Spring 2012 A selection of articles exploring Australians as travellers. In ‘Footloose, fancy-free’, Schultz notes that ‘Australians are travelling more than ever, but whether this has fostered a sense of well…
Henry, Ken ‘Public policy resilience and the reform narrative‘, ANU News, 18 September 2014 A lecture delivered at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, 16 September 2014. The lecture focuses on two questions: how should one assess the wealth…
Australian Quarterly 85 Years in 85 Days – AQ Celebrates Australian Quarterly, which claims to be Australia’s oldest current affairs magazine, temporarily lowered its paywall early in 2014 to give free access to articles published from 1929 to 1989 (which…
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…
ABC Radio National ‘ASEAN and Australia 40 years on‘, Saturday Extra, 13 September 2014 Geraldine Doogue talks to Anthony Milner (audio, no transcript), author of an Asialink report on 40 years of Australia’s relations with ASEAN. The report is online…
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…
SBS News Where Australia’s Immigrants were Born Interactive maps, based on the 2011 census, for all capital cities and for the nation via local government areas, showing top three countries of birth for immigrants to Australia. Browsing and clicking is…
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…
Wesley, Michael ‘The meaning of China‘, Griffith Review, 41, July 2013 The question of how Chinese power will affect the world and what it will mean is hugely significant for Australia. Although China has been a great power in the…
Schultz, Julianne ‘Looking east’, Griffith Review, 43, January 2014 The author, born in New Zealand but now based in Australia, introduces an edition of Griffith Review devoted to New Zealand and titled ‘Pacific highways‘. The dream of a united Australasia…
Pybus, Cassandra ‘China in the Tasmanian imaginary‘, Griffith Review, 39, January 2013 Towards the end of the 19th century, a vibrant Chinese community existed in northeastern Tasmania based on tin mining. The now tiny hamlet of Weldborough was the centre…
Bridge, Carl, Frank Bongiorno & David Lee, ed. The High Commissioners: Australia’s Representatives in the United Kingdom, 1910-2010, Australia. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra, 2010 Full text (340 pages) of collection of articles on the London connection, brought…
Edwards, Clive T. ‘With respect to John Burton’, Honest History, 10 September 2014 Rob Foot’s article (‘The curious case of Dr John Burton’, Quadrant, November 2013) denigrates the character and contribution of John Burton by reference to incidents that were…
Edwards, Clive T. ‘With respect to John Burton‘, Honest History, 10 September 2014 At a time (2014) when governments are increasingly relying on advice from security services to help them formulate policy, the history of events which have attracted the…
Lockyer, Adam ‘Team Australia: leader of the Free World‘, ABC The Drum, 4 September 2014 One of many articles commenting on Australian foreign policy initiatives in relation to Iraq and Ukraine, this one attempting to link to historic Australian approaches…
Cotton, James & David Lee Australia and the United Nations, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra, 2012 Comprehensive and well-illustrated publication (available in hard copy as well as online) with chapters by the editors, academics Neville Meaney, Peter Carroll,…
Burton, Pamela ‘John Burton: undermined by dishonest history’, Honest History, 1 September 2014 The illustrated text of an Honest History lecture at Manning Clark House, Canberra, 18 August 2014. The author is a Canberra lawyer and writer and the daughter…
Two new websites have just launched, addressing matters of great interest. The first, Historical Encounters, a venture of the Hermes group at the University of Newcastle, is an online journal of historical consciousness, historical cultures and history education. Historical Encounters…
Update: 2 September 2014: decision having been made to provide arms to Kurds, James Brown from the Lowy Institute, ex Australian Army, author of Anzac’s Long Shadow, lists some fallacies relating to this new involvement. It puts a different perspective…
World Socialist multiple authors ‘Australia’s Anzac Day – the gap between official rhetoric and popular sentiments‘, World Socialist Web Site, 26 April 2014 Describes Anzac Day as traditionally ‘an official occasion for the promotion of militarism’. This year there has…
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…
Australian anthropologist Ian McIntosh at Indiana University is trying to work out whether five coins found in the Northern Territory during World War II are evidence that sailors from Africa reached Australia up to 900 years ago. The coins originated…
‘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,…
Glanville, Edith ‘Devil worshippers: a Kurdistan cult‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 June 1929 A detailed description of a visit to the Yazidis, believed to be the first such visit by an Australian woman. Gives an insight into both customs and…
The Minister for Defence, Senator Johnston, has released a Defence Issues Paper setting out issues that will be addressed in the Defence White Paper to come out in 2015. Of particular interest is the statement about the long-standing American Alliance,…
‘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…
‘Highlights reel: HB Higgins on the yellow peril’, Honest History, 2 July 2014 White staff, Ocean Island (Kanakas on the left), 1907 (source: National Archives of Australia, R32, 6425388) Our first highlights reel presented HB Higgins as a socialist; and…
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…
Hoskins, Ian Coast: a History of the New South Wales Edge, NewSouth, Sydney, 2013 From Eden to Byron Bay the New South Wales coast is more than 2000 kilometres long, with 130 estuaries, 100 coastal lakes and a rich history. …
Waterford, Jack ‘Unravelling Australia’s own McCarthy era‘, Inside Story, 30 May 2014 While the article rejects the allegation that the Petrov espionage affair was deliberately engineered to electorally damage the Australian Labor Party and its Leader, Dr HV Evatt, it…
Cahill, Rowan ‘The enemy within‘, Overland, 24 April 2014 Short article on how Australia’s defence forces have been deployed domestically throughout our history, in the Frontier Wars, the Rum Corps era in early New South Wales, during strikes from the…
Clarke, Patricia ‘Bias for good or ill? Australian Government overseas propaganda in the 1950s‘, ISAA Articles The author was a journalist in the Australian News and Information Bureau (ANIB) in the 1950s, particularly writing news and features for publication in Asia.…
Broinowski, Alison ‘Silent conspirators: Fascism and Fraser’, Honest History, 22 May 2014 and updated All fascist regimes and organisations have used the power of nationalism and national security as a motivator, as Australia has increasingly done. But no other country…
O’Lincoln, Tom The Neighbour from Hell: Two Centuries of Australian Imperialism, Interventions, Melbourne, 2014 Tom O’Lincoln is a long-standing contributor to Australian political and historical discussion from the Marxist and Trotskyist perspective. Here he considers Australia’s history of participation in…
Richard Thwaites reviews Tom O’Lincoln’s book The Neighbour from Hell: Two Centuries of Australian Imperialism (Interventions, Melbourne, 2014) Tom O’Lincoln is a long-standing contributor to Australian political and historical discussion from the Marxist and Trotskyist perspective. This book is published…
Scanlon Foundation Mapping Social Cohesion Surveys [2007-date] Since 2007 the surveys have mapped ‘how Australia in the future can maintain the “immigration with social cohesion” success story of the last 5 decades’. In them, there is discussion of public opinion…
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.…
Gourley, Paddy ‘Two-per centers and defence spending’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 293 Two per cent spending Shibboleths, sacred cows and knee-jerk reactions abound in government and politics. Paddy Gourley nails one that afflicts the nation’s defence as well as…
Broinowski, Alison ‘A long way from Adelaide’, Honest History, 30 April 2014 295 Broinowski Long way from Adelaide Alison Broinowski explores connections between some Australian expatriates in China, some exotic figures from elsewhere and private schools in Adelaide and Sydney.…
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…
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…
Phillips, Janet ‘Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?‘ Australia. Parliamentary Library Social Policy Section: Background Note (updated 11 February 2013) Looks at differences between asylum seekers and refugees, whether asylum seekers are queue jumpers or illegals, how asylum…
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…
Smith, Peter ‘Stop the boats. Infuriate the ABC‘, Quadrant Online, 13 January 2014 There is some legitimate room for debate about the extent and character of controlled immigration. People and politicians can have different views. But there should be no…
Tuckfield, Hugh ‘Australia’s troubling asylum seeker policy‘, The Diplomat, 18 February 2014 Considers the asylum seeker issue in the context of international refugee flows and international laws and conventions for the treatment of refugees. Australia is a nation fixated on…
Ackland, Richard ‘Welcome back to White Australia‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 February 2014 Places 2014 in a historical context and looks at possible policy alternatives for dealing with asylum seeker arrivals. There were more than 800 comments on the article.…
Hynd, Doug ‘Moral judgments, asylum seekers and why historians can be helpful in public policy-making’, Honest History, 12 March 2014 Taking a historical perspective can give depth and clarity to controversial policy issues. The current debate about who is morally…
Williams, Clive ‘Terror threat real, and no time to cut budgets‘, Canberra Times, 4 February 2014 National security issues, viewed from a particular perspective.
Broinowski, Alison ‘Abbott’s dark state: war powers, invigilation and trust‘, Independent Australia, 4 December 2013 National security issues viewed from a particular perspective, with comments from readers.
Cahill, Damien & Rowan Cahill ‘The 1978 military occupation of Bowral‘, Illawarra Unity: Journal of the Illawarra Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 6, 1, 2006, pp.24-37 Describes the response to the Sydney Hilton ‘terrorist’…
Alison Broinowski takes over the Jauncey pen (and the Beatrice Jauncey persona) and recalls an early skirmish in the so-called ‘war on terror’ – the response to the Hilton Hotel bombing, Sydney, 1978. As a Kiwi, and hence imbued with higher…
Tatz, Simon ‘The nationalism wedge‘, Independent Australia, 3 February 2014 Argues that the Abbott Government is linking nationalism with a conservative political agenda. Quotes Benedict Anderson about nations as ‘imagined communities‘. ‘The Abbott Government’, the author claims, ‘is busy trying…
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…
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…
Scott, Rosie & Tom Keneally, ed. A Country Too Far: Writings on Asylum Seekers, Viking, Melbourne, 2013 Short stories, book extracts, poems and essays on aspects of Australia’s current attitudes to asylum seekers, in some contributions set against the historical…
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…
Rawsthorne, Sally ‘Why does the world think Australia is racist?‘ The Guardian Australia, 25 October 2013 Canvasses evidence in Australia and internationally about alleged Australian attitudes, with links to sources and comment from over 800 people. Contrasts the acceptance of…
Jones, Barry ‘Asylum is the greatest moral challenge of our time‘, The Conversation, 29 July 2013 The fact that non-European migration has been so significant since the end of White Australia ought to make us sympathetic to refugees, but I…
McKenna, Mark The Captive Republic: A History of Republicanism in Australia 1788-1996, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1996 This first comprehensive history of republican thought and activity in Australia traces debate around an Australian republic from 1788 to…
McKenna, Mark & Wayne Hudson, ed. Australian Republicanism: A Reader, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, Vic., 2003 Collection of 114 mostly brief documents dating from 1788 with two-thirds of them since self-government for New South Wales in 1856. Some of the…
McKenna, Mark This Country: A Reconciled Republic? UNSW Press, Sydney, 2004 The author considers together what he sees as two key and related issues, reconciliation with Indigenous Australians and the republic. Reconciliation and the republic are not separate issues, they…
Holmes, Brenton ‘Tracking the push for an Australian republic‘, Australia. Parliamentary Library. Background Notes, 24 April 2013 Thorough and balanced description of events since the referendum of 1999 with voting statistics and analysis of key issues and models. Extensive notes.
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,…
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Historical Documents Published official records of foreign relations, commencing in 1937 – Australia lacked an independent foreign affairs capacity before this date – and carrying the story forward to 1959 (as at October 2013) with some…
Meaney, Neville A History of Australian Defence and Foreign Policy, 1901-23: Vol. 1: The Search for Security in the Pacific, 1901-14: Vol. 2: Australia and World Crisis, 1914-23, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 2nd edition, 2009; Vol. 1 first published 1976…
Firth, Stewart Australia in International Politics: An Introduction to Australian Foreign Policy, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 3rd edition, 2011 Looks at the evolution of policy since 1901 (emphasising the period since 1983), security issues, economic relations (including the…
Schreuder, Derek & Stuart Ward, ed. Australia’s Empire: Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 2010; first published 2008 The volume examines the meaning and importance of empire in Australia across a…
Darian-Smith, Kate, Patricia Grimshaw & Stuart Macintyre, ed. Britishness Abroad: Transnational Movements and Imperial Cultures, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 2007 Britishness Abroad explores the cultural, economic and political aspects of Britishness in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Canada and…
Walker, David Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise and Fall of Asia 1850-1939, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1999 From the late nineteenth century the Asianisation of Australia has sparked anxious comment. The great catchcries of the day…
Click here for all items related to: Getting on with the world Here there are references which address Australia’s relations with the rest of the world. In some cases, this relationship is associated with other strands of our history, such…
Cochrane, Peter Industrialization and Dependence: Australia’s Road to Economic Development, 1870-1939, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1980; downloadable Shows how Australian industrial development in these years was built on close economic integration with Britain.
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…
Lake, Marilyn ‘“This great America”: HB Higgins and Transnational Progressivism‘, Historical Studies, 44, 2, June 2013, pp. 172-88 Australian history has not always been about our need to retain great and powerful friends. There have been times when the rest…
Tavan, Gwenda The Long, Slow Death of White Australia, Scribe, Carlton North, Vic., 2005 The history of the racist immigration policy that was Australia’s guiding light for the majority of the 20th century is examined in this work. Beginning with…
Tsiolkas, Christos ‘Why Australia hates asylum seekers‘, The Monthly, September 2013 The article examines what the author describes as ‘a 15-year campaign that has bred fear, misconceptions and fury about asylum seekers’.
Curthoys, Ann & Marilyn Lake, ed. Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective, ANU e-press, Canberra, 2006; free online version This volume brings together historians of imperialism and race, travel and modernity, Islam and India, the Pacific and the Atlantic to…
Lockhart, Greg ‘Race fear, dangerous denial‘, Griffith Review: Wicked Problems, Exquisite Dilemmas, 32, May 2011 Detailed historiographical discussion of the lead-up to the commitment of Australian forces to World War I, drawing upon evidence that there was secret imperial planning from…
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…
PJ Keating After Words: The Post-Prime Ministerial Speeches, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2011 Notable for the former Prime Minister’s distinction, following George Orwell, between nationalism and patriotism. He prefers the latter, which is ‘belief in a particular place and its…
Honest History ‘When America looked to Australia’, Honest History e-Newsletter No. 3, August 2013 Australian history has not always been about our need to retain great and powerful friends. There have been times when the rest of the world looked…
George Megalogenis The Longest Decade, Scribe, Melbourne, 2006; revised and updated edition 2008 Economics and politics under Keating and Howard from 1991 to the mid noughties. Megalogenis describes them as ‘the twin architects of the revolution that has taken Australia…
Peter Mares Borderline: Australia’s Treatment of Refugees and Asylum Seekers, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2001 Puts turn-of-the-century attitudes and policies towards asylum seekers in the context of Australians’ ‘deep-seated fears of invasion and the historical anxiety about the empty and defenceless…
Carmen Lawrence Fear and Politics, Scribe, Carlton North, Vic., 2006 The author was Premier of Western Australia and a federal Minister. She is now a professor of psychology. She explores the human experience of fear, looks at how xenophobia shapes…
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…
Laksiri Jayasuriya, David Walker & Janice Gothard, ed. Legacies of White Australia: Race, Culture, and Nation, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, WA, 2003 The authors assess whether controversies about asylum seekers have refuelled White Australia.
Jane Carey & Claire McLisky, ed. Creating White Australia: New Perspectives on Race, Whiteness and History, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 2009 Articles by Leigh Boucher, Jane Carey, Ann Curthoys and others ‘dealing with the question of whiteness in Australian history…
Cahill, Rowan ‘Martial matters’, Radical Sydney/Radical History, 29 August 2012 A collection of blogs 2006-09 ‘relating to the Anzac tradition, and to the Australian martial tradition generally’ which ‘represent views of the Australian martial experience at radical odds with mainstream…
Rowan Cahill ‘Martial love’, The Guardian (London), 7 May 2003 (reprint) ‘Part of the Anzac Myth is the proposition that Australia is a Peace-loving nation, that Peace is the preferred option of the Australian people, that as a nation, Australia…
Rowan Cahill ‘The dirty digger’, Green Left Weekly, 451, 6 June 2001 A selective and mythologised account of the past draws young people to Anzac Day celebrations. The chief of the armed forces is the Australian of the Year. Parliament…
Altman, Dennis 51st State? Scribe, Carlton North, 2006 Considers Australian identity in the context of the relationship with the United States, particularly how Australia imagines its future.
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…
Leigh Boucher, Jane Carey & Katherine Ellinghaus, ed. Historicising Whiteness: Transnational Perspectives on the Construction of an Identity, RMIT Press, Melbourne, 2007 Around sixty articles originally conference papers on Australian and international cases. Subjects include whiteness before White Australia, race…